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Hi Mark

It does seem that it might be an idea for you to download and try EigenD 1.3. All of those features mentioned in your comment (many of which go beyond what was originally planned two years ago for what we then called 'Workbench') are present and stable in 1.3, currently available on the site for free. Please substitute '1.3' for '1.4' in my post if this makes it easier - many of your points don't really make sense in that context. 1.4 is exactly the same as 1.3 in terms of features, and 1.3 is the current Stable.

1.3, incidentally, was in it's 'Testing' release for a very long time (as you point out we only promoted it to Stable a couple of weeks ago) as we have a policy of not putting any release into 'Stable' with any known bugs. There were a lot of minor things that popped up in testing, mainly with third party AU's and VST's that meant that this phase took a long time, whereas in reality it was a good release a long time before it entered Stable, as evidenced by the many people who were gigging with it, sometimes to very large audiences, from the spring onwards. We're just very conservative these days about what we attach the 'Stable' label to. 1.4 incidentally is just going into Testing today and only has a very small number of bugs against it at the moment, so I don't think it'll be more than a couple of weeks before that is the new Stable.

On the 'promises made' front, which is what your concern seems to be about, please let me quote that old forum post of mine in full:

"
We are not planning to charge for the Workbench, and in fact you will find elements of it's functionality creeping into the system slowly over the next couple of months (starting with the Belcanto scripting support in the exisiting browser). It is now likely (we been doing a lot of brainstorming here in the last couple of weeks, largely driven by all your feedback here) that what was originally intended as one monster application will in fact become several smaller ones
"

This is exactly what I was referring to in my explanation and turned out to be a fairly accurate prediction of what did happen. Please note two things. Firstly (and I can split hairs with the best if you really want me too) I said 'we're not planning to', which is quite different from 'we're not going to'. We weren't planning to charge for anything in software at that point. It was two years ago and many hundreds of thousands of pounds of costs ago. Circumstances change, and we cannot continue in the same way forever. Secondly, exactly as I said, lots of the Workbench functionality made its way steadily into the freely release EigenD over the next 20 months, including the scripting support talked about there. It was called different things (Stage, MIDI Matrix, Eigencommander), not Workbench, but that is what happened. It's there now and in fact there are in addition a whole load of things that we never ever spoke about back then, new features, quite a few of which were driven by user feedback and none of which we have charged for. Much of EigenD is Workbench already. The fact that we have chosen to make one new part of that a chargeable item seems quite reasonable to me, and if you want to interpret 'we're not planning to charge for the Workbench' said in 2009 as meaning that we must give you unlimited feature updates in EigenD for free for ever then I'm sorry I don't really know what to say to you. There have been so many unannounced, unsold, unpromised new features that we have given everyone for free that this whole argument seems worthless to me. Think of it this way - instead of the Workbench you had in mind, we chose to do only the part of it and spend the rest of the resources on something else that users kept telling us was more important.

When we started work on what we are here referring to as 'Workbench' we actually had a brief debate as to what to call it - in the end we decided to recycle the name Workbench but in hindsight I think it may have been better to call it something else. 'Setup Wizard' perhaps. It is a new product, it is not what we were talking about then, much of which has been implemented in other ways since. The only thing it shares is the ability to give a graphical overview of plumbing, which to be honest isn't as useful as you'd think - that we already had in late 2009 (as I've discussed) and it's really confusing without other tools, as we rapidly discovered in 2010. 2.0 contains an awful lot more work than that, things that make EigenD more efficient, more able to be configured and generally better.

And once again, if you don't want to you really don't need to buy it, 1.3 is a great, solid and well featured release with a lot of control and many, many features that were never even envisaged back in 2009. 1.4 will be same, it just has some nice (about 20% Geert reckons) performance improvements and headphones for Tau and Alpha on Windows. They are both perfectly suited to live performance, support Windows and Mac and do most anything that any normal live performer wants to do.

On a final note, I'm sorry if you feel that we've let you down in some way. We've worked very hard over the last couple of years to make EigenD and the Eigenharps into a dependable and usable instrument for live performance. I think we've succeeded, and many of the people who use and play them live seem to agree but obviously somewhere you've not had this experience. I'm not sure why, but if you'd like to continue this conversation offline please feel free to write to me directly.



John

@Tenebours, I'm personally really sorry that you feel this way, certainly since I remember how excited you were and indeed bought an Alpha when there was only Mac support.

However, I also remember John offering to send you a Mac Mini free of charge so that you could use your Alpha even though you bought it when no Windows support was available at all. I also think you never followed up on that offer given your current statements, but I don't know the details of the email exchanges. So yes, we blew our deadline (as a software developer you surely know how that goes), but it seems to me that you were offered a solution so that you could use your instrument. I think it's only fair that if you decide to try to depict a factual representation of the timeline, that you include all relevant parts of the story.

@Tenebours, I'm personally really sorry that you feel this way, certainly since I remember how excited you were and indeed bought an Alpha when there was only Mac support.

- Absolutely correct, but it was also under the assumption & promises etc that Windows support wasn't very far off.

However, I also remember John offering to send you a Mac Mini free of charge so that you could use your Alpha even though you bought it when no Windows support was available at all.

- Again you're right, my apologies for leaving this out of my original rant.

I also think you never followed up on that offer given your current statements

- Actually I did. I emailed John basically saying that since I had been told that Windows support would be out in a few weeks (from then), that I would hold off and wait until then, since obviously I want to use it on Windows. *NOT* on a Mac. A while later (I'm sorry but I can't remember the exact timing) I sent another email asking if the Mac mini was still available, but I never received a response (and admittedly did not keep asking).

but I don't know the details of the email exchanges.

- No that's not really the issue - hence I didn't want to just list all the emails back and forth. The point of my rant was to rant about the broken promises and expectations, not to do the usual "he said this, I said this...".

So yes, we blew our deadline (as a software developer you surely know how that goes)

- Oh absolutely! I do know how that goes... but a YEAR? Especially when it seemed that were given to me were that the software was pretty much done in May 2010, just not ready for public consumption? I agree that all the statements given by Eigenlabs didn't *actually* say they were this close, but this is the impression that was given. And a year, over which I had to keep questioning "where is it? where is it?"... I stated at the start as well that I would have been more than happy to use a completely crashy test version with all the caveats that implies. I believe I even said this on multiple occasions via email.

... but it seems to me that you were offered a solution so that you could use your instrument. I think it's only fair that if you decide to try to depict a factual representation of the timeline, that you include all relevant parts of the story.

- You're absolutely right that I missed this out in my original rant, it certainly wasn't intentional. However, Windows is my system. I use it for everything I do musically. So "use your instrument" means on Windows, to me. I didn't want to sit and play it on a Mac, and learn how to use a Mac, and have to buy extra software to record the stuff and redirect the MIDI and all that malarky. I wanted to incorporate it into everything else I do on Windows.

- Yes, I knew in advance when I purchased it that Windows support was not available *right away*. But it was bought on the promises and expectations that I was given that it would *not* be a whole year until I simply *press the keys and have it make a sound in Windows*, which is all I ever wanted, and all I ever asked for in the various email exchanges.

- I have to say that it was *entirely* my choice whether I bought it or not. I do not regret buying it, but I do regret the time that has passed. It's still a darned exciting instrument, but the moment has passed for me I'm afraid.

Thanks for your reply Geert.

As an Alpha early adopter, non-musician, non-software engineer I feel compelled to chime in here. As a busy surgeon and father of 2 young children you may ask why I would invest in such an expensive and uncharted instrument such as the Eigenharp Alpha. Well, I've always been very passionate about music and always secretly wished I hadn't given up piano lessons as a youngster. My yearning to create music has always been with me but, due to medical school and residency and life in general there was no time to dedicate to music lessons as an adult and I was constantly nagged by the feeling that no matter how hard I tried with guitar, piano or bass I would never be able to play the type of (complex) music I was passionate about (progressive rock, jazz fusion etc.). Despite that, before the birth of my first child 3 years ago, I bought a beautiful and expensive Rickenbacker bass guitar along with some books and online lessons. Long story short, it collected dust after a few frustrating early attempts at learning to play it ... and despite ample 'documentation', learning resources and teachers, it was clear I would never become Chris Squire, Geddy Lee, Tony Levin, or Les Claypool. It went into its case and has been in the closet ever since.

Fast forward a year and a half to late 2009. I returned home from an incredible and inspiring concert by the band Renaissance and was nonchalantly surfing the web when I came across the first Eigenlabs demonstration video, the one from Air Studios. I was immediately taken aback by the beauty, complexity, expressiveness and versatility of these novel lust-worthy instruments. I then watched another early video in which John was interviewed and he made a very compelling statement which immediately hit home for me. I'm paraphrasing, but he said 'one does not need to have any formal musical background to play these instruments'. Aha!! Could this be my chance to play a real instrument and make music without the benefit of years and years of music lessons .. indeed it seemed so. So I bought one of the first Alpha's, sight unseen, in the hope that this would be the answer to my life-long inner musical yearnings.

I received the Alpha in New York City in January of 2010, and was immediately impressed by the quality and workmanship of this luxury instrument. Everything about the experience, including customer service from Eigenlabs, assured me it was well worth the admittedly steep buy-in. Right out of the box, as a non-musician, I was able to make fairly satisfying sounds .. way way more satisfying than when I first picked up the Rickenbacker. I watched the tutorial videos and got through the first half of the reference guide and could do a few basic things with it. But there were a few glitches here and there and I found it difficult with my limited free time (busy job and now 2 babies) to really 'go deep' with it. Since there were often such long gaps between playing it I found that I needed to start fresh each time re-learning the lingo and the key-presses for changing instruments and splits etc. So in essence for the first year of ownership I didn't do much with it other than ogle at its beauty while it sat, largely unplayed, in its stand in my living room. And despite that I never once regretted the purchase or considered selling it.

Then in early 2011, things started progressing fairly rapidly in Eigenharp Land and it suddenly became interesting again. Stage was a huge advance for someone like me who didn't have the time or basic knowledge to learn Belcanto. EigenD updates started coming in every few weeks which in my experience is unprecedented and demonstrated a singular devotion from the fine folks at Eigenlabs. The fact that these were all free updates says even more about this incredibly devoted company. The forums began heating up and the wiki started filling up and I could always count on seeing a new inspiring video on Geert's Eigenzone site or on youtube. The seminars were also helpful as are the google+ hangouts now. If I had a question, and I've had many, I could almost always find the answer by searching or posting to the forum and I found that I was really starting to make progress with the Alpha .. playing AU's, recording and un-recording, switching drum loops and instruments all became second nature and seamless. And now, as a music hobbyist with no formal musical training, I am able to jam with friends, write songs, and record very satisfying multi-loop-based songs. With the brilliant Trillian software I am able to play fairly sophisticated and life-like bass lines that would have taken me years to learn on the Rickenbacker (watch out Squire). With one button press I can easily switch scales and tonics on the fly and convincingly sound like a well-trained real musician .. again, this would have taken years and years of lessons and practice with any other instrument, time which I do not have.

If I were to only use the Alpha in split 1 with only the bass guitar sound it would still be worth every penny I spent because, for the first time in my life, I am effortlessly creating satisfying music ... and that, quite simply, is priceless. John, if that was a part of your vision when you set out to create these revolutionary instruments a decade ago (and I'm sure it was), then you have certainly succeeded and your dream has been realized ... and I for one can't thank you and Eigenlabs enough.

With sincere gratitude,
Chris Starr

@Chris Starr - exactly. I wish I could have said it that well but your post captured my feelings quite well

Cheers, m

With the brilliant Trillian software I am able to play fairly sophisticated and life-like bass lines that would have taken me years to learn on the Rickenbacker

Good to hear that this is so much fun for you! :)

While it can be nice to be able to mimik playing an instrument that one normally can't play such an emulation might possibly have difficulties to be accepted by the audience and will most probably provoke strong disaffirmation from players of the original instrument (particularly if it's easier to play and sounds "not quite there"... Comparable to the current situation of keyboarders who try to play a guitar, a drumkit or a sax sound etc. in a band)
For just having fun we can ignore all this of course.
But to be accepted as a proper (non "second class") instrument from musicians and a broader audience - imho the key for getting more people on board - it would be better to find new sounds - perhaps even "the" Eigenharp sound as too much diversity could be mistaken as arbitrariness. (That shouldn't hinder people who want to experiment with new things to do so, but many want a defined base to start with I guess.)
Perhaps we should do a sound design competiton to try to find "the signature sound" once the Workbench is released :)

P.S.: Hope this did not sound too negative or discouraging regarding bass playing on the Eigenharp - it definitely is not meant that way! It's nice to hear from people who have found "their" instrument!
Based on the current set of prepackaged sounds (piano, bass, drums, clarinet, cello etc.) I just wanted to hint into a direction where I can see a chance for the Eigenharp to survive in the long run - which imho is not instrument emulation. (Even if it would be a near perfect simulation - people have spent their lives on mastering their instruments, if a "wannabe" tries to do the same with a hipp new instrument in a few weeks they will diss this instrument with all their might - and they are on the majority! Don't step others on the toes if you don't have to...)

Greetings,
NothanUmber

Foveus... help a brother physician out. Please see my "Trilian 101" beg post for info on how to get rolling with this AU.

All: sorry to highjack the topic for an off-topic personal request. Now returning to your local programming....

I posted on this topic a LONG time ago. The lack of documentation can be frustrating and the apparent need for a PhD in computer engineering/sound engineering/some kind of engineering has been frustrating as well. Did ANYONE have the impression upon seeing a demo of this instrument on YouTube that it would be a cinch to pick up and play? Not me! I'm looking at a blank palette of 120 keys that can be configured in more ways than I can conceive of. I can run a number of sounds simultaneously and manage all that swapping around LIVE. I keep coming back to the instrument because it's interesting, pure and simple. Sometimes I take a break and pull out my analog instruments to give my brain a rest, but I always find myself coming back to the Eigenharp... frustrations and all.

Regards,
Pat