I got Eigenharp Pico!!!

I am back after long break and skiing (Cairngorm), and it's 2010 - the year when they send the second crew in Space Odyssey.

And I got the best Christmas gift ever (thank you Ola!:*) - Eigenharp Pico!

I wrote about Eigenharp and their synthesizers here, but now it's hands-on (Fig 1). So let me try to outline some main coolest features of this small instrument.

What strike you first is the quality of design - attention to small details. It feels like professional instrument, it has the just right weight (about 500g), adjustable thumb hooks to hold it (Fig 2) and neck strip. The 3 meter USB cable has special attachment to prevent it from disconnecting (Fig 3). The breath pipe is also adjustable and detachable for easy cleaning, with interchangeable mouthpieces (Fig 4). You got 18 keys, but you 8 fingers are most intuitively using only 6 of them - the remaining 2 are used for quick browsing of samples. There are also 4 'options' keys, which you use to program Pico on the fly. Finally, there is a touch sensitive strip running through the length of Pico's body.

So I hooked it to my mac, and installed massive software package (about 8GB), which took about 15 minutes. The software is demanding, because of the heavy physical modeling instruments (Cello and Clarinet), FX units and audio units. I lunched the EigenD (native software that controls Pico) and... it was ready to play.


It takes time to get used to playing on Pico keys, which are more sensitive to your touch than the strings of guitar. However, the tutorials are really straightforward, so after only 2 hours I was able to make some basic programming of the device.

My first impression - it is an instrument capable to create very interesting sounds, but it is too limited in terms of programming at the moment. They will release the workbench, which will allow to program every parameter of Pico, but at this stage I can't do some things I want to. For example - the drum machine is limited to sample playing (no sequencer), changing some default parameters is still not possible.

However, as a controller for virtual synthesizer, its ultimately best I ever played (and I tested about 40 hardware and 60 software synths in recent years). For example I have two software synths (Arturia Jupiter 8V and Native Instruments Absynth 5) loaded into Pico, so I play keys on two voices, change frequency using touch strip, change resonance using keys roll and apply various levels of distortion using breath pipe. Then I add some delay, extra filter as separate audio effect. Effect is quite crazy. Then I change Absinthe for physical model of clarinet and it gets even more industrial-dirty.

So overall, I love it, but it still needs lots of work from software side, Workbench is essential for serious programming and interface will take me probably 2 months to get to the decent level of playing. But it is definitely the most intersting instrument I have been playing which uses the full power of computers with very smart and friendly tactile interface. I give it 8 out of 10.