The Eigenlabs Eigenharp
Eigenharp Alpha
Well, most music blogs have been carrying this story over the past few weeks, so I thought I may as well chip in.
This remarkable device, the Eigenlabs Eigenharp was apparently 8 years in the making. It looks like someone forced a Chapman Stick to have sex with a bassoon and then exposed it to radiation in the vicinity of a Tenori-On and watched it mutate! It has a plethora of controllers such as highly expressive keys, durable percussion pads, 2 ribbon controllers, footswitch connections as well as the unmistakeable bassoon like mouthpiece. It’s adorned with functional LED’s and all finished off in ebony or maple.
I’m never too sure about boutique controllers like this. I mean, the Eigenharp Alpha starts at £3,950. STARTS at that price. That’ll get you a standard model. The word STARTS implies many more custom features. But if you can spring £4K for one of these, I’m sure you can spring as much again for the full package. Customisations include ebony or maple keys and different finishes as well as stands, cables and mouthpieces. They do make an Eigenharp Pico for £350, possibly designed for us plebeians with real world jobs and their attendant pay packets 
Eigenharp Pico
One BIG drawback for me so far is that it currently only has Mac support. Windows support is due in January of 2010.
I also find it disconcerting when the majority of “new stuff” in electronic music is predominantly in the controller arena, rather then new ways of making sound. Have we given up on finding new ways of making sound and just decided that tone generation is pretty much a done deal and what will push the envelope is the way we control those sounds? I do hope not. But that’s for another post
I like the Eigenharp. It’s new, it’s expressive (and expensive) and it’s British! That’s got to be cool, hasn’t it? I wonder who the first big protagonist will be?
Anyway, check out these videos from the Eigenlabs YouTube Channel…
Tags: Chapman Stick, Eigenharp, Eigenharp Alpha, Eigenharp Pico, Eigenlabs, Tenori-On
