Eigenharp Alpha, Pico demo and mind-blowing concert (hands-on)
By Richard Lai 
posted Oct 16th 2009 11:18AM
posted Oct 16th 2009 11:18AM
As you can see, Eigenlabs' very own musicians made it look easy – even Lambert's eight-year-old daughter can play both the Alpha and the Pico, apparently – and it took them just five days of tutorials before they could start playing all-time hits like "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", and within a month they were already jamming like pros. When it was our turn for the hands-on, we weren't entirely sure where to start with the sea of very sensitive keys at the top. Those wobbly keys are totally alien to this piano and saxophone player. And don't let the name fool you either, we're pretty certain that the experience on the Eigenharps is nowhere near one of plucking an ordinary harp. Once we got past that stage we were already playing all sorts of scales, only because you can easily switch between them using preallocated keys for each. Some might say this is cheating but you know they're just jealous. At this rate we'd agree that a week of continuous practice would be sufficient to master the basics of the instruments, before dedicating more time to understanding the software suite (which we didn't play with).
In terms of weight, the Alpha is surprisingly lighter than the average electric guitar at just 5.82 lbs. If you'd rather be standing up instead of playing the Alpha sitar-style, the supplied leather strap does let you walk around while doing a hinged windmill with the $6,302 instrument. Sure, your sober minds might not be so keen on that, but word has it that Eigenlabs already has a stream of very rich clients (read: rock stars) signing up for pre-orders with plans to take the instruments to concert stages over the next six months. We'll let you guess who these guys might be. As for the somewhat affordable USB-powered Pico ($557) we find it much easier to handle as total newbies for obvious reasons, and despite the same tactile feedback, the much smaller number of keys will definitely be a problem for sequence programming on the go, as well as being limited to just one instrument selection across the panel each time. If you still fancy giving it a shot, the Pico is slated for a November 9th release – exactly one month before its big brother's official debut though both are now available for pre-ordering. Until then, enjoy our very own free concert performed by Eigenlabs musicians, David Kemp, Mark Wilson and Finlay Crowther:
Hands down I NEED this.
Who cares about you?(sorry, no offense) GIve one to J.M Jarre, NOW!!!
Yeah, definitely thought that was a funky breathalyzer/ sobriety test on first glance.
It still sounds so emulated. I wish they could make it sound less synth-like.
I agree. So expensive, but the Alpha is an instrument I'd spend a lot of time with. Incredible creative flexibility.
I'd like them to demo the Pico, though. They display it but they never play it. I want to hear the sound it makes, too.
Once (if) they move manufacturing to asia you can shift the period one spot to the left
Here's the deal, now every little teeny bopper who owns one will open a myspace music account and think there the $h*.
I think this could be dangerous. Nevertheless I love it.
I keep seeing comments about the price, but I think that's ridiculous. These have huge capability for expression compared to a $100 midi keyboard controller. To make the price comparison a little more fair, compare to real instruments. A decent trumpet can cost $2500. At it's most basic, you're talking three valves and some metal. A nice Selmer sax goes for over $4000, nice violins are $5000 on the low end. Anyone can make music on ANYTHING, but once you can play and know the differences, you appreciate having something a bit nicer that gives you more possibilities, more capability for nuance, different tones, or maybe different range. These both do all of that in spades and I am very interested to see what some more gifted musicians do with them.
Mind Blown.
I would love to mess around with one of these some day - being a saxophone player and having always loved the guitar this seems like a perfect hybrid, to say the very least.
Unfortunately, as my brain will be leaking out of my ears, I don't think I'll be able to play anything.
Kudos on the mandolin in your avatar. My pear-body is a POS, but I still love the instrument.
we are the dreamers of dreams
I agree, this thing is AMAZING!
Will Eigenharp Hero be out in time for Christmas?
Yup. Along with the companion Bourne Identity Soundtrack and the advanced companion training guide so you can play it behind your head without killing yourself or your TV.
dang slow video... is it in HD by default?
is HD on when it's light or dark?
frustration!!
No, it's not. You have to click on "HD" at the bottom right corner.
WOW, the future of music awesome, this thing looks pretty eccentric, but its functionality is incredible.
Now that you mention it, it IS the future of music:
http://api.ning.com/files/WQxAQhZefRZjqwSWwBXz0LVWG1wz8vExZKeOv4-xeltEODlzjALEX0zyMrhHKWErBGRGVuZiQWjjkbe59tuJj5sO4u1MQ804/ma_Youll_Paradox_Tales_from_the_mos_eisley_cantina.jpg
Bro, that's exactly what I was thinking, I just couldn't remember the name, planet or episode that was from, so I didn't say, but thanks for posting that, lol. Dare I say, this is cooler than Star Wars (in this one instance).
Amazing.
One step closer to a Holophonor.
Haha that's what came to my mind as well! Hardest instrument in the universe to play ;)
This is the future, and I like it.
GAME CHANGED!
Incredible.
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED NEED
WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT WANT
somehow I don't see Metallica picking one of these up anytime soon...
No, but Moby might.
So when George Lucas needs more money and releases another Star Wars, will these be in the bar scene? :-)
I was thinking the same thing, totally the Cantina band..... LOL....
that was the first thing I was thinking too, I thought someone would've use that reference ASAP.
There are so many different controllers and buttons on this thing that only an alien anatomy could really push it to its limits. Maybe this is based on something found at Area 51?
This takes band nerds to a whole new level.
Extreme
I can tell you the license plate numbers of all six cars outside...
the guy at the bar is 250 pounds and knows how to handle himself
It's good to notice that while the "two million dollar laptop" story is always amusing, it's not very original. The author probably read it, like me, on the book Digital Life, by Nicholas Negroponte (back from when his was still heading the Media Lab on MIT, much before the OLPC project). It would be nice for the author to point that out instead of claiming the tale as his own.
I bet Jordan Rudess from Dream Theater is the first guy in line to get one of these. He'll probably be rocking out with it on stage right after the big keytar solo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47oiNlkKPtA&NR=1
Holy Crap!
The first thought that came to my mind after seeing the eigenharp is Jordan Rudess. He's the master of all types of fringe instruments. Low and behold he's already got his hands on one and it's only a matter of time before we start seeing what the eigenharp can really do!
Why would anyone want to play one of these?
It's like a Chapman Stick only worse
Dude... you either have zero imagination or are an idiot. Either way you just don't get it.
As someone that is an extremely mediocre musician this is by far to coolest instrument i have ever seen.
impressive. Seems very expressive. And pretty good cover of the 'extreme ways' by Moby
This is probably the coolest thing i have ever seen. It creativity something like this could open up to a truly gifted musician is ungodly!
That old dude is a frickin genius!
Nothing revolutionary here... this was already done a long, long, time ago....
http://cantinacustoms.tripod.com/112aeab0.jpg
So long ago, even, that your link is broken!
You'll never see one of these in a rap video.
A rap 'musician' would be unable to hold onto his junk if both his hands are busy playing one of these.
"You'll never see one of these in a rap video.
A rap 'musician' would be unable to hold onto his junk if both his hands are busy playing one of these."
All rap artists aren't musicians (just as not ever singer is a musician), and therefore wouldn't need a kazoo, much less this.
That being said: The Roots, Andre 3000, T-Pain, Dr. Dre, Wyclef Jean, Lauryn Hill, Scott Storch, Missy Elliot, Timbaland, The Neptunes, Kanye West, Alicia Keys, John Legend - hell, even comedian Bo Burnham - are all performers/producers in the hip-hop genre in addition to being talented musicians. I could see every one of them utilizing the Eigenharp to great effect. The fact that it's expensive and glitzy would make its appearance in a hip-hop music video more likely than any other genre, as most other musicans are wary or downright critical of synthetic/computer-produced music taking precedence over traditional acoustic instruments.
Next time you think you're being clever, take a step back and think before speaking.
@Davin Black
I believe you are in need of the following:
1. A sense of humor, and
2. A clue
Lolwut ? Your comment not being funny, and me calling you on it, doesn't mean that I lack a sense of humor.
I wonder what kanye's key configuration would be if he got one.
I think about 100 different samples in the main and a voice distorter in the "drum" section
i'm gonna take a wild guess and say radiohead is the band of rock stars trying to pick these things up
Nice!!!Super!!!
OOOOHHH! So these are the guys that made the end theme to "The Bourne Ultimatum".
No, just... no.
I really hope you're being sarcastic...
No its a Moby cover...
I know Moby wrote it. I just recognized it with Ultimatum, that's all.
MMMMMMmmmmm........
Who cares about you?(sorry, no offense) GIve one to J.M Jarre, NOW!!!
As a musician when I saw the preview video I assumed it was an oddly laid out version of the Keytar. However, now having seen it I've very impressed which is odd for me as I'm usually disinterested by digital music technologies. I've always viewed digital anything as cheap attempts at making music. What has me impressed was within a few minutes I was immediately thinking of what I would do with it. I didn't care about the computers because the harp presents it in a way that is very familiar for me. The alpha is defiantly something on my to buy list (hopefully within a decade)
Bad link.... sorry, fwd to 0:30...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCA04lFuu6M
I'll save you the seek time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCA04lFuu6M#t=0m30s
OMG THAT IS AWESOME!!! You can be The CANTINA BAND!!!!
http://www.razorsedgecollectibles.com/catalog/images/Cantina%20Band%20Bust%20Ups%20Set.jpg
I did once (a long, long time ago) buy an electronic musical instrument* ... it lasted me a couple of years .. I loved it .. and was very sad when it broke ... the Eigenharp Alpha should just about replace it.... looking forward to getting my hands on one.
ciao
db
P.S
* Rolf Harris stylophone
Someone give this to brett domino
All I can think of is two handed shredding! Cant wait to see a start up prog metal band snag one of these ...
Looks pretty fun to me... I want one.
Simply amazing.
What has no one see the "HeMan Movie" Masters of the Universe 1987. They created that thing which HeMan uses to open the portal back to his world. If it does that I so want one.
See trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1094320921/
Very innovative. All we need now is something similar for buskers.
i gotta admit it looks stupid and cheesy at first, but the possibilities on this thing are pretty amazing. i can see it revolutionizing live performances on one hand. on the other i can see dorky guys walking around with this and people laughing at them....
So basically he is reinventing the synth in a new enclosure with lots of keys and similar functionality of a professional equipment, right?
He throws in the wind interface too, for added gimmick.
Well maybe it is the right time for a new instrument, only customers will tell.
Future is very close. Hopefully 2012 wont be the last year, because there are a lot of col new things yet to see.
turn this into Eigenharp Hero and see if people still give the "you could have learned to play the actual instrument in the same time you spend playing that" speech. lol
porn music will never be the same.
+1 just isn't enough...
The pico looks like someone built a bong out of a power strip. That said, it still looks pretty awesome.
They should give Ronald Jenkees one of these.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8LfoyDFUM&feature=channel_page
Ronald Jenkees is amazing!
OMG its really cool
Must. have. MP3.
seriously he just wanted to make an instrument that looks like the starwars cantina players instruments
Look at that gorgeous neck vein.
Not to take away from this, but the technology or even the concept here is nothing remotely new. It's just a bunch of buttons and triggers arranged in a certain way to improve overall accessibility of sounds. A means to access and trigger the same old sounds (of course you can get more of them) . The Ztar has been around for some time and seems to have the same vision. Yamaha already makes a MIDI woodwind device.
You could create an entire room where the walls are covered in buttons and switches and pads and whatever gizmo and/or doo dad that floats your boat and hook it up to various midi sounds....sounds that already exist and can already be triggered by keyboards, drum pads, guitar synths, or anything you can come up with that can be rigged to send an electronic signal to a midi sound source.
In other words, this is an interesting way to access and configure alot of interesting, yet already available sounds, so that it maximizes what you can do in a live performance. The more I think about it, I may go into seclusion and create a room full of buttons and gizmos. You'll see it on here in 2025. I'll accept pre-orders now.
Dude--these things have been around a while. A long time ago, far, far away, to be exact:
http://roguepilot.tripod.com/in.gif
hehe
the beauty of the internet is you can search for the ztar and yamaha woodwind device yourself and see how long they have been around for. Not to mention the long standing existence of 60+ plastic buttons that can acces the same midi sounds...... also known as a KEYBOARD.
LMFAO
Looks like something Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes might play at the cantina. Sounds like a frumpy digital synth from the 1980's. If fact, you could do most of this stuff - including the breath control - with an old Yamaha DX-7. I am not impressed. But need to hear a little less talking and a little more music in the clips to be sure.
Funny, I can teach someone to play Twinkle Twinkle on piano, flute, clarinet, oboe, or saxophone in 5 minutes. Probably less.
So, 5 days? Is that really something to write home about? No....
his boyfriend is happy for sure.
fap fap fap fap fap. No really. There's no way I'll ever afford one, but a guy can dream. Mind is blown.
Nice...
BUT sorry...
nothing at all that a wind controller on a standard synth keyboard couldn't do.
(FWIW- I'm a pro musician who's made a ton of controllers and triggers over the last 20 years...)
looks great and all, but if they'd make a midi b-system chromatic keyboard i'd be even more thrilled. as soon as that layout catches on in the west, you can kiss the stupid piano keyboard standard goodbye.
Here's the deal, now every little teeny bopper who owns one will open a myspace music account and think there the $h*.
I think this could be dangerous. Nevertheless I love it.
completely ridiculously expensive... but uncanny and mind blowing at the same time.
so this is what the rich people will be playing in the future..................
Jonny Greenwood is going to be all over this thing.
Stuff like this is interesting, but I still wouldn't use it over any good stringed instrument.