I’ll be at MusikMesse, Frankfurt on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th of April.
You can find me on the Steinberg booth, Friday at 14h00 and Saturday at 13h00 where I’ll give a demo about how to use the Eigenharp together with Cubase 6’s Note Expression feature.
Eigenlabs doesn’t have a booth though, so don’t hesitate to contact me if you want to see or try out an Eigenharp for real. I’ll bring my Alpha and Pico along and will be available for private demos at request.
Contact me through the comments here if you want to meet up or touch base on Twitter. Since I have no 3G data plan on my phone, I’ll not be able to easily check email or messages while I’m there.
Posted in Controllers.
Tagged with Eigenharp, Musikmesse, Pico.
By Geert Bevin
– April 6, 2011
John S. Nolan developed a very nice application to help you figure out which chord patterns to play on a particular scale on the Eigenharp. His application is currently geared towards Pico users, but he’s already talking with other Eigenharpers on the forums to make a version for the Tau and the Alpha.
http://eigentab.net
John Nolan’s words:
EigenTab is an application for finding the right key/scale for a set of chords when playing the Eigenharp – one of the most awesome and expressive electronic instruments you’re ever likely to play.
Posted in Tip.
Tagged with Chords, Learning, Pico, Scales.
By Geert Bevin
– April 5, 2011
A few weeks ago Greg from Orange Tree Samples was so kind to send me a pre-release of his upcoming Evolution Acoustic Guitar – Steel Strings (EAG) product.
I set it up so that the first six percussion keys of the Alpha correspond to the strings of an actual guitar for which I play the chords on the upper split of the keyboard with the EAG strum instrument. The lower split of the main keyboard also uses EAG but with the lead instrument to play the melody line. I also use a foot pedal to sustain notes and chords when needed.
I’m really amazed by how natural the combination of the Eigenharp Alpha together with Evolution Acoustic Guitar feels. You can strum, pick, release chords to play muted strums, do hammer-ons and pull-offs, … etc.
I’ll be looking at an even tighter integration to correctly play up and down stroke samples based on the direction by which you’re strumming over the percussion keys … stay tuned.
Posted in Controllers, Demonstration, Live, Song.
Tagged with Cover song, Demonstration, Eigenharp, Expressiveness, Instrument, Keys.
By Geert Bevin
– March 21, 2011
Ever since I got the Eigenharp Alpha I’ve been thinking of changing the key layout to have a larger range of notes. I wanted to be able to use it like a piano with both hands, having one hands play base sections of chords and the right hand play melodies.
The standard chromatic layout is inspired by a guitar neck where frets develop along the neck as well as across the neck. This essentially limits the maximum range of the Alpha keyboard in the chromatic scale to a bit less than four octaves, I wanted to have at least five octaves and preferably seven.
I’ve been trying out various layouts and finally settled on one about a month ago. I’ve been playing it ever since and it totally opened up my creativity on the Eigenharp Alpha.
You can try it out yourself by running the Belcanto script that’s attached to this post with Alpha Factory Setup 3 (it requires EigenD 1.3.14-testing or later). It will change the layout of the upper keygroup in the third split to a range of seven octaves in the chromatic scale. It preserves the traditional layout for the bottom keygroup, which you can use with a major scale for instance for quick leads or for any kind of control (I like changing the tonics of the upper keygroup).
I’ll record some demo and tutorial videos about this layout in the weeks to come, but I thought I’d already post what I have so that others can try it out.
Enjoy!
Alpha New Chromatic Overview PDF
Alpha New Chromatic Script (unzip and put it in /Library/Eigenlabs/Scripts)
Posted in Controllers, Setup.
Tagged with Belcanto, Configuration, EigenD, Eigenharp, Layout, Playability, Scales, Scripting, Setup, Tuning.
By Geert Bevin
– February 25, 2011
BangStrokeBlow are feeling peckish … Join them for dinner – eat the music, drink the beats and salivate over the mayhem of deliciousness THAT IS 1 2 4! YUMMY.
You can get a free high-quality download of this track here:
http://soundcloud.com/bangstrokeblow
Posted in Controllers, Song.
Tagged with Eigenharp, Instrument, Music video, Original.
By Geert Bevin
– February 23, 2011
This (not so) QuickTip that highlights some of the factory scripts that ship with EigenD to customize your Eigenharp in ways you might not have been aware of before.
This turned out much longer than I anticipated 🙂
Posted in Configuration, Controllers, Software, Tip, Tutorial.
Tagged with Configuration, EigenD, Eigenharp, Instrument, Pico, QuickTip, Tau, Tip, Tutorial.
By Geert Bevin
– February 13, 2011
To show what you can do musically with the Eigenharp instruments and their unique set of features, Eigenharp has recorded three videos that show off the capabilities of the Pico, Tau and Alpha.
After the demo there’s each time a detailed explanation of how the music was created.
Posted in Controllers, Demonstration, Tutorial.
Tagged with Demonstration, Eigenharp, Pico, Tau, Tutorial.
By Geert Bevin
– February 11, 2011
The first testing release for the 1.3 branch of EigenD has been released. You can get it here.
The testing status means that Eigenlabs will be putting no more new features into 1.3, and will be making bugfixes only.
The 1.3 series introduces two main new features:
New development will continue in the 1.4 series.
Posted in Software.
By Geert Bevin
– February 10, 2011
My band Flytecase released our debut album on which the Eigenharp was used for all non guitar arrangements.
The album is available on music.flytecase.be where it can be listened to in its entirety also.
Posted in Controllers.
Tagged with Album, CD, Eigenharp, Music.
By Geert Bevin
– February 10, 2011
This QuickTip explains how to switch the EigenBrowser to display the factory and users scripts on your system, using the keyboards of the Eigenharp Alpha and Pico.
Posted in Configuration, Controllers, Software, Tip, Tutorial.
Tagged with Configuration, EigenD, Eigenharp, Instrument, Pico, QuickTip, Tip, Tutorial.
By Geert Bevin
– January 28, 2011
