There’s been a big stink about the British-made Eigenharp controller, with mention from Engadget, Synthtopia, the BBC, and bloggers like CDM and Matrix. It requires a Mac, however. Hope they sell some and are encouraged to port the software to Windows. Given its complexity, ~$7000 isn’t a terribly high price.
(Just remember that people nowadays routinely pay $50,000 or more for a grand piano.)
Almost forgotten in all this hype was a different controller, the Madrona Soundplane. Looks as though it’s not finished yet.
I’m not sure how I feel about this Eigenharp thing. It seems to have lots of potential, but I think the breath controller and drum pads are superfluous. It seems like there were a bunch of old chumps in a board room thinking up what all they could tack on.
The Soundplane is way more interesting to me, seems like it could be the affordable alternative to the Continuum, and a little cooler looking to boot.
There’s the smaller version of the Eigenharp that’s $700. I’m not thrilled by controllers that require a computer. How’s that going to be in 10 years?
I bet you that in 10 years, there will be a way to use them. Just remember, you can still get MS-DOS, or the FreeDOS version—and they will still run on almost any PC (even the current Macs).
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Hobosic