
New instrument scales musical heights - acangiano
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8295813.stm
======
acangiano
I have a funny story surrounding the Eigenharp.

A few nights ago I was having last minute doubts about the original name we
had picked for our startup. At a certain point, while brainstorming new names
with a Dutch/Vietnamese friend, I came up with Eigenlabs. A quick search on
Google led me to a site where weird instruments were being sold. "Argh, it's
already taken, oh well". Fast forward two days, and I find the article I
submitted here, on Reddit. "Hmmm, these instruments look familiar...". A quick
Google search confirms that the company producing them is... Eigenlabs. What
are the odds? :) baader_meinhof_count += 1.

~~~
tfh
what do you mean with _baader meinhof count += 1_ ?

~~~
acangiano
Have you ever said "That's odd, I just learned about this obscure
fact/company/place/concept the other day and now it popped up again". That's
the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. So I increased the counter of my Baader-Meinhof
occurrences. By the way, you'll hear about this again in a few days. :)

~~~
Hexstream
Oh please. It only looks odd because you can't notice the millions of times it
_didn't_ happen.

It's in the same class as confirmation bias, survivor bias, etc.

~~~
acangiano
Of course it only looks odd. There is no magic to it.

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paulodeon
What this is and what's exciting about it is that it's a new human-computer-
inteface designed solely for producing synthesized music.

Think about what we had before: Midi keyboards, Midi guitars, keyboards and
mice, a few more interesting control surfaces and not much else.

Sure the keyboards and guitars would be good for producing keyboard and guitar
sounds, but what we needed was a way to control the gamut of sounds that can
be produced by a computer in a unified way. This could well be it...

Agreed, their demo was poor, but Les Paul was no Jimi Hendrix either.

I would be interested to see what sort of software comes with it and how
reprogrammable it is.

~~~
chancho
I think it's just an optimized combination of pre-existing control methods.
Keys with aftertouch, breath control and some touch surfaces. Evolutionary,
not revolutionary.

 _what we needed was a way to control the gamut of sounds that can be produced
by a computer in a unified way_

That's a bit like asking for a way to control the gamut of images that can be
produced on a canvas in a unified way. There are 1445068800 possible 1-second-
long CD quality recordings. Most sound like white noise. I think what they're
going for is not to span the whole range of sounds, but the whole range of
familiar music, plus-or-minus a little.

~~~
panic
Assuming a sampling rate of 44100 samples per second, and 16-bit PCM, there
are actually (2^16)^44100 possible 1-second-long, CD-quality recordings (which
is way, way more than 1445068800).

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chaosmachine
So it's a midi guitar with a breath controller and built in synth/drum
machine?

~~~
pohl
...and the ghost of Keytar's past come back to avenge decades of disrespect?

I wonder how the notes are laid out on the board. It would be cool to play
with one for a while.

However, the demonstration didn't exactly live up to the title. I was
expecting music beyond Franz Liszt's transcendental etudes or something.

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tobych
I'd be hugely embarrassed to be seen playing one of those things. It's like
some kids' movie-tied toy gone huge and gone wrong. Especially with all those
flashing lights wizzing up and down the fretboard. Ridiculous.

~~~
DougWebb
My first thought was that they looked like the cantina band from Star Wars.

~~~
bodhi
Someone else was thinking along the same lines:

<http://tweetphoto.com/xgt7ahyp>

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unalone
I wish they'd have played a different song. While the instrument looks
impressive, playing a generic sounding piece of rock means I can't help but
wonder if three people couldn't have played the same piece with older
instruments.

~~~
jessewmc
If you want to compare, the song they are covering is Extreme Ways by Moby.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8eV7suSA4k&feature=fvste...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8eV7suSA4k&feature=fvste2)

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kstenson
This looks interesting, I like the combination of drums, synth and woodwind.

I think this would be a great instrument to use if you were playing electro or
other types of sampled music live as you would be able to actually play it,
and not spend most of the gig standing behind a laptop and some synths.

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nathanwdavis
The demonstration was something that three regular keyboardists could have
done. nothing extraordinary, but it does have a coolness factor.

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aboodman
My initial reaction to this is that while I'm excited to see innovation in
this space, this doesn't look so much like synthesis of something new, as much
as aggregation of everything that already exist.

This isn't a single, new, interesting idea. It's more taking the old ideas and
mashing them together.

It's like when you build an app without a single killer feature, and instead
keep throwing in odds and ends.

I think it would be neater to focus on one or two of the new novel ideas here
and really refine them.

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kwamenum86
This instrument looks incredible and I kind of want one but it is clear that
is has a sick learning curve. These guys were not even all that great playing
the instruments. It sounded like they were missing notes and fumbling around
at times. Hearing that composition produced by 3 identical instruments was
pretty neat though.

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jberryman
I wasn't able to listen to the audio unfortunately, but visually I instantly
thought of a guitar equivalent of the Ondes Martenot:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondes_Martenot>

An instrument you've heard dozens of times. Also used by Varese, Messiaen and
other 20th century composers

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zck
Because of the way it's held, and because the keys are tapped, it reminds me
of the Chapman Stick: <http://stick.com/> , which, beyond being an instrument
in its own right, was used as the baliset in Dune.

------
ugh
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJhiY3oQRIk>

Some more info. Their website is rather low on content so you will have to sit
through such a video if you want to know more.

~~~
zandorg
Definitely, a good video! We get to see features such as a 16-note sequencer.

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detcader
Are those three players part of any band? Are there any albums out using this
instrument yet? I'd love to hear more of it.

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zandorg
Someone call Rob Hubbard! Sounds like a Commodore 64 tune.

But seriously, it's really cool, and I hope it sells well.

~~~
jerf
"Sounds like a Commodore 64 tune."

It's hard to know whether it really sounds like that or not. The media was
fairly heavily compressed to the point where the human voices were obviously
heavily distorted, let alone the output of the instrument itself. An actual-
factual violin would hardly have fared better.

If anyone knows where to get much higher fidelity recordings I'd be
interested, though I'd expect it "just" sounds like a high-end synthesizer.

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modeless
What's that song they play? The beginning sounds really familiar but I can't
place it.

~~~
thisisnotmyname
Its extreme ways by Moby: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8eV7suSA4k>

~~~
modeless
And it's the song from the end of The Bourne Identity. Thanks!

------
RK
<http://www.eigenlabs.com/>

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elblanco
Neat. I'd buy one for a couple hundred dollars...3950GBP!!!

~~~
overzeroe
Agreed. I'd buy one for $400, maybe, but for ~$5500? That's a bit too much.

Also, while others on this thread seem to think it's very Star-Wars-y and
ugly, I personally think it looks rather cool. Nothing wrong with the looks.

Wonder how hard it would be to learn though.

~~~
zhyder
<http://www.eigenlabs.com/pico/> is their smaller and less intimidating
version for £349.

~~~
elblanco
I'd feel like I was missing out on something. My take is that it's simply a
hair over engineered for the level of expressiveness most musicians will be
able to play with. Build the same thing at a lower fidelity, sell it at 1/4
the price and maybe it'll take off. Right now, it's the price of really high
end traditional instruments. And the next step down is a 10 penny whistle.

~~~
zandorg
In the mass production industry, the first users traditionally pay off R&D at
a high price, and then you reduce and sell to everyone else once costs are
recovered.

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baddox
I am very bothered by how he said "synthesizer."

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dmoney
I would stand in line for this.

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clutchski
the real question: will it help a musician mate?

