Hi - and happy new year.
With success I’ve installed 2.2.1 on my new Mac M1Max running Monterey. But the EigenBrowser is missing. How do I change the scales without it??
Best regards
Kim
You can change scales via the Worbench most easily. Or with brpc if you already have the phrases in Belcanto.
Depending on instrument and EigenD preset a number of scales might also be bound to menu keys for switching during a performance.
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Hi @kim and welcome around!
EigenBrowser (as well as EigenCommander) are no longer available. (compatibility issues)
Change scales can be done via Workbench (macosx cmd+K) and Belcanto.
What particular setup do you want to change?? and what instrument you use? (Pico, Alpha or Tau)
Hi, and thanks.
I’m using the pico, and my setup would normally be to use midi out from Pico to Ableton Live.
And in Ableton Live I setup a midi channel to send midi back to EigenD (or Stage) to switch between scales and root notes. I would use EigenBrowser to setup the midi input channel, and to change the scales in the different “slots” in Stage.
I would like to keep as much of my normal workflow, to still be able to use older live sets.
Can I find some kind of “getting started” manual for workbench somewhere, cause I can find a box called scale manager 1, but I can’t figure out how to change parameters…
Best Regards
Kim
Hello again.
A small update: I’ve figured out, via a technobear YouTube video, how to find the edit tool, and change parameters, so I have solved to setup the midi input. But I can’t figure out where I edit which scales I have in the different slots in Stage… I can only find scale manager 1 - where I can pick a scale, but I want to change scale 8 (whole tone) to another… Any help?
Best regards
Kim
There is a global scale talker that has lines like “main keygroup hey scale to variable scale 1 set”.
I cannot remember where the “variable scale 1…n” variables were initialized. Changing the variable scale that you want would be the clean solution. You can look up a whole number of predefined scales in the scale manager at the top (click on the “scale: Not set” entry and you will see a list of scales). Alternatively I think it is possible to define custom scales in square brackets with the semitone steps (e.g. [0,2,4,5,7,9,11,12])
Then you would have to find the place where the variables are initialized (it would have to be something along the lines “interpreter hey variable scale 8 to wholetone set” (I am not sure whether it’s the interpreter to be honest - but it would make sense - but could also be the scale manager(?)).
Alternatively you might get away with changing the line in the global scale talker from “main keygroup hey scale to variable scale 1 set” line to something like "“main keygroup hey scale to wholetone set”.
But I am not really sure anymore. @keymanpal do you still know how to do this?
Edit: If you don’t use most features of EigenD anyways and just want easy layouts (and are on macOS) it might be worth to look at EigenCore/EigenMapper, a straightforward UI from @Kai for creating custom layouts based on ground work from @thetechnobear : EigenharpMapper
Still haven’t found the place where which scale is in the scale 1, 2 and so on… Can only find that key 1 sets the scale to variable scale 1 set. 2 to variable scale 2 and so on… But I can’t find where I can define what scale is in scale 1 set… I think I’ve looked in all places called something with scale in it, and in the interpreter…
I have tried downloading the Eigencore, but the vst do not work…
I really hope someone can help
Best regards
Kim
as @NothanUmber already stated,
the scales are loaded by the scale manager… this is how they get names.
you can create a scales file that this can also load for custom scales.
as for how to set… then you can use a talker e.g.
scaler 1 hey scale to major set
scaler 1 hey scale to harmonic minor set
so you dont need to refer to as a ‘number’
also, if you are just trying to use a setup… so you dont need this to by dynamic, and so dont want to assign to buttons/talkers - you can always send belcanto to eigenD using the command line.
(then save the setup, so that the ‘state’ is saved)
unfortunately you’d probably find topics on the eigenlabs forum for this, but that seems to be down at the moment.
possibly the best source for example belcanto stuff is within my Eigenharp project…
the scripts folder has quite a few examples…
and then I further developed this with Creator…
if you look in this directory, you’ll find some ‘templated’ belcanto, which I use to be able to do everything you can from workbench (as far as I remember)… so its pretty complete.
someone also I think created a belcanto cookbook, but Ive no idea where that is…perhaps someone still has a copy?
it was not as comprehensive, as my creator stuff, but it did go thru some of the main use-cases for belanto. (at least as far as I remember 
)
important note
Ive not really done much with this for quite a while… frankly, because years ago, I created a setup that I was happy to use on the Alpha, and haven’t needed/wanted to alter it since…
these days, when I grab the Alpha, I just want to play it… not tinker with it.
so my memory of the above is all a bit rusty.
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Thanks @thetechnobear for chiming in… Osmose is stealing the show days these…
edit/add:
belcanto-cookbook-first edition
belcanto-cookbook-first edition.pdf.zip (1.3 MB)
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cool, I suspected you might have a copy (you are so much more organised that I am ! )
I had a quick look, indeed this covers some of the scale stuff.
though one ‘issue’, it talks about using “EigenCommander” which I suspect is also not working.
however, as I mentioned above, you can use the command line variant,
in particular you can use bscript
(I’d need to check, but I used to use either brexec or brpc to just send one off belcanto commands)
these utils are located (on a Mac) in
/usr/local/pi/release-2.2.1-community/bin
(assuming version 2.2.1 )
as above you’ll have to play a bit, as its been a while since I last used them… but they are command line only so will work. (EigenCommander/Browser dont wont due to incompatible python version)
edit: looking at my repo, to use bscript its
bscript --verbose "<interpreter1>" filename
(verbose option, just gives you some feedback about interpretation)
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Ahh, right, these custom scales come from a config file. Thanks for the cookbook link! I forgot so much…
Thanks - Now I understood it - well some of it… enough that I have now solved my problem for now. I’ll try to figure out the belcanto stuff, but I do feel like I’ve missed out on the first 5 chapters of that book - wish there was a belcanto for dummies… But I’ll look into the links.
But again thanks a lot - I’m sure the first answers said it all, I just didn’t understand it till now.
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