written by: Larryheil
@sNoltan I am in Austin Texas and have an Alpha. Getting in touch with one of us owners via a G+ video conference (hangout) is the best way to do this. We can spend weeks typing back and forth and not get near as much as a 20 minute conversation would explain. The Eigenharp is so different than anything that has come before in musical devices. It can also be used in so many different ways. There is no short easy answer for you. I agree that the best way is to see it in person and have some hands on time, however it is clear that will not be happening anytime soon. Video conference is the best we have. I bought mine without ever having seen it in person and I do not regret my choice one bit.Sort of a good idea. More expensive for US people. I know shipping is expensive. Also seems like a lot of money if you choose not to buy. Maybe need a US agent so units could be shipped in larger quantities for shipping savings and also returns could be more local and less expensive. I would like to see Eigenharps become more widely owned and used around the world.
Hi Larry
It's a nice idea to have a US agent but the sad reality is that it's actually way more expensive than the additional shipping costs. Local dealerships demand a significant percentage in margin (usually 20-30% odd, a pure distributor might work with 10-15%), a margin we would have to simply add to the retail price of the instrument which would rather detract from the saved shipping costs, particularly in the case of the Tau where it would represent around a
$600 price increase!
John
Hello John,
Thanks for the reply. I sure wish that there was some way for you to have a market presence here in the Colonies. I still think the Eigenharp is the best controller/instrument out there. It has such great potential (and present use) that I want to see it be very successful and widely known. I figure the more owners the better for You. (are you at Namm this year ?).
Hi Larry
We have some good dealers in the US, but they only want to stock Pico's as a general rule, mainly I suspect because times are hard and stock is expensive. The other big issue with them selling the Tau and Alpha is staff training - they're not like the guitar where every person that walks through the door looking for a job can play a bit, they need pile of work to get to the point where you can demonstrate them effectively. We have had several customers have, how shall I put it, less than stellar experiences in stores in the last couple of years. It's a hard problem and one I have come to realise only time and steady hard work will solve. Personally I am becoming increasingly convinced that retail shops might be genuinely on the way out. The challenge is how to get instruments into the hands of people so that they can try them and retail stores are surprisingly bad at this (with a few notable exceptions) given that this is almost all they exist for nowdays. This is one of the reasons for our new rental programme - it's a tried and tested industry way of players being able to try at lower cost. You're spot on right, more owners is the thing. Wish I could say that I had a magic wand for that!
We won't be at NAMM this year. It costs over £70k (not to mention losing two weeks of time for four or five people) for a UK company to be there and I think there are better ways of spending that amount of money for us at the moment. It would be nice to be in the south for a week, but it's also LA which has to qualify as my least favourite American city. And NAMM is like a giant, airconditioned showbox in which you don't; see any daylight for a week. If you're there to browse, buy and socialise it's fun, if you're there to sell and work its pretty horrible.
cheers
John
I noticed that b & h photo is selling the eigenharp line.
If I look at the prices, it seems to be MUCH less expensive in the US to buy from them rather than converting the price from british pounds.
I say this because I think a lot of people in the US, go the eigenlabs and then do the conversion from pounds to USD and that is pretty much the end of it.
Last time I checked my Alpha converted to over 9K USD from the pounds price, but the same harp on b&h looks to be 7.5K range.
Similar deal with accessories.
Should we be referring US buyers to dealers like BH?
B&H sell quite a few Pico's. They don't stock the Alpha at the moment so can't sell it (we used to let retailers sell them even if they didn't stock them but stopped doing this some time ago), so if it's listed on their website this is probably just an error.
Remember the pricing quoted on our site includes UK VAT at 20%. We are required by law to show prices including that to EU customers, but US customers don't have to pay it, so you can deduct around 20% of the price.
John
The calculation is not that simple. Firstly 20% in VAT goes to the government on every sale made to the UK and EU countries, in USA the price charged by us is excluding vat so you need to divide the retail price by 1.2. Secondly in order to keep some kind of stability, we set a recommended retail price in USA allowing for currency fluctuations, so through the year the price comparison will vary depending on the exchange rate at the time. Thirdly, depending on what state you live in you could be asked to pay sale tax on your purchase at varying rates across different states.
So generally speaking we leave it up to the individual at the time to decide where they would like to purchase from.
Neil
It might be true that "brick and mortar" retailers will find it increasingly hard to compete for customers, but I think it is much easier for a customer to skip the retail store with an instrument like the guitar or keyboard than an instrument like the Eigenharp.
I can play plenty of guitars just by checking out the gear my friends have, but I've never even seen a Pico except on YouTube even though I've been on the look out for one for well over a year now.
It's a difficult proposition to shell out over $600 for an instrument you've never seen just because it sounds like it could be a great instrument to play.
It's even worse for me because I see the Pico as most likely a lose-lose proposition. Either I'll get it and not play it much after the first few months, thus regulating it to the 'I should have upgraded my keyboards or bought a new guitar' category, or (hopefully more likely), I'll think it is the best thing since sliced bread and wish I'd gone with the Tau. (Of course, if I have such reservations with shelling out $600 for a Pico sight unseen, there's no way I'm shelling out $3000 for a Tau.)
Living in Dallas, TX, I'm pretty much in the middle of the states with the only retailers on the east and west coast. The cost of a 3 month rental seems an awfully large bet considering the money is sunk if I decide it's not my thing, and with the loss of the software subscription, the instrument itself loses a lot of value if sold secondhand, so buying and then reselling if need be might be pretty costly too. (Though I thought I heard the software was going open source and thus free...?)
Most of this would be solved should I simply be able to see and play a Pico, thus allowing me to verify if I think it is worth the money.
Has Eigenlabs ever considered some type of Ambassador program wherein someone could register themselves as a person that could be contacted to check out the instrument, perhaps receiving a small commission on sales for their trouble...? I know if there was some place in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area where I could actually noodle on the instrument for a few minutes I'd be there in a heartbeat.
SNoltan - you might try asking around on some of the social networks to see if there is someone you will let you have a look.
I'm too far away, but have made quite a few visits to interested parties.
You would also be welcome at one of the weekly G+ hangouts. People often attend just to get a look. I'm sure you could set up a hangout just for you. (I've done that, it has been fun)
Cheers, m
@snoitan this will probably not help you, but you shouldn't see a Pico as a trimmed down Tau or Alpha, just like you shouldn't see a Ukulele as a trimmed down Guitar. They're all different instruments with different playing techniques. Each has its own strong points and appeal.
Mike, thanks. I just joined the forum so I'm not aware of the weekly G+ hangouts. I'll look around for a schedule. That seems a great way to get some insight.
Geert, that's a good point. It's hard to evaluate how they'd fit in with what I would like to do without playing the instruments, thus why I responded to this thread. Only so much can be done in a virtual environment.
Reality is, if you like the Pico, you will most probably want to upgrade. The Pico is great for some things, but not suited for the majority of playing situations.
@carvingCode
Totally disagree.... Pico is suited for ALL playing situations even styles and holding/placing positions.
EigenD / Belcanto / Stage is always there so...
And I don't recall ever upgrading; just got the Alpha for a different project.
@carvingCode sorry to say, but the Alpha and Tau aren't suited for all playing situations either, I don't see myself playing easily just on the computer's bus power, they have a meaningful impact on travel arrangements and you usually can't just have them with you. The Pico is small enough to be inside the realm of a harmonica that you can just pull out to play. Also, technically they're very different and offer a totally different playing style. I know many people that never want to play chords and only like playing melody lines, even though you can of course still play a whole range of chords on the Pico.
Size matters. In some cases, smaller is better (and a simple usb cable / no power is ideal)
@snoltan The hangouts are on G+
Here is a link that will lead you to a subset of us:
Eigenharp Ambassadors
@snoltan
We had a very hard time in Texas - we've actually been over there in two seperate trips trying to get retailers to stock the instruments with absolutely no success, which is a great shame as we'd really have like to have a stockist in your neck of the woods. I think the combination of a recession, diminishing bricks and mortar turnover and innate conservatism made a modern instrument like the Eigenharp a very hard sell. It's extremely expensive for us to do those kind of trips (it's a long way from the west of England) so in the end we had to call it a day.
Neil is having a hunt through our players database to see if we can find someone near you that would be prepared to show you around an Eigenharp, but in the meantime you may well find a G+ hangouts, as suggested here, to be surprisingly useful - they have the added advantage that you can speak to some of the best players in the world directly. And the technology is surprising good - I have been very impressed with how well the hangouts work in audio and video quality - quite sufficient for a decent instrument demo, though sadly you can't reach through the screen and have a go yourself.
Oh and on the Pico/Tau/Alpha question, I would agree that they really are quite separate instruments - I wouldn't think of there being an 'upgrade path' per se - they each have their places. The Tau and Alpha are the most equivalent, but the Pico is a different beast entirely, less suited to extensive polyphonic playing but a great lead instrument with the ability to dip in and out of polyphony.
John
I replied to a fellow who basically implied the same question I've been asked before - "Is the Pico just a stepping stone, or gateway, to a Tau (or Alpha)?". In my opinion, for the serious musician, it is most definitely.
To use the harmonica reference, one can play tunes on a small version, and it can be carried in the back pocket, but a larger, chromatic model in the hands of a serious musician leads to some amazing possibilities.
I don't see any serious music, aside from a couple pieces Kayla has done, recorded using the Pico. But I do see good representation of multiple styles of music played on the Alpha.
This, to me, draws a meaningful conclusion.
Frankly, I don't see why Eigenlabs has the Pico in the lineup. A better starting point really is the Tau, as it offers all aspects of the Eigenharp experience, i.e.: keygrounps, arranger, an appropriate number of keys which allow for many possibilities.
The Pico is limited in so many ways. 16 keys, only slightly more than on octave on a chromatic scale. It's kinda twitchy to hold stable while playing. More, but you get the point.
Best,
Randy
Randy, we are just going to have to disagree on the Pico thing (which is fine)
Obviously, if a person wants to perform piano concerti, a one octave controller isn't going to work for them. If that is all they want to do, the controller is useless. However, that does not make it useless in any absolute sense.
I bought a pico as a step forward from my WX5. I think most wind-controller players would be quite happy with it. More so once the strummer is in place and even more if NortherUmber's keymapping idea works out. A monophonic setup with an adaptation of Bohem-like fingering would be nice.
IMHO, saying that the pico is either limited or useless is not much different than saying that all the clarinet players in the world should really just go home.
;-} m
I look forward to the fingerer agent which will greatly extend the range of musical scenarios where we will be able to use the Pico. Remember - a recorder also doesn't have more than 16 holes - you can just combine them, close them only half way etc. That's what the fingerer will allow you to do.
(Additionally I am currently experimenting with (imho "intuitive") Auto-Tuning approaches - have high expectations there, too - we'll see how this works out)
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