The legendary engineer and instrument designer, Roger Linn, needs no introduction - especially if you're on a website dedicated to synths! But just in case...
He is the legendary creator of instruments like the LM-1 - the first drum machine to use samples, the LinnDrum - the successor to the LM-1, the flippin' MPC - which had a major influence on the development of hip hop and several other genres, the LinnStrument - a modern day music performance controller with 3D note expression, the list goes on.
His instruments have been used by artists like Prince, Gary Numan, John Mayer, Green Day, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Thompson Twins, Stevie Wonder, Depeche Mode, The Human League, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Todd Rundgren, Michael Jackson, a-Ha - suffice to say, without Roger's contributions to the world of music, who knows how different popular music would sound! He is truly a pioneer and I couldn't be more excited about this one.
Without further ado, Roger Linn answers 3 Q's...
Synth History: What initially drew you to instrument design?
Roger Linn: I was born in 1955, so I grew up in the 60s. The 60s had an optimistic focus on the future, and advances in electronics technology played a big part in that, which I found to be very exciting. Also, music was changing fast with the Beatles and others, and music electronics provided them with new and fascinating sounds, which led me to start playing electric guitar. In my teens, I would disassemble guitar pedals and modify them to fit my sonic preferences, teaching myself about electronic circuits along the way. Eventually, I started creating my own audio circuits for my own use. At around 20, I bought my first computer and learned to code, which expanded the capabilities well beyond electronic circuits and led me to write some early programs for music and audio processing. Eventually, I began to consider I could do this for a living.
Synth History: What do you think makes an instrument successful?
Roger Linn: Ultimately, I think the answer is that an instrument is successful if it allows musicians to create the most beautiful music with the least effort. Otherwise stated, it should be easy to learn yet difficult to master. Guitar is a good example, having the advantages of good solo expression, chords for playing complete music by yourself, frets for easily playing in tune, and portability. You can learn to play simple chords quickly, yet it provides an upward path to virtuosity for the skilled player.
There’s a wonderful museum in Paris called the Musée de la Musique. It’s filled with instruments, most of which are now obsolete, failures in the Darwinism of musical instrument history, but which provided important steps that led to more successful subsequent instruments. For example, they have a huge bass viol with an extended low pitch range. It's about 8 feet tall with 3 very thick strings and large levers to push the strings against the neck at specific positions, while bowing with a huge bow in the other hand.
While tubes, strings, valves, and frets were among the technologies of earlier times, today’s dominant musical instrument technology is electronics and software. Synthesis provided a significant advantage— the separation of the playing interface from the sound generation. Before synthesis, if you wanted to play a violin sound, you needed to study violin. Then if you wanted to play a sax sound, you needed to study sax. Synthesis introduced the promise of playing a single human interface yet hearing a variety of different instrument sounds.
However, we learned that that promise hasn’t been realized, because playing a violin or sax sound from the on/off switches of an electronic piano keyboard doesn’t produce a convincing violin or sax performance. That’s why I made my LinnStrument, which together with the Continuum, Seaboard, Osmose and other new expressive instruments is helping to bring the expressive capabilities of acoustic instruments to electronic sound, by capturing three continuous dimensions of a musician’s skilled finger and hand gestures. Collectively, our mission is to widen the musician's palette in order to enable entirely new musical genres.
Synth History: What is one piece of advice you'd give to young engineers / instrument designers?
Roger Linn: Try to be more revolutionary than evolutionary. I see many new instrument designs that are simply more and better versions of what came before, but often don’t solve any essential problems. Henry Ford is reputed to have said, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” I see a lot of faster horses in the electronic music marketplace but few automobiles. I think the role of an instrument designer is to try to learn the musical problem that the musician is experiencing, then to come up with a novel and creative solution that causes him to say, “I never would have thought of that, but it’s exactly what I need.”
My other advice is to think small and keep your expenses low. You may have a great idea but minds take a long time to change. You want to be able to stay in business until they do.
Visit Roger Linn Design for his latest instruments.
Synth History Exclusive.
Interview conducted by Danz.
Photos provided by Roger.
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