I received the Eigenharp Alpha I ordered a couple of weeks ago. As far as I know, it’s currently one of a kind: ebony finish, golden trim and ebony keys. Here’s a quick picture, but there are many more to come, including an unboxing video … stay tuned!
Eigen Labs had a demo yesterday in San Francisco at the Robotspeak.com store. A pico and an alpha were presented. The pico is a clear must have instrument. It is light and portable. It is not a midi instrument in itself. The data sent over the USB cable is in a proprietary format. The midi endpoint is provided by the software.
The alpha is a considerably heavy contraption. The body harness it comes with is clearly designed to mitigate it. The gold finish and the wood keys clearly add a touch of class in terms of finish. The external controller box has plenty of connectivity but it notably lacks a network interface. Daisy chaining two controllers helps when foot pedals are required in a location far from the computer. IMO this can be more cost sufficiently achieved with a USB extender.
If I understand correctly what John (the invento) explained me, EigenD (the software that’s running underneath) has been designed to be capable to communicate over the network. Since you need to connect a computer anyway to run EigenD, it makes sense to rely on the computer network interfaces. One example he has mentioned is that in the future you will be able to play several Eigenharps in a band and connect the EigenD’s together. When one musician changes tempo, the tempo on all the other EigenD’s could follow automatically. Something similar will be possible for key changes.