Eigenharp Google+ Community Archive

Anyone have an Alpha or Tau for sale?

Loop Loft is running a 50% off sale this weekend. They offer a great selection of drum and percussion loops in a variety of formats. Use code: THANKS50 Remember to choose the AIFF format if you plan to use inside EigenD.

Watched a few videos on the monome yesterday.  Quite an interesting instrument.  I have a fondness for sequencers and its ability to add some controlled randomness to the sequencer is pretty cool. One of the videos by stretta showed how he could manipulate the layout of the buttons to form scales and patterns.  This led me to thik about the alternate layouts many of you are playing with on the 'harp. And, it's convinced me that I need to explore this more.   I've always thought about patterns in music, in the improvisation I've done in the past, in scale and arpeggio studies, in various musicology courses I've taken.  I think I need to explore some new patterns on the Eigenharp to see what may come of it.

So… I'm returning the Bose L1 system I recently purchased.  Have a 30 day return option, so am opting to take advantage. Reasons: 1)  It's really overkill for my purposes at the moment.  The system sounds great and is really portable.  But when I took an honest look at what I do and am likely to do over the near term, it's not practical. 2) Stereo is a lingering issue.  While I could find patches that don't require stereo separation, the pieces I have performed live so far and those I'm likely to compose and perform later do require it.   These pieces are made up of multiple tracks with drums/percussion, bass, and 2 to 5 other instruments.  In order to produce a nice, un-muddied mix, I need to pan some of the instruments out of the center (where drums and bass may live), or place an instrument forward or in the back of others.  I can't do that using a mono system.  Even one with the clarity of the Bose L1.

I've been working with a lot of my soft-synths recently, auditioning patches that work well in a mono output.  My new Bose L1 is mono, so I'm finding patches, i.e.: leads, pads, arps, etc. that do not have a lot of phase, panning, and/or broad stereo effects.  This has been interesting. First, the setup I'm using is a simple, 1 keygroup (full) with a scale selector for 8 scales.  I have an audio unit rig and a MIDI rig int he setup.  Plus, I have a metronome for syncing to some arp patches and Abelton Live and octave up/down keys on the percussion group. Why has finding mono patches been interesting?  I guess the biggest interest is that I'm finding I enjoy the patches that are not overly theatrical and, dare I say, gloomy.  I'm finding some patches that are beautifully and subtly modulated by MIDI modulation.  Patches that are percussive or string based sound wonderful through the L1. I thought I'd miss stereo.  In truth, I don't.  Stereo in performance can...

u-he's Zebra patch 'HS Harpo': simply awesome to play.

Sold my Tau. Bought a Bose L1 Model II. 'Harp sounds awesome thru it.

Tim Roberts - So, how are you adjusting to the Alpha?  What have you found most challenging, most interesting so far?

I'm growing frustrated with the direction of things here of late.  I find myself spending time on things that take me away from what I should be doing musically. I don't look forward to hangouts as there's hardly any music related discussion or sharing of what anyone's been up to musically. I appreciate everyone's interests.  That's why I'm going to bow out of the G+ community for some time.  I don't want to let my frustration present itself in a negative manner.  I respect what so many of you have done and continue to do. "Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."  ~ Charles Mingus  Later.

I motion that we change the Community picture to #EigenJedi. Second?

My work cube. Notice anything?

Here's one more thing I don't understand: Other small batch, electronic instrument manufacturer post to their websites when they are taking orders and when they are shipping.  Eigenlabs has been shipping new Taus, but the website is without a word. Skeleton crew or not, it doesn't take much to post an announcement.

Most of you know that my performance rig consists of my 'harp plus Ableton Live and the Touchable app for iPad.  I use Touchable for controlling Live - much easier than manipulating the laptop's controls.  I've found this to be a very stable environment for the type music I build live. Over the weekend, I got my Akai EWI 4000s out of cold storage and decided to see about incorporating it into my live rig. Then I remembered all of the cool wind synth patches I have in Propellerhead's Reason.  And I remembered all of the creative effects, drum machines, etc. in Reason.  So, I decided to give a go at running Reason into Live and playing Reason's synths with both the 'harp and the EWI. I worked out one bit of technical hoohah last evening (rewiring Reason into Live), so am ready to get started.  I'll post more as I get this more underway.

More praises to Creator.  (Mark Harris 's version  ;) I've been building setups to allow me to explore different scale combinations.  Been using Creator to make quick changes to a config file and generate another setup.  Very nice to have a tool like this for quick mockup.

Doodling... https://soundcloud.com/simple-not-simpler/pentatonic-70bpm-idea

Ok. Give this a try for some interesting results. Load up Alchemy Open the MIDI Matrix In plugins params, set the first 8 to the strip position and the next 4 to strip absolute position. You can leave default settings for all at this point. Select a patch. Play away and touch your strip or slide along it for some very interesting and quite playable results. Some of the arp/rhythmic patches are really interesting.

For those of you looking for more Music Theory knowledge, check out the link below. http://www.musictheory.net/

Hangouts: I'm going to let someone else schedule the next round of Hangouts. It's getting into the time if year when I'm going to be less regularly available to 'hangout'.

Try this scale:[0,2,4,5,7,8,9,10,11,12]. This gives you access to the blues notes and major/minor 7th if played from root. Try shifting the root to the 2nd and 3rd note of the scale. Opens up some tonal possibilities. Of course, don't try just playing all of the notes. The 1/2 steps are there for embellishment and producing other harmonic progressions. So an 8 note scale might be: [0,2,3,4,7,8,10,12] or [0,2,3,4,6,8,11,12], etc. Let me know what think.

Transforia - From my live set at Electro-Music Festival, Huguenot, NY, September 2013. https://soundcloud.com/simple-not-simpler/transforia-live-performance-at