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Steinberg is introducing a new VST feature along with Cubase 6 – VST Expression 2. It's pretty simple: VST automation can now be associated to individual notes, instead of just to channels.

This is very important for Eigenharp players. It makes it possible to record much more of a performance on an Eigenharp into a sequencer, or to far better control a VST directly.

So, I am wondering how long until we are able to take advantage of this? If not anytime soon, how long until it is possible to get OSC out of an Eigenharp? Having either one allows you to bridge to the other. I've been waiting for OSC for some time. My Tau sits unused in a corner of my room, and I still sequence mostly by hand.

Here's a concrete example.

You know the arranger on the Alpha. Kind of limited right? No groove etc. Do we always want to wait for eigenlabs to get around to our pet features on the Alpha?

What if the Alpha could be a canvas for applications to interpret a button press and for apps to interpret how to give feedback via leds? Not to say that the Alpha still couldn't be a familiar instrument.

If there was a way to put a spilt under external app control and that app could efficiently interact with the split canvas via OSC, then external devs could build all sorts of cool apps as add ons to the harp.

This is very much the monome way of doing things. They have just announced a new product called arc which is a rotary encoder with similar philosophy.

Why not have both the build in power of the harp AND also the extensibility of allowing user/modes, or external apps to interact with the harp directly.

If you take the monome model as an example then communication is very generic. I have a canvas on the Alpha, I get OSC events in the form of key coordinates for presses and continuous data, ie pressure, roll, etc...

The other communication allows the app to light the leds on the Alpha for example.

NOTE that these events cannot be in the form of notes (ie Midi). Once they are midi notes then they have already been interpreted and distanced from the important information which is WHAT button are we getting data from. Using a given scale, there could be more than one button associated with same note. Kills the whole concept of open interpretation to use notes.

I'm usually really good at killing threads by talking about this stuff. So sorry bout that but you asked.

Well monome arc just got released. So that is a pretty good illustration of the concept I think.

http://www.vimeo.com/19039646