Jan 30 2023 : I have recently been given a Tau in good condition together with standard Base station and all leads ,but no installation usb.I have Windows 10. What and where do i find the latest download program to be able to produce sounds from it.With thanks from a novice Eigenharper.
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Wow, that is a very, very nice gift! The Eigenharps are all fantastic, and the Tau is my personal favourite among them.
Donāt worry about not having the USB stick. The contents of that is old and not very useful anymore anyways. The latest official EigenD software release is old, and it makes much more sense to grab the Community version maintained mainly by TheTechnoBear.
This is a nice summary of where to find stuff:
It has been a while since I last did a clean install, so check the install instructions in the EigenD community release. But if I recall correctly you will need the official Runtime and Drivers.
Once those are installed, then install EigenD Community 2.1.7 and you should be ready to go. There is an optional Resources download with some VST plugins, audio loops, etc. I donāt find it useful personally, but nice to know it exists, I guess.
Note: EigenD is a very powerful and flexible piece of software, but can also be very confusing at first. To get the most out of your Tau you will might want to dig in and create setups specific for your use-case. I donāt know if you are very tech-savvy or not, but be aware that this takes a bit of effort and patience. If you need help getting to grips with things, Iāll gladly do a video session. Iām not an expert, but I (sometimes) use EigenD on Windows and I own a Tau. You will discover that there are a lot of helpful people in here. So for specific questions fire away.
Tip:
EigenD can host plugins, but most of us(?) prefer to send midi or osc out of EigenD and into our DAW/VST of choice. One option is to check out Madrona Labs Aalto/Kaivo. These plugins can receive high-res osc data from EigenD, bypassing midi altogether. There are lots of good options for MPE-midi VSTs. My personal favourite is Roli Equator 2. A good UI that is fast to patch in, tons of useful presets and a synth engine that can provide a wide range of sounds.
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everything @Kai saidā¦ + of course, any questions, come back and ask here 
yeah, Id add ā¦ try not to get overwhelmed by EigenD.
Id recommend loading the standard factory tau setup, and just enjoy it as an instrumentā¦
donāt think at all about how to ācustomiseā it initially
its totally true the software is amazingly flexible, and you can change it to how you think you need it.
but its a huge can of worms, with a steep learning curve. and that can become a huge distraction.
frankly, time better spent just enjoying playing the Tau.
(of course, later, youāll know it well enough, you can start open that can of worms)
yeah, Id also recommend Aaltoā¦ its my āgo toā. I think it demonstrates really well, how a good sound and a little expressive modulation is all you need for a patch.
Eigenharp + Aalto + Vahala Reverb (+ solar panels!) is what Id take to a desert island 
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Congrats, the Tau is a great instrument indeed!
Agreed, playing with the standard setup sounds like an excellent advise.
Another excellent (open source) synth for MPE controllers is Surge XT with Roger Linnās well-made āLinnstrument MPEā presets: Surge Synth
Surge XT is for the Linnstrument what Aalto is for the Soundplane - the synth with the most available presets fine-tuned for this particular instrument.
In contrast to Aalto which supports OSC, Surge is currently āonlyā MPE (thus MIDI), but imho you can get a long way with that already. (If you want to go the OSC route for Aalto you would have to modify the default EigenD Tau setup, so MIDI, which is preconfigured in the standard setup already, might also be easier for the start, even for Aalto)
There is currently no 1:1 equivalent for Eigenharp (besides perhaps the modular synth inside EigenD - which is great, but there are only a hand full of āpresetsā and making your own is a little more challenging). But even though not āEigenharp-nativeā Surge, Aalto and Equator are still good starting options for Eigenharps, also.
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With eigenlabs website being down, how do I go about installing the official Runtime and Drivers?
I bought a Tau long ago, and foolishly havenāt made the time to keep up with it. I seem to have old software working on a laptop somewhere, but was hoping to brush off the dust and get a modern setup up and running to play with this wonderful instrument again.
I found the community-2.1.7 software, but am fumbling around on what I need additionally to get it operational.
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Oopsies. Windows 10.
I think I am stuck at this part. Have the runetimes and drivers been uploaded to a github? I am sure I am just overlooking something, but I have tried searching through the useful links that thetehcnobear has been so kind to provide.
I see what you mean; thereās a lot of links to the Eigenlabs website which is unavailable. Someone will have a copyā¦
Ive not uploaded the resources, as Im not sure it would be legal to do soā¦ as I suspect some of the contents was licensed to EigenLabs for distribution.
up till now, the Eigenlabs website has generally been available, though I note it seems to be down at the momentā¦ weāve seen the odd outage before so this may not be permanent but it is a little concerning.
all that said, didnāt all eigenharps come with a USB stick which contained resourcesā¦ this should still be valid.
my only āconcernā would be windows, as Im not sure if the windows driver was released initiallyā¦ so not sure if that is present or not on stick - could someone confirm.
if the Eigenlabs website is down we will need to reconsider position on resources/ runtimeā¦ but its a pretty large image, so its difficult to host.
if we were to host, I think we many consider somehow rebuilding the image, and remove any content where there are legal issuesā¦ but this it is not trivial, as we do not have the source code to rebuild it.
just to be clear of ārequirementsā
resources
are entirely optional, it just contains a few samples, convolution IR (for things like cello) and some very old VSTs (which wonāt work on macOS anymore)
MacOS
community build does NOT require runtime, and as its not 64 bit cannot use the old 32bit runtime.
the readme contains instructions on how to use an official python build which is required.
Windows
community build does require runtime, since there is a windows driver that needs to be installed.the python contained in the runtime can be used.
(note: its also likely the official eigenD still works on windows)
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Just hypotheticallyā¦I donāt have the Windows installers, though I have the Program Files folders. The driver folder includes dpinst.exe. The runtime folder just contains a Python 26 folder. Would it be possible to work with these for a fresh installation, or would there be too much stuff missing?
Iām mainly a Windows user and not very good at keeping my Downloads-folder tidy. So I bet I have at least the drivers somewhere. Iāll check later tonight.
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Found them! Not the resources, but at least the runtime and drivers. I guess EigenLabs woudnāt mind me sharing until their webpage is back up, so:
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Nice one Kai. This is why you should never tidy your filesā¦ 
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Yes I have a usb stick, but I think it was pretty early on where it didnāt come with the driver. I could just copy my files off of my laptop I suppose? But I was concerned about it being out of date.
Hurray for untidy files.
Thanks for the quick replies and community support.
Iāll see what I can do to get up and running.
Hopefully the website situation is temporary or an alternative is put forward.
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yeah we need to tidy this all up a bitā¦
there are really 4 āsetsā of files
EigenD - you should use community build, Eigenlabs not required
runtime - basically this is python and can be sourced elsewhere
windows driver - only required for windows, I can probably throw this into GitHub, as its small.
resources - optional/not required.
extra notes:
runtime (windows)
I need to check to see if window can run from the 3rd party python installā¦ it may need a tweak in where its picking up python from.
window driver
my aim is to remove requirement of this, by using libusb as we do on linux, then using libusb driver.
but for now I can host in GitHub as its tiny.
note: we do not have code for this, and its subject to licensing !
resources
this is currently
contains:
samples & convolution ir (for cello etc)
other resource files (scales?)
demo versions of vst
what I want to do is create a cut down version of this, that only contains license free resources, and is also platform independent. this means removing the demo vsts.
removing the demo vsts I deem acceptable because these are years out of date, doing so will mean resources have no platform dependent code, and also dramatically reduce size of resource bundle.
also removing vsts means there is no requirement for installation as everything then is simply placed in the eigenharp directoryā¦ so we can distribute as a simple zip file.
in fact if the resources are small enough (and license free) , I can included in EigenD package !
this could mean midterm (aka when I have time/motivation) you simply install EigenD, and python (from python.org)
long termā¦ I still dont know, as the python 2.x dependency is a real time sink to fixā¦ which I keep starting, but lose motivation are a week or two.
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