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| The Eigenharp from Eigenlabs |
When, in 2009, they presented their unusual instrument, the Eigenharp, to a wider public for the first time, the British company Eigenlabs from Exeter, county town of Devon in the south west of England, spoke of the biggest musical revolution of the last 60 years. John Lambert and his team have been working since 2001 on the development of this striking instrument, which looks like an extended guitar neck without the sounding box.
However, the Eigenharp doesn't have any strings; instead it has 120 touch sensitive keys, 12 further percussion keys, 2 strip controllers, a mouthpiece (breath pipe) and a wide variety of pedal inputs. With it, musicians can play, amongst other instruments, the guitar, bass guitar, keyboard and saxophone and even switch rapidly between the individual instruments. In addition, one can record loops, layer multiple sounds, change scale and programme beats – all during a live appearance. Eigenharps can be played like an acoustic instrument, using their high-sensitivity touch keys and have an integrated wind controller. Using the USB connections everything is available that can be accessed via a Midi controller. As well as the top-of-the-range Alpha model, there are two other types of Eigenharp: the middle-of-the-range model, Tau, can do almost everything that the Alpha can, but is not made of wood and there is a choice of either silver or black. With 72 keys, a strip controller and a wind controller there are lots of opportunities to play loops, programme beats, layer multiple sounds and play melodies. On top of that, there is a junior version, the Pico. This has "only" 18 keys and 4 buttons to change mode, but even with the Pico, music lovers have the essential functions of the Alpha at their disposal and can select from a wide range of sounds.
The Eigenharps are controlled by software that is supplied with them, and which currently exists exclusively for the Mac (Mac OS X from 10.4 onwards). A Windows version is due to be ready by April 2010. The developers are already planning to publish the software code and make it accessible to the Open Source community. That way, other developers will be able to give further impetus. At the moment, all Eigenlabs come with a basic unit, cables and an 8 GByte USB memory stick: installation software and instructions are included.
www.eigenlabs.com
www.youtube.com
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