Forum Archive

Lots of interesting parts - and some bad parts.

Let's start with the bad parts as everyone knows the good parts.

The worst part for me is the handling of octaves. There aren't any octave keys as in a wind instrument - you have to press a transposition key.

So how, exactly, do you do scales? The answer is "only in a limited range".

Why, oh, why, aren't there octave keys for the thumb to use?! My thumbs sit there idle - and meanwhile I can't even play a two-octave chromatic scale without a jump.

The inability to use the instrument with any other program is also pretty bad. What good is this if I can't use it with my other gear? "Buy another computer" as someone suggested is really not a good solution.

The pitch bend slider doesn't go to the top and bottom of the range - there's a spot on top and on the bottom where it doesn't register and simply jumps back to the middle. This is quite easy to run into and is rather irksome.

I mentioned in another thread the distortion on the sounds. Generally, the sound quality doesn't seem to be very good though I haven't checked it out in general and I can't access most of the sounds yet.

Overall, the program is just not ready for prime time. I mean, Command Q doesn't work for quit... the menus don't appear in the right place. There are only 10 user slots - and they're anonymous. I have no idea yet how to use the sound browser, literally no idea how to make it do anything. Page up and page down don't work in it - nor do any other command keys - nor are any menus or buttons appearing.

There doesn't appear any mechanism to do external sync either in or out so if you are interested in playing with other people you're somewhat out of luck.

Why is the pitch bend on the right side? Aren't most people right-handed and thus wanting to do the hard stuff with their right hand and the pitch bend with their left?

And what's the point of the "Performance Meter"!?

Hi Tom

I'll try to answer all your points. Sorry its rather a long reply (and Steve has made a great start for me) but you have quite a few worthwhile points..

Octaves - how would you like these to work? It is possible for us to make a transitory scale up or down key that just affects the next note you play, or notes that you play while it is held down, but that then limits you to one octave up or down. Please let us know how you'd like this to work. We can probably accommodate it.

Scales - the next software release has user defined scales (text file with a pitch list in semitones, microtone possible), and I personally use a MIDI pedal board connected using a UM1 to my Mac to flip key, scale and octave. If you're interested, and have a pedalboard, we'll make you a setup to do this. I love using my feet to do this, I'm used to stomping on stuff as a guitarist, so perhaps that's why!

Thumbs - you're right it would have been good to have been able to use these. We may try to do this in a future instrument, its not technically hard but does add cost and I doubt that we'd get it into the current price bracket of the Pico, but if we get enough demand, we'll try to do it. Lots of EWI players have made this point. On an Alpha one's thumbs are fully occupied as a general rule, and the Pico was partly designed as an introduction to the larger instruments, as Steve has suggested.

Other Software - you can use the Pico with other packages. Its not optimal right now, although I watched Stewart Warren-Hill (Hexstatic) do some great video performance with an Alpha last week (same EigenD), using Ableton for audio and Quartz Composer for video synthesis. We are working on better audio transport between EigenD and Logic/Cubase/Ableton right now, and will keep you posted. MIDI already works very well using Macs MIDI busses, and people have had success with Soundflower or Jack for audio.

Strip Controller Extremes - sorry about this, its just a limitation of the fundamental technology, which isn't ours. I think we'll make the extremes just dead zones in future as this has been a common complaint, you are not alone. We do not own this technology, we buy it in and its patented (and in general the company who make it are great, but that tech has these limitations), so there's not a lot we can do about it I'm afraid.

Distortion On Sounds - you shouldn't be experiencing this at all - something is wrong. Could you please report this with the bug reporter menu item in EigenD? It helps us find the problem by sending us log files. And please ring us up and give us hassle about this.

External Sync - EigenD can output MIDI clock (no in yet, but on it's way). We'll add an enable/disable button to the MIDI controller. Thanks for pointing that out.

Pitch Bend On RHS

Ah, well that'll be my fault. I'm a guitarist and always think of my left hand as the business end of melody, so hence the RHS strip controller. Sorry about that. You need an Alpha, you get one on each side then!

Performance Meter

Some of the instruments in EigenD use a LOT of CPU. The Cello uses a full convolution engine for example, and the Clarinet is a pretty thirsty physics engine as well. This means that you can run into polyphony issues quite quickly using EigenD if you start layering lots of recording up, for example. Which people tend to do. We had two ways to deal with this. The first was full polyphony management. This is hard to do in a full distributed system like EigenD, although not completely impossible. More profoundly, I didn't want a piece of software deciding what note to drop when it ran out of CPU, so we put the Performance Meter in instead - when it gets to amber you know you're near a glitch and when its red you know the glitch that you're going to hear is not a bug, you've just run out of horsepower. This is hard to reach on a Pico. Rather easier on an Alpha though I don't doubt that Pico players will stretch that envelope pretty soon.

Hope that answers your points..

John