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[insert shameless gig plug]

I'm off from a wet and windy Blighty to lovely Asheville NC to play a gig. The Mountain Skies festival will be next weekend, and I'm going to play a 1/2 hour set primarily on my Alpha (assist with an iPad and my EWI). I am also doing an Eigenharp demo/seminar. If you're near Asheville you can see this, otherwise there's inevitable video and audio of the event. http://www.mountain-skies.com explains the event as much as needs.

it's a half hour set, it'll use a somewhat modified Alpha 3 which will run continuously with custom loops, sequences and recorder-ings, all solo.

I'll show off 2.0 at the demo. I doubt I'll have any converts at this event, but most of the artists there know me and attended my last demo at the electro-music 2011 event in upstate NY, so it'll be good to show off progress, both the Eigenlabs stuff and my technical improvements too.

Also stopping off in Atlanta before the event, spending a few days with the ambient posse there, some jams have been declared, so I'm looking forward to it :)

[/insert shameless gig plug]

I don't travel much but it seems every time I do I am dragging the Alpha with me. It does seem to get attention. I keep getting asked when I am in the USA if I have a sniper rifle in that case. ^_^

Sounds awesome! Good luck with your show and have fun!

Fwiw, we're planning to release an update of 2.0 tomorrow which should be dramatically more stable than previous versions. Might be worth checking it out before showing it off to people :-)

It went well, There was video done, which should be available in due course. Tons of pictures, mostly on facebook so far. Once links come out I'll post them. The Eigenharp demo went pretty good, Paul Vo was there (he's the guy who designed the Moog Guitar) and we had a good conversation about new instruments. He sends his best wishes, after he finally got the idea it wasn't a midi controller. That was the hardest thing to get people to understand in the demo, that it isn't midi. And talking about the software options. Maybe I should do a trip report ^_^

The performance went okay, at least that's what people told me :)

lots of interest from the attendees, who use stuff like Marimba Luminas, ewis and non black-and-white controllers. The feedback I got was good, but the southern US hasn't got much exposure to the Eigenharp apparently.

Anyway, there was video/audio done, but I don't have links yet. When I do I'll post them.

Some video of the event showed up, I can't vouch for the video quality and it was recorded off a mic on the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxkFKCP7MYQ

another video (considerably better quality) but just a sample of the first night of the event so it's just excerpts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81_SurzLYEc

I had set up about 2 hours earlier and something odd happened in that both the metronome was slightly speeded up and the pitch was higher than it should have been, which really threw me in the middle section when I picked up the EWI and it was all in the wrong key. I'm probably the only person who noticed all of this at the time, of course. Such is the serendipity of live performance.

The demo/seminar was well received. I had about 15 people show up and I only had an hour. Here's what was covered:

- history of Eigenlabs/John (from an interview I read once)
- the different kinds of Eigenharps and what differentiates them (also talked about the base stations and their purpose)
- software options, support options (including the website) talked about the open source fork, OSC and MAX6, and the two Eigenlabs versions, also the Mac/PC
- a walk through an Alpha setup in 1.4 (touched on the whole Agents thing briefly), also showed the strap which I don't use.
- discussion of the key construction and sensitivity, configuring it on the fly, showed off the quick reference, breath controller, side strips, cello and the mic
- demos of 1.4 including Belcanto, Stage and Eigenbrowser
- a demo of 2.0 with Workbench showing the wiring of the synth setup
- discussed MIDI and connecting external hardware to the environment.

and there was a fairly long q&a throughout all of this and at the end, the main message being that "it's not "just" a midi controller". Paul Vo showed up (the guy who designed the Moog guitar) and we had a fairly long conversation about how it isn't just a fancy midi controller. He wishes Eigenlabs a lot of luck.

Asheville is a cool town. One would not think that one is in the Southern US when one is in Asheville. Moog is based there and we had a tour of the factory on Friday morning. It's got a very healthy arts community, a thriving local economy and an awful lot of alternative culture. Michelle Moog-Koussa was at the event. I was doing sound on the second night and I had a good long conversation with her about the Moog Foundation and the stuff they are doing in schools.

Although a lot of people had heard of, or read about, Eigenharps and Eigenlabs, very few had actually seen one before (other than mine which a fair few had seen me last year in New York). It was a good opportunity to demonstrate the instrument.

Seems a lot of pictures have shown up of the event, unfortunately I think they're all on Facebook.

It was a lot of fun but I was glad to get home.

-Paul

:-)

very nice

Thanks Randy and Mike. :)

@david - it was a reference to your work, actually. It was basically the part in the "software options" presentation where I said the open source fork is being worked on, and there are people doing different approaches to the environment. A lot of what I keep saying is that an Eigenharp is a brilliant instrument (especially to play) and even more so because of the software choices. This audience was fairly sophisticated and understood software, interfaces, hardware, et al. But the hardest thing about an Eigenharp is the personal choice made to configure it into something that makes music - that's part of my discussion with people. I don't (and I am not trying to) sell these things. I would rather just explain what it is possible to do with them.

Cool.

attendance was about maybe 50-60, maybe 70. It is going to happen next year. I'd be up for a duet :) I'll be there. I used an iPad for control - Omni-TR. Others were using them here and there too.

:)

Thanks for the links.... All were interesting and I particularly enjoyed the second one.