written by: Tenebrous
I do think that things could be improved regarding feedback on the Pico which would make it a bit more friendly when learning to play it.Hi, just unpacked my pico, works great. Can't around though how to add or change sounds. The Reference guide is very scant. I thougt I would be able to load up AU instruments and change the instruments on my Pico through a GUI and I probably can but the software shipped with the Pico is very obscure.
Are you going to release a more detailed and user friendly guide? For example how do I use my Pico with Logic Pro?
Thanks.
Louis
I got my Pico on Friday. The device is amazing, the docs & software are the weak link at the moment in my opinion. But if you watch the three training videos then the way it works starts to make sense and it should be possible for you to fill in the gaps and work out how to do what you want.
Im just popping out and I didnt get AU's working yet so for now I will recommend you look at getting it to work with midi so you can use it in logic. I'll give more detail later but overview of how to do this:
make sure you have a virtual midi IAC thing setup on your mac
Load the browser within the EigenD software using the menu
Figure out how to get to the midi config settings
Set it to use the IAC bus
Choose the last instrument (midi) on the pico
Make sure Logic is setup to listen to midi on the IAC bus and send it to your software instrument
If you want the standard pico instruments to show up as audio in Logic, you need to do similar to the above but setup a virtual audio cable using something like soundflower, browse to the audio device settings in pico software, choose soundflower, then set logic to use the soundflower bus for input.
browse to the audio device settings in pico software
Basically almost every aspect of the software is designed to be accessed by pressing buttons on the Pico, rather than via a GUI. I can see why they have gone for this approach, but it creates an unnecessarily steep learning curve and requires feats of memory recall which are rather at odds with recent developments in computer music hardware, such as having displays which tell you whats going on.
To configure midi:
Start EigenD
Start Browser by selecting it from the EigenD menu
Press the main mode key and the 4th button down on the right to access Instrument/FX control
Press top right key at same time as left 8th key to access Midi & Audio control
Press first left key and you will see a list of midi devices in the browser.
Or press second left key to see a list of audio devices in the browser
Then use pico scroll keys or mouse to select the device you want - it should end up with a green dot next to it when it is selected
You then return to play mode by pressing main mode key and one of the left keys to choose an instrument. In my example I want to control other stuff using midi so I press main mode + 8th left key. Note that you can press more than one instrument key at once to play multiple instruments simultaneously.
edited because at one point I said 7th left when I meant 8th left.
And just to tie my above instructions to the Quick Reference guide:
First page shows me to press main mode + R4 to get Instrument/FX control
Instrument/FX control is section 4 which tells me to press R1 + L8 to get Midi & Audio Control
Midi is section 16 which tells me to press L1 for Midi port browser or L2 for Audio port browser.
In the same way, to change a sample-based instrument:
Make sure Browser running
Press MM + R4
Press R1+L1 (for sampler one, instead press L2 or L3 for other samplers)
Press L3 to browse for which soundfont sample to use
Once you have selected one and its green, use MM + the appropriate L key to enter play mode with the instrument of your choice
And just to complete the set, to change AU instrument:
Run Browser
Press MM + R4
Press R1 + L5 (for AU 2)
Press L3 to browse for plugins (for some reason selected ones are orange for me not green but still works)
Press L4 to see the GUI for the plugin (But note it will probably be hidden behind the browser window so move the browser out of the way)
Press MM + whatever L key to play the instrument you want
You can continue to adjust the plugin GUI whilst playing the instrument
Its well worth getting the GUI up for AU1 to be able to select presets for the Alchemy plugin, as many of them are great and make good use of the pico.
Thanks for that - I managed to find the audio settings based on your instructions.
I have to say though - this is the most ridiculous bit of software design I've seen in a long time. What's wrong with a simple Preferences menu item like every other audio application ever written?
Maybe when it all goes open source someone will come along and write a proper interface to this stuff.
I will resist the temptation to rant about the software now, but in my mind the quickest fix to improve useability that they could implement without a complete rewrite is to simply have the software show you what 'page' the Pico is on. eg if I hold down the main mode key, I should see a large graphic on the screen which is the same as the contents page of the Quick ref. If I then press R4 I should see the same graphic as is shown in section 4 of the Quick Ref, etc etc.
And yes in terms of the various features that can be seen & changed in the browser part of the software, as best I can tell the pico buttons are simply telling the browser what to show. Once the browser is showing the page you want, you can put the pico in a different mode and the browser settings can still be updated. Which leads me to believe it would not be too hard to offer an alternative GUI-based way to get to the page you want in the browser.
Yes, I was thinking along similar lines - just an on-screen display of the Pico's mode would be very helpful, especially at the learning stage.
Playing the Pico piano sound (having just loaded the software and not changed any settings). Suddenly the Pico stops playing and turns off.
Tried to send this message through your error report in the software, it failed to send it.
Hi Lepouce
Thanks for the posting. A member of our support team is about to call you to chat through the problems with you.
Many thanks
Philip
Eigenlabs Support team
Hi,
I found the EigenD software to be pretty unstable and would suddenly stop working a fair bit. THis was true whenever I was trying to record something with Ableton.
I figured it was exactly the right excuse to give my wife for the extra ram I wanted ( upgrading from 2gb to 3gb) and bingo, looks like the EigenD is a lot more stable. I haven't played with it that much yrt but first signs look promising, I now have 6 minutes of my cello screeching... Joy.
The system requirements of 2G RAM was just running EigenD so it's possible that your Ableton setup was using quite a bit of RAM on top and making the system start to swap, which is bad in audioland. If you were having problems running EigenD on its own in 2G, please let us know, as we try to test it extensively in that amount of memory, and it should work fine. Please let us know if you have any further problems.
John
...how do I use my Pico with Logic Pro?
IMHO things would be much easier if EigenD simply created its own virtual MIDI port to send out of. Then in Logic etc. you'd just connect directly to that.
This is a simple thing to do in CoreMIDI.
Here's a video that walks you through this:
http://eigenzone.org/2009/12/08/eigenharp-pico-playing-garageband-instruments/
I will resist the temptation to rant about the software now, but in my mind the quickest fix to improve useability that they could implement without a complete rewrite is to simply have the software show you what 'page' the Pico is on. eg if I hold down the main mode key, I should see a large graphic on the screen which is the same as the contents page of the Quick ref. If I then press R4 I should see the same graphic as is shown in section 4 of the Quick Ref, etc etc.
.
Hi
That idea only really makes sense for one setup, in fact for Factory Setup 1. There are already several different setups with other arrangements, and running scripts can alter the setup drastically as well. In fact, the way the instrument is laid out is very very 'soft' - it can be remodelled in all sorts of ways. I know that we are only just at the beginning of using this flexibility for you guys (via scripts and the commander now, Workbench on the way) but I can see a situation very shortly where there are many many setups, in quite different geometries, available for players to choose from. Add to this the fact that Factory Setup 1 is soon to go through a number of important changes when Workbench and Stage become available, and you can see that the idea of arranging software around the way it works right now, in a graphical sense, would have little long or medium term value.
Those software engineers among you out there might suggest that it ought to be possible for the GUI to introspect the running system and be able to present the kind of view you are describing. This is a sensible point, and we have looked at doing just this in some detail (we do listen to your comments Steve!). Due to the flexibility inherent in EigenD, it is a very very hard problem to implement well. We may well be able to produce a discoverable view in the future, but right now we are more focused on the performance aspects of EigenD, in particular making configuration and control much easier, than we are on the learning and discovery experience. Once we have Workbench and Stage out there, this will be something that we will be thinking about, but not in the next couple of months. I'd also be very interested to see both your points of view after the Workbench is out - it will show a very graphic illustration of exactly what I was talking about in the last paragraph..
BTW, I notice on this thread that people were suggesting the EigenD create it's own MIDI outs on MacOS. It now does this in the current unstable software release, thanks for the suggestion.
John
Hi
That idea only really makes sense for one setup, in fact for Factory Setup 1. There are already several different setups with other arrangements, and running scripts can alter the setup drastically as well. In fact, the way the instrument is laid out is very very 'soft' - it can be remodelled in all sorts of ways.
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