[Rampoina]

I have the opposite opinion (I also own a linnstrument).

I come from a piano background, and as someone that kind of struggles to improvise in keys with more accidentals I was attracted to the idea of an isomorphic layout.

After playing a lot with the isomorphic layout I've come to a conclusion that it comes at a cost (it has its advantages and disadvantages compared to the traditional piano layout)

To be isomorphic the layout has to have multiple representations of a single note, with this comes the fact that you don't really have to learn one shape for every chord, you have to learn multiple ones if you play complex polyphonic music and want comfortable fingerings (the linnstrument also has this problem that you can't play 4 notes in a square which comes at the most unexpected times specially between the two hands).

So the comparison would be to learn every key thoroughly vs learning every (useful) alternative for every chord.

In my opinion there's nothing intuitive about the y axis having a greater intervalic distance than the x axis, specifically I would have this problem when going down in a melody to the previous "string" the distance to that note is way different than it would be on the same string.

To be fair I think the only intuitive layout is a linear one (like a single string, or the haken continuum)

If anything, having played with an isomorphic instrument has encouraged me to learn the piano layout more deeply.

Having said that, the linnstrument itself is a decent product all and all (although I have some beefs with it but I don't want to turn this comment into a review) and it makes sense that you like the layout having more experience with stringed instrumments, but I would say that's familiarity not intuitiveness.

[mkl]

Maybe try a linear isomorphic layout, Janko style (see my top level comment; I'm coming from piano).

Edit: Is that any four note square? Just squares, or rectangles too?

[Rampoina]

Rectangles too, any four corners played at once. It's because the sensors are horizontal and vertical stripes of velostat, so every individual stripe can only sense pressure, the location is gather by combining the information of the overlapping stripes.

from their webpage [1]:

> If 3 note pads are pressed that are 3 corners of a rectangle, presses to a note pad that is the 4th corner of that rectangle will be ignored.

[1] http://www.rogerlinndesign.com/ls-specs.html