Forum Archive

I've been playing my newly acquired Pico for several days now, and I can already see it's limitations due to the limited number of playable keys, number of key presses that it takes to make scale / key / other changes, limited number of sounds / loops that can be accessed at once, poorly designed software interface / bugs, etc. I certainly still LIKE the Pico, and the playing keys feel absolutely wonderful - exactly what I'm looking for. But I'm "considering" an Alpha purchase to get beyond the limitations noted above.

My question is whether I can get at any detailed information about the Alpha over and above what's listed in the product page on this site or the "playing" youtube videos. Specifically, I'm concerned about what the actual 120 "playing" keys in the main area are actually used for, how they are layed out and whether that layout is flexiblle in terms of what a USER can change (i.e. vertical / horizontal note order, octave seperation, etc). Also things like how can sounds / loops / scales can be accessed from the instrument itself, since on the Pico these numbers are somewhat (and rather arbitrarily) limited. Is there any such information available?

4000 euros is a lot of money and I would think a lot of people would love to see this kind of detailed information before committing to a purchase, especially those who own Pico's and are concerned about the limitations encountered. I also hope that for the money of an alpha, that the EigenD software SIGNIFICANTLY improves in usability, since it's pretty awful right now, to put it bluntly. :)

That all said, I'm still very much enjoying playing the Pico and looking foward to getting more info on the Alpha! :)

As a final note, I just noticed that the Alpha is actually made out of WOOD instead of the brushed aluminum of the Pico. I'm just curious as to why that would be since it adds nothing to the sonic quality of the instrument and probably decreases the long term stability, probably increases the cost and weight, and adds the potential of warping under dry conditions???

Tony

There is only one video so far which is super basic. But there are likely more coming.

There is a reference guide with diagrams of all the different layouts and navigation. Takes awhile to grock, but I feel it was enough to get the hang of it. I need to have it open always until I all the layouts and options memorized.

The downside of being first on the bus is that support sometimes lags behind. The tutorial that came with the Alpha just showed how to hook up the machine, with a promise of more to come. The Quick Reference Guide goes through some of the switchology, but is far from encyclopedic. There's not a button on it that will induce any sort of meltdown (that I know of), so I'll just noodle around while awaiting more tutorials/guidance/documentation and see how things unfold.

Pat

Hi all,

We will be publishing more information on the Alpha setup in due course, although one of the great features of the Workbench, once it is released, is that you will be able to configure your own key layout.

We are still working on the Workbench but I know our software team hope to release it soon.

Cheers

Aaron
Customer Support