Forum

Are there any of the old style mouthpieces for the Alpha available? I'm not getting on very well with the breath pipe as it is completely airtight - I'm used to the Yamaha WX series windcontrollers where the breath input goes past the pressure sensor and out down a pipe to a drain at the base of the instrument.

Am I right in remembering that the old mouthpieces had a vent, but were rejected as being too noisy when air flowed through them? If so, then if there are any left over from the Alpha prototypes I'd quite like to get hold of one.

Aha, so it is meant to flow through? I'll check again, but it feels very much like it is a stopped tube. Maybe it's blocked.

When I was at the Roadshow in Birmingham I tried the breath pipes on Finlay's prototype, and on Dave's which was more up to date, and the version on Dave's Alpha seemed to work well - is that similar to the setup I ought to have on the Mark 1.0 Alpha?

Hi 0beron,

There is a difference between the demo Alpha you saw in Birmingham and the new instrument. Dave is now using a new Alpha and he finds that because the new breath pipes are far more responsive you don't necessarily need to 'blow' , you just need to change the pressure in your mouth.

If you are ever in London you are welcome to pop in, have a chat with Dave and show him your instrument.

Cheers

Aaron
Customer Support

We completely redesigned the breath pipe between the 2.2 which you played in Birmingham and the 2.3 Alpha, which is what we ship. This was to both remove noise (which everyone who played 2.2's complained about) and to improve the sensitivity. We also had complaints from people who, when playing a lot, kept dribbling down the front of their shirt. This wasn't an attractive feature.

Reactions from people who have played both have been very positive so far - the new design feels a lot more reactive, is quiet and spit now exits the instrument from the bottom straight on to the floor. The downside is that we lost the ability to adjust the breath bypass amount, so we had to choose a value for that. I picked on the amount needed for a Harmonica which is a low air volume instrument. There were three reasons for this. Firstly it's a lot easier for anyone who is not a trained wind player - I personally find the amount of air a Sax requires to be a real problem. Secondly, the physical constraints of the air path through the whole body of the Alpha or Tau make it very hard to accommodate large volumes of air flow without making the instrument a lot larger. Thirdly, the low air volume is enough for good articulation and expression, but still makes circular breathing a possibility for us mere mortals (my friend Ian Ritchie can do this on his Soprano Sax and it's always made me jealous). So there were a whole load of reasons for the redesign, and it seems to have worked out well. Dave, who is a Saxophonist has got used to it and likes it a lot. The fact that I'm a Harmonica player had nothing whatsoever to do with this design decision of course!

You should however experience a noticeable and distinct airflow through the pipe, and if this is missing then there may be a blockage. This will also make it hard to play the pipe well. We should certainly have a look at that as soon as possible, to make sure that you don't have a problem. If you can make it to London, Dave and Aaron could check this for you, or if you are confident that there is a problem we'll get the instrument collected and check it in Exeter. We will be doing another London event, but probably not before April (Musicmesse in Frankfurt looms at the end of March, so we'll be very busy running up to that) and you shouldn't struggle on if there's a fault, we should fix it for you.

John

Just thought I'd add a note to this thread to follow up on the amazing level of support I received from eigenlabs!

Sam spent some time to run an experiment with an Alpha to see how long it took a lungful of air to be blown through it, (approx 20 seconds). I still had air after about a minute and had to stop to breathe...
Dave volunteered to meet me at the London office on a Saturday, and agreed there was a difference between my Alpha and others of the same Mark. I left the Alpha in London for it to be taken to Exeter for a tune up. Dave even lent me a Pico to play in the meantime!
Aaron has been great at communicating via the forum, phone and email, and getting everything sorted out.
I got the Alpha back today and the breathpipe is much improved, so I guess I also have to thank some of the engineers at eigenlabs who effected the fix.

Thanks folks for all your help, keep up the great work!