Hello. I read with great interest most threads here, and lately have been particularly struck by the Eigenharp saga. I can only imagine how it feels to have an instrument so “game changing” run the risk of abandoned support and potential breakdown, although it sounds like the community of users represented here will do all in their power to prevent such. I am reminded of the Casio Digital Horn folks, who love and use (and keep running somehow) plastic instruments pushing 40 years old.
So, to Striso: mine is such a big part of my musical life I only hope it will remain in production and get support from Piers Titus and the community. It is remarkably playable, has been about 100 percent compatible with everything I’ve tried, and any “ghost notes” or extra octaves have been corrected with a button-push or three. And I know literally nothing about coding, or firmware, or the real business of MIDI. I am just an ear-learning amateur (formerly exclusively) acoustic musician, for whom the pandemic provided the impetus for straying this way. So I say to any on the fence about this instrument, “Why wait?”
Very cool that the firmware is open source - that should also lend well to the longevity of the instrument and the community around it, even if official support drops away.
Can I ask about the sensitivity of the buttons? Are you able to easily do things like expressive vibrato, even with multiple fingers at play? Do you have issues with calibration?
From my own experience. As a controller buttons are very sensitive, if you’re using it with midi really the only limit is based on the settings of your synthesizer. The only limitation on it with vibrato has been my own control.
I have found that when working on the y-axis (forward/back) that if I press several at a time then I’ll get somewhat different values, but that is very likely a matter of my control, not the device itself.
The work @pierstitus has done on making a web calibration system has made it pretty easy to configure it pretty much any way you could want.
No issues I note with calibration, save the fact that I don’t do any…I just decrease the sensitivity if I get any stray tones/notes, and they go away for the duration. While that theoretically reduces the sensitivity/toughens the touch, it doesn’t matter at all to me in playing it. As fkberthold says, the limit is the synth and settings. For example, when I use “keyboard Sathya” or “clean Parisi” on GeoShred, it is really something how fast and light my “guitar” playing can be, and when I use “concertina” on ThumbJam, less responsive vibrato, but still fine. I played Striso (and Lumi) quite a bit last week at the hospital bedside of my ailing sister, and all the staff came into the room to see who was playing the “violin.” That was with GeoCello, the iPad, and a little JBL external speaker. And, again, I know doodly squat about the numbers and settings and coding and firmware, so it’s gotta be “plug and play” for me, which it pretty much is. Full disclosure: Almost the same “can’t miss” with KM’s QueNexus Red, and especially LumiKeys studio edition. But those don’t have the range nor the isomophic keyboard layout that so eases my journey into “other than C.”
I’d be lost without it, and the whole kit cost me way less than a third the ticket on my only “quality” concertina! And herself is not disturbed by the noise while she watches her British spy series and such, and I sit six feet away with earbuds and play my heart out.