I don’t know if it’s “the most revolutionary new musical instrument of the last 60 years,” but let’s be clear on one thing: the Eigenharp Alpha is utterly, beautifully insane. It combines breath and finger input in a bassoon form factor, but with quite a lot more physical control, a computer connection, and no internal sound source of its own. The breath input comes from a crooked tube as on a bassoon, with finger input in a touch strip, a fretted, light-up keyboard, and keys that have their own various forms of expression. Launched yesterday in London, the Eingenharp is getting a lot of attention. (And yes, some of you spotted signs of its launch all the way back in June, to which I say – I’m sorry I’m so late to the party.)

From BBC: Do you drum it, strum it or stroke it?

I hope to speak to the creators soon. Already, I see some indications that there are equal parts genius and madness here. The controller itself, even in the bizarre bassoon form factor, has an extraordinary amount of control, with high-resolution keys, percussion keys, elaborate control arrangements that can adjust tone or record samples, and extremely precise breath and touch. At £3,950, many computer musicians accused of “knob twiddling” by the creators probably won’t be able to afford the top-of-the-line model, but I do believe an instrument like this can easily, fairly cost this much, it’s a cost reasonable for musical instruments – and there is a £349 “Pico” edition for mortals.

There’s some madness, too, however. For the “instrument of the future,” the creators appear to have chosen MIDI, via USB, in place of a modern control protocol. Then, they plug the instrument into proprietary Mac software. (A Windows version is expected early next year.) There are software models of a Cello, a Clarinet, and a Synth, but there are also gigs of samples oddly loaded into SoundFont format. Given the futuristic ambitions and the sky-high price, closed software and antiquated I/O seem puzzling to me. I’m also skeptical of the approach here of piling on as many controllers as possible.

CORRECTION – CORRECTION! Yes, indeed – proprietary software and the limitations of MIDI wouldn’t make any sense – and apparently the creators agree. So the software will be open sourced, as will their custom-designed protocol. I’ve got all the details – required reading for anyone working on expressive instruments.

But don’t get me wrong. I think this fascinatingly bizarre instrument is worth exploring. The hardware design looks exceptionally luxurious, and there is some genuine design innovation in the controller the likes of which we’ve never seen in an instrument beyond a prototype or two.

Oh, and yes, I already want the Pico – and I think the Pico’s fewer controls may actually make more sense.

Basic specs:

Video of the key action, among others collected on YouTube:

The “Alpha,” the flagship:

• 120 keys, plus 12 percussion keys. (Wait — 120? Yes, you read that right.)
• Two strip controllers, one on each side.
• Breath pipe and mouthpiece.
• 11-bit resolution (2048 values) in the keys and strip controllers, 12-bit resolution (4098 values) for breath.
• Internal audio interface with mic pre, converters, and headphone out – so you need to carry this and a computer, but not this, a computer, and an audio interface.
• A “Base Station” with inputs for expression pedals and foot switches, which also contains the USB connection. This connects to a floor spike on which the instrument rests.

http://www.eigenlabs.com/alpha/

The Pico:

• 22 keys (18 for playing, four mode switches).
• Keys work via direct pressure and lateral pressure in both directions, as on the Alpha.
• Breath pipe.
• Strip controller.
• Same resolution: 11-bit keys, 12-bit breath.
• £349.

http://www.eigenlabs.com/pico/

To be honest, I’m quite a lot more interested in the Pico, not because I think cheaper is better, but because I’m curious whether you can’t be just as expressive with the more limited set of controls as with the kitchen sink approach of its big brother. After all, 22 keys is roughly the number you’d find on most reed instruments, including the Bassoon. True, the piano has 88 keys, but it also doesn’t really have anything else – and it’s able to have so many because of its form factor.

In fact, I’m sorry, but I love the Pico. It looks friendly, it looks portable, it isn’t terrifying-looking like the Alpha, and it seems it’d be more at home in a variety of musical venues than the Alpha. Sometimes less is more. Let’s see if I prove to be correct.

The software, though I hope you could also customize your own software rig using the MIDI input:

• Modular, allowing the routing of control inputs, sound sources and samples, loopers, and synthesis and effects.
• SoundFont oscillator.
• Physical models of the clarinet, cello.
• AU host for adding your own plug-ins. (And yes, this is where I think you’ll have the most fun.
• A system for triggering events, takes, key, and mapping scale.
• An interactive arrangement system for step sequencing.
• Oddly, an extensive Steinway D multi-sample. On the other hand, for years we’ve all have been playing bassoon and other reed samples on the keyboard, and in organ form for centuries, so now the reed instrument gets its revenge.

Source: Eigenlabs software specs.

The instrument’s creator, John Lambert, repeats the maxim heard at new instrument design conferences: “We’ve got pretty fed up with watching people twiddle knobs on stage.” Naturally, that means… turning to the Bassoonist, that sex icon of the orchestra? I’ll run with it.

One other tidbit from that article:

He says there is one high-profile musician who is about to take delivery of an Eigenharp, but won’t give any names.

Yeah, Herbie Hancock, we know it’s you. (Okay, they are an English company, so maybe it’s an English celeb, but really the question is whether Herbie is who they mean, or whether he’s filling out the pre-order as we speak. He’s like what we would all be like if we had a budget.)

Anyway, consider this a first look. I hope to get closer to the actual instrument soon.

Barry Threw demos the K-Bow at Maker Faire from The Amazing Rolo on Vimeo.

Yann Seznec aka The Amazing Rolo brings CDM his coverage of
music tech at the Maker Faire in three episodes today.

As long as there have been computers, violinists have looked for ways of extending the nuances of their physical performance into the digital realm. (Us keyboardists have it easy – we’re used to pressing an array of levers, and a lot of the gestures we make are, arguably, superfluous.) Many of these concepts return to the idea of the bow.

The K-Bow by Keith McMillen Instruments is a Bluetooth-enabled bow with sensors that read bow angle, length, acceleration, grip pressure, and even hair tension. It’s accompanied by software developed in Max/MSP. The bow itself is one of those “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it situations,” at US$4000-5000 retail, though they claim the bow itself – specially-designed kevlar and carbon graphite, anyone? – can compete with more expensive bows even before you add in the sensors.

http://www.keithmcmillen.com/kbow/index.html

In the video at top, developer Barry Threw of Keith McMillen Instruments demonstrates the K-Bow.

Here’s what you get out of the software screen:

Barry has also written up a visit to the STEIM research center and work with sensor bow pioneer Jon Rose.

Jon Rose with the K-Bow

And yes, you can rock out hard with this thing:

I know what you’re thinking – you could also just hook your violin into a pickup and some distortion pedals. I think it’s really the experience of playing it that changes, though I’m just guessing, since I’m not a string player.

Previous research projects:

Jon Rose’s own Hyperstring project (warning: loud hyperviolin audio auto-plays, and I don’t see any mute button!)

The Augmented Violin project at IRCAM: see Emmanuel Flety’s development blog, IRCAM project page and references

And that’s by no means a complete list, of course.

The New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) 2007 Conference, held at NYU’s campus, was an exciting and stimulating convergence of ideas and technology in the world of digital music. The conference’s umbrella “Interfaces for Musical Expression” brings together creatives from all over the artistic and engineering world: from music runtime software (MaxMSP, PureData, ChucK to), designers for alternate controller hardware (M-Audio, Making Things, i-cubeX, Photon Wind Research), and educators for music and electronic arts (Columbia Computer Music Center, Harvestworks, NYU’s TischITP) and art galleries/shops (LEMURplex, Eyebeam), just to name a few.

Held in Manhattan, and hosted as a part of the larger New York Electronic Arts Festival, the event moved at full-tilt New York Speed. The days were jam-packed. Paper presentations starting at 9am, break for live technology demos at 1 (and a chance to sneak away for lunch), a keynote presentation and more papers at 2 until 6, when the evening’s concerts and performances begin, where many people’s programs and hardware were showcased in a artistic context.

These concerts included a multimedia theater concert, held right across the street on NYU campus. On Friday and Saturday were late-night club-shows held at Brooklyn’s Southpaw venue and the Galapagos space. These jams went until well after midnight.

The keynote speakers joked that this dense conference schedule made NIME an “athletic event,” which is not so far from the truth. We arrived Thursday morning. I was unable to attend every event, but I did see the majority of the paper presentations, live demos, and keynotes. I caught one of two club shows, and saw the last of three theater concerts. The whole week was a lot to take in, and it’s only fair if I try to sum up my experience of this special conference by describing the things I remember best. So, among each of the categories of the presenters, products, and performances which I managed to catch, I’ll share some words and images.

Presenters

Percussion instruments using realtime convolution: Physical controllers
Roberto Aimi
Again, I’ll admit my bias toward high-tech drum sounds. Roberto used vibration sensors (piezos) to send signals to excitable drum sounds. However, he’s turned the conventions of e-drums on its ear. Rather than turning vibration peaks into midi notes to trigger sounds, the piezo is treated as a continuous signal, used to excite convolution models of drum sounds. In short, this means getting natural brush excitation and cymbal wash that is simply impossible with midi sound triggering.

I was too busy being mouth-agape to get any images of his work. However, Roberto has lots of demo vids on his own website. Also, this work is right on track Adam Tindales’ “hybrid percussion,” of which I managed to get a video. (See Adam’s work in Presenters.)

The T-Stick: from Musical Interface to Musical Instrument
Joseph Malloch, Marcelo Wanderley
In the world of digital sound control, the connection between physical controller and the sound algorithms it controls can be somewhat arbitrary. Perry Cook expounded on this in his keynote address, saying that one shouldn’t imitate existing instruments, because “the best violin controller is already a violin.”

Joseph Malloch’s T-stick, also called the Tiger stick because of its many bands of pressure sensors, stood out from a lot of the other hands-on devices that one plugs into their computer. This was a padded stick with sensors for vibration, movement, even positional pressure and twisting. Its most important asset was its ability to respond to positional damping. This meant it could be played like a fret-able string and a damp-able chime, and some things in-between. As a tactile and vibrational sensor, the utter simplicity (and cost-effectiveness) of its design was quite impressive.

T-Stick in action:

Trimpin: 2nd Keynote Presenter
The German-born, Seattle-based sculptor and musical installation artist was at NIME to provide the conference keynote on musical sculpture and mechanical instrumentation. The themes of the morning session revolved around the philosophical, historical, and pedagogical issues surrounding new musical interfaces. Trimpin was alive and creating instrument-art well before the age of digital. His body of work often reflects many unorthodox adaptations of many of the foundations of “digital music” which many of us take for granted. For example, when he needed a sculpture-based random number generator for a musical device, he constructed an array of bobbing-birds to generate random streams of data.

Trimpin keynote, pt. I:

Trimpin keynote, pt. II [description from YouTube]:

he’s describing a sound/art installation he did. In it, an array of bobbing chickens created a random-number generator that would randomly select which of many records got played.

A man of great insight and humor, Trimpin’s art and ideas are a valuable link to the era of pre-digital machine-music.

Products and Demos

Multi-form Wind Instrument Controller
Photon Wind Resarch, Ltd.
Conference partner Photon Wind Research was showing off a really slick hardware controller package for wind, brass, and harmonica players. With its multiple embouchure-sensing mouthpiece, its array of pressure and distance sensors, and valve attachments, this unit seems to digitally interface just about anything you blow into. In the (hopefully) laptop-based near future of digital players, this unit could give MIDI saxes a run for their money. The hardware is small, looks tough, and has modular snap-in sensor modules (for sax or woodwind keys) and processor components (for wireless and other communication processing.)

Hybrid Method For Extended Percussive Effects
Adam R. Tindale
As a drummer, I have an admitted bias toward high-tech drum widgets. Adam’s table, with a piezo drum-trigger plugged into his laptop, immediately caught my eye. He explained to me that, rather than turning a trigger signal into discrete events, it could be harnessed as an expressive signal itself. As we talked, he told me to check out Roberto Aimi’s presentation later that day.

While Roberto’s work generates percussive sounds from convolving drum samples, Adam generated drum tones from resonance modeling: more “drum-synthesis” than sampling.

The hybrid digital drum in action:

Mobile Clavier: A New Music Keyboard for Flexible Key Transposition
Yoshinari Takegawa, Tsutomu Terada, Masahiko Tsukamoto
These gentlemen had given a paper presentation on their modified midi-keyboard on the first day of paper presentations. However, it wasn’t until they had their keyboard out for demo on Day 2 that I really understood how it worked. In a nutshell, the keyboard has extra black keys, and the orientation of the key scale can be reconfigured to fit the score as you play. So instead of having to lift your hands for chord changes, the keys transpose under your hands.

How does it work? They added extra black keys (in between E and F and B and C), and made these black keys light up according to the transposition, where some are “black keys” and some are “blank keys.” You use a foot-pedal to step through the transpositions, which are programmed as part of the score. You can use the 25-key controller to cover a significantly wider range of keys while barely moving your hands around.

Here’s a video demo:

Performances

It just isn’t “Musical Expression” without the performance aspect. I only caught a few of the concerts, and I enjoyed all. Among them:

Radio Wonderland
Joshua Fried, Friday Evening, club-concert at Southpaw
Friday Night, Southpaw bar and venue. This is the performance that many people were talking about. Josh literally kicked out improvised jams with computer, radio, steering wheel, and shoes. More specifically, he samples snippets of speech, melody or beats right off the radio from a boombox, loops them on the computer, using a MIDI-fied steering wheel for loop-editing, filter-sweeps, pitch-warping effects, and jams along by beating upon drum-trigger dress shoes. I hope some short videos help paint a better picture.

Radio Wonderland @ NIME, pt. I:

Pt. II:

Pt. III:

Pt. IV:

Desconcierto pt. 2
Gregory Kowalski, Andrea Pensado. Saturday Evening, theatre event
Compared to the some of the other multi-media performances of that and other nights, this performance was simple. Greg faced the main projection screen, wielding a flashlight at a camera, which fed data to Andrea, who processed the camera and her voice, back into mangled sounds and explosively colorful visuals. This provided an evocative and dynamic performance of painting with motion, and seeing and hearing the results. Between the grinding sounds and the explosive color animation, it was quite a violent, vandalistic piece.

A few seconds, as a sample:

I managed to capture only a few seconds on video. I had the delight of grabbing lunch with Greg and Andrea Sunday morning, on the way to LEMURplex, and I was surprised that the makers of such violent multi-media would have such a subdued sense of humor (…or perhaps, like me, they were just exhausted). I look forward to seeing more of them.

The LEMURbots
Built, showcased, and activated by Eric Singer at LEMURplex art space, Brooklyn
While not technically (human) presenter sin their own right, Eric Singer’s Leauge of Electronic Musical Urban Robots sure put on a show. It seems that all his robots are fed MIDI info from Max/MSP.

My favorite of Eric’s League is the Slime-a-tron. Here I am playing the slime, and getting Eric to divulge his secret formula. Ed.: We saw the Slime-a-tron at the CDM/Make night at Etsy Labs — see previous video and photos/report, especially if you like this sort of thing. -PK

And the GuitarBot. 4 guitar strings with computer-driven tangents. This contraption makes for some rather frantic glissando strumming.

Of course, Eric’s gallery ceiling was littered with the percussbots. Here they are, jamming out, along with his Xylobot:

See MVI 1987, 1988, 1991

Thanks, Patrick! We’re still welcoming other entries from the NIME conference — the thing was so huge that even this extensive report can’t begin to cover it — so if you’d like to share your own project, or one you saw, please do write us. -PK

If you’re traveling to town to attend NIME, to present at NIME, or if you happen to already be here in New York and are going to the NIME events or the concurrent New York Electronic Arts Festival (which seems itself to be perhaps a new creation in itself), let us know what you’re doing. Got a paper? Send us a link and some quick notes on what it’s about. Got a piece premiering? Tell us why it’s cool and link us to whatever documentation you’ve got. Taking photos? Send them to us via Flickr. Attending an event? Write up something, and we’ll run it. It’s one of those few times where I’m happy to post anything you send, provided you write a bit about it — so you’ve got instant publicity for yourself, in the process.

Too often, these huge conferences happen and only the people in attendance can keep up with what’s going on … and sometimes not even they can. I do appreciate your help, and will do my best to keep up here on CDM.

You can get in touch right here:

NIME/NYEAF Story Submission