Forum

I must first say that I love my Pico! It was love at first sight. I really enjoy playing it and discovering new uses for it in my setup. I also appreciate the updates and the amount of support available for the Pico.

I have one minor issue when playing the Pico. The bocal & mouthpiece move around way too much. Would it be possible on future Pico's to install some sort of set-screw to hold the bocal in place or any other mechanism to lock the bocal in position?
I firmly believe that any modification of this sort would make the Pico feel less 'flimsy' and rid the need for a neck strap and the top thumb rest completely. It would be more comfortable like playing a real clarinet or oboe. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

Hi

The Pico breath pipe has been designed to be flexible so that you can tilt the keys towards you when playing. The lights on the keys are so important to the configuration and control of the EigenD software (and you'll probably find as you get more used to it they become more useful, and the GUI less so) that we felt it was really important that you could see them easily. That playing position is less comfortable than one where the keys are less visible though, hence the pivot in the Breath Pipe. We did consider a variable friction setting on the pivot but realised in testing that any such mechanism tends to wear badly, be fiddly and prone to failure, so we opted for the O ring friction instead, which our players seemed to like. Grub screw type mechanisms don't really work as that pipe has to be removeable for cleaning and hygiene

If you still find that this is annoying you in a week or so then please get back in touch - we may well be able to source some slightly thicker O rings that will up the friction (though I doubt we'd be able to warrant this - just testing each mod like this takes ages and we have to test before we'd be able to bring that into warranty) which may well help - the current size was specified to give that specific level of friction.

John