The Harpejji is based on the StarrBoard, invented by my friend John Starrett[1][2] in the 1980s,[3] as acknowledged on the Harpejji website[4]. Not sure how the Guardian got to such lengths describing Meeks as the inventor without noticing this.
Here's a photo I took of the original StarrBoard in Gainesville, FL in 1997: https://imgur.com/pilVv8b
This needs to be multiscale. The treble sounds strained and whiny, because it's at too much tension, because it's too long. The bass sounds farty and unfocused, because it's at too little tension, because it's too short. There's a good reason bass guitars are bigger than guitars.
Multi-scale guitars have been out of patent for years now. And if the harpejji was invented in 2007, then I believe it should go out of patents next year? I hope the resulting competition makes them up their game.
+1 for multi-scale. While on the topic: I have thrown some hard-earned cash at a multi-scale guitar a couple years ago (a Strandberg), and it both sounds great (well also thanks to craftsmanship), and is much more comfortable to play in the higher positions: the way the frets are fanned, the left hand's wrist remains in a more natural position. It'd be difficult to switch back.
I've worked on my own instruments many many years ago (with a little help from a professional luthier). I'd say if you're designing a new instrument, multi-scale should be a consideration; even if it's just a plain old boring guitar, your biggest constraint is the choice of a bridge.
I love my multi-scale bass (the poetically named Ibanez EHB1265MS :-). Possibly the weirdest thing about playing a multi scale instrument is that my eyes just... adjust the frets to look like they're normal, vertical frets when I'm playing. And, it really took less than half an hour of playing to get used to it.
Glad to hear Strandbergs are nice... I'm sorely tempted by one.
Agreed, I have a few, a couple 8 strings with 2" fan are my sweet spot, tho I've never tried the Charlie Hunter designs w/wider fans (from Novax, Traugott, hybrid-guitars.com). Ideally i would get another custom with wider string spacing for 3 bass strings tuned in 4ths, but that's probably a pipe dream.
This tapping instrument seems very nice but certainly not bizarre, if you want bizarre, look under a d10 pedal steel. If i were to buy a tapping guitar, I would also look at Markus Reuters, touchguitars.com.
Since sound is completely subjective anyway, perhaps the reason this is gaining popularity is because it fills the void for people who aren't completely happy with the sound of the traditional guitar or bass guitar, and prefer their music to sound this way.
> And if the harpejji was invented in 2007, then I believe it should go out of patents next year?
Patent lifetimes are at least 20 years after the filing date as per TRIPS treaty. There's the priority mechanism for international filing, providing up to another year, and there are usually various means for additional protection time if regulations delayed the process. Those are mostly relevant for medical patents to compensate for trial-based delays, but "the PTO was too slow" seems to be reasonable ground for an extension, too.
As such, we're looking at 2028.
I was wondering what you could mean: in the US, before ~1997 patents used to be valid 17 years from the date of patent grant, which would fit the timeframe you mention. Grant date was usually a few years down the road and with submarine patents (keeping them in limbo by continually sending minor changes to the USPTO until it's worth having them active), that span could be extended practically infinitely. That time is, thankfully, over.
Thanks for that, you nailed everything that was bugging me about that timbre. Someone else mentioned the Chapman stick, and this instrument is equally disappointing.
The clever part, at least the only one I know about, is that each string is muted until it gets fretted, which completes an electrical circuit to unmute it.
It's an Ableton device to map the keys of a Novation LaunchPad as if it were an 8 string, 8 fret guitar. I play the guitar but not the piano, but play a lot of synths. This bridges the gap for me, and it's so, so, so much fun.
I'm thinking about doing a dedicated hardware version with proper midi out, touch sensitivity and integrated capo/octave knobs. Maybe worth dusting that idea off if this guy was so successful..
There are some reasonable ways to do pressure-sensitive buttons cheaply.
I'm also working on an electronic instrument. What I do is glue felt on the back of a sheet of 1/8" birch ply (using liquid hide glue), and then laser cut all my button tops out of that.
The buttons are held in place by a laser-cut wooden frame, also 1/8" birch ply but without the felt. I stick packing tape to the back of the frame sticky-side up, so I can drop the button-tops in place (felt side down) and they stay put without falling out. The felt is there so the bottons have a little give to them when you press on them.
This wood/tape/felt assembly sits on top of a sheet of force-sensitive resistor, which in turn sits on a printed circuit board. Under each button there are two sets of exposed (ENIG-plated) copper traces configured like interdigitized fingers.
Pressing on the button presses on the FSR which presses against the traces, and the electrical resistance between both sets of traces drops. You can measure the drop with a simple voltage divider circuit connected to an ADC.
By using a lot of multiplexers or certain kinds of shift registers, it's possible to read hundreds of buttons.
Sensitronics makes a very nice FSR material, but I've found Velostat works quite nicely too and is vastly cheaper.
I have used velostat for this purpose with a similar design, but i had too many problems with self-consistency of response across different buttons. There was a fair amount of hysteresis too, i thought too much to be usable as an instrument. I am wondwering if the felt is the secret sauce?
I am moving toward 3d printed pivoting keys with an internal mirrored surface that reflects variable amounts of light into a photoresistor depending on depression. Would prefer the velostat though if it can work reliably
My impression (I'd have to do more testing to verify this) is that velostat is not very consistent if you use it as a through-mode FSR (electrical contacts on opposite sides of the FSR) but works quite a bit better as a shunt-mode FSR (electrical contacts on the same side of the FSR as "interdigitized fingers").
The spacing of my traces for the interdigitized fingers is about 8 mils, and the traces are about 6 mils wide. I'm using JLCPCB, and they have no problem with that trace width.
I also use an op-amp (TLV274) in voltage-follower mode as a buffer in front of the ADC inputs.
(The keybed itself is a separate board that I haven't posted the schematic for yet, but it's mostly just a bunch more shift registers and FSR elements. FSR elements are notated as a squiggly line.)
There's a company called Wooting that makes gaming keyboards with analog key travel sensors. Their current design uses magnets and hall effect sensors, but I believe their earlier versions used LEDs, light sensors, and mirrors, which sounds similar to what you're doing.
I'll be seeing him live next month at the Hollywood Bowl and I'm extremely excited. Can't wait to participate in the audience choir at the end of the show.
About 10 years ago I visited him in his studio where he had all mocked up in paper and cardboard, putting all the pieces together. Fun to see it finally out and in people's hands.
Isomorphic keyboards are so cool! I hope the Lumitone comes down in price and becomes more of a "regular instrument"... AFAIK it's just as suited for regular tonal music as microtonal.
I've been dying to get my hands on one of these :) I think there's a pretty large and unexplored possibility space in using these MPE controllers for controlling things other music, as well...
This looked incredibly complicated to play initially, but at this particular point of the "Playing basics" video, I was sold: https://youtu.be/AUnvq2zRU6k?t=85
And it gets better when you see the scales and chords section.
The video also explains that it uses piezoelectric sensors.
I remember at NAMM about 10 years ago, the company I worked for made a touchscreen-based mixing console.
The CEO insisted to have Stevie Wonder try it. What surprised me is that he (SW) looked impressed doing so, moving virtual faders on a glass screen with no tactile feedback.
That was my first realization that music is a business like any other, and getting a famous person doing a PR stunt for your product may be beneficial, even though they're not at all the intended consumer.
But also, SW was using his ears more than his fingers to get the feedback the product was lacking, and so what started as a bad joke made me respect him even more.
Stevie wonder was one of the pioneers of the Fairlight Synthesizer, which was possible for him to use because it used a text interface navigated by arrow keys, rather than a fiddly GUI with unpredictable placement of drop-down menus. Arguably, a touch-screen GUI would have the same predictability (because of consistent placement of active elements) as the Fairlight text screen. In short, rather than being a tasteless joke or a stunt, it was an instrument that he could profitably use, which was demonstrated by the fact that he actually could use it.
> But does anybody really want to play them, learn them or go and see someone else perform on them?”
This is a great thing about physical instruments: it's easy to tell the relationship between what the performer does, and what sound comes out. (Like, "he hit a piano key, and the piano made one note.")
I've been to electronic music concerts, and a lot of the time it's just some guy fiddling with his MacBook, and cool music is coming out of the speakers, but it's not clear what he's really doing.
Chapman Stick player here! The Harpejji has a very different tuning and technique. The melody side of the stick is tuned in fourths (like a guitar), and the bass side is tuned in fifths (like a cello). The Harpejji is tuned in whole steps, meaning the strings are much closer in pitch than they are on the stick.
The implication is that the technique used for the Harpejji is much more similar to piano: every note in a scale is played on a different string, and chords are produced by 'skipping' notes / strings. Whereas scales on the Stick are usually laid out using 3 notes per string on the melody side (exactly like the guitar), and 4 notes per string on the bass.
If I understand right, the Harpejji uses individual per-string pickups and uses an electronic muting system. Touching a string to any of the frets completes a circuit that causes the onboard electronics to unmute that particular string.
That's pretty unique.
The Chapman Stick just uses a mechanical damper where the nut is so the open strings don't ring out, and fairly standard magnetic pickups.
The commonality is "string instrument with many strings", which would include a lot of things (electric hammered dulcimers for example).
This, however, has important differences in design and operation, the most significant of which is the use of "an electronic muting system to dampen unfretted strings and minimize the impact of sympathetic vibrations."
This kind of has the sound of someone playing an acoustic guitar patch on a keyboard. It seems to lack the expressive dynamics you would expect with a guitar, almost like the velocity is clamped.
Probably a factor, but I think it’s more for ease of use with all those strings, so that incidental contact isn’t producing sounds, along with the pull off energy when releasing notes. You do a lot of subconscious muting when playing a guitar for example.
It looks like it is mostly played with hammer-ons? Maybe is someone plays it one-handed and adds a pick you get back to the guitar dynamic range. But then what's the point (may as well go with a lap steel guitar then).
Slightly off topic, but I really want an instrument that works like LinnStrument but with a synth built-in (so you can actually play it without connecting to something else).
The same Eaganmatrix engine used in the Continuum has also shown up in the Expressive E Osmose, so apparently Haken is willing to work with other companies to integrate their synth in more products -- and the result is quite an amazing device. Haken also makes a standalone Eurorack module.
I'm not sure if there's a good open-source MPE synth that's easy to port to microcontrollers. Surge is really impressive but it's not made to run on simple embedded platforms.
You can bolt one in / under / on the side, and map controls for it. The MVP is duct tape but it's possible to get a small synth & battery into the case.
I know it's not quite the same thing as you're asking for, but when you dig into the linnstrument it turns out to be very hackable.
The problem is a "small synth", like a Arturia Minibrute still feels quite large. And what should I do with it's keyboard? I use LinnStrument exactly because I'm not good at playing pinao-layout keyboard...
But maybe I didn't google the correct word for it.
One cool thing about the harpejji: it's isomorphic. That means that the "shape" of a chord will be the same, everywhere on the playing surface. So, switching from playing in C major to D major just means moving your hands over one string. (Guitar and piano players know that it's more complex than that on their instruments.)
That could be nice when trying to learn western music theory.
A long time ago I asked on a music theory forum (probably on Usenet, but maybe on Reddit) what would be the best instrument to accompany learning music theory on. The answer given was the chromatic button accordion.
The buttons are in regular rows with alternating rows offset so that from any given button (except on the edges) there are 6 neighboring buttons arranged so that they are on the vertices of a hexagon. Moving diagonally through the hexagons moves in consecutive minor 2nds on one diagonal, major 2nds on another diagonal, and minor 3rds on the remaining diagonal.
On the harpejji each note position you'd have 2 directions that give minor 2nds, one that gives major 2nds, and one that gives minor 3rds, so should similar to the chromatic button accordion.
I wonder if in practice the offset rows of the accordion are easier or harder to deal with then the non-offset rows of the harpjji?
The article links to a vulfmon track with audio and a still photo, but the video for same track on the vulf channel proper shows the instrument actually being played[1]. When I saw this a couple of months ago I had a bit of work to convince myself it was a real instrument - Stratton makes it look just too easy!
Coincidentally, I found a 1976 video[2] of David Vorhaus playing his Kaleidophon around the same time which gave me the same skeptical vibe.
Harry Partch must be grooving in his grave. Bit of shame he didn't live another 20 years, really, it'd be interesting to see what he could have done with more electronics and synths.
I'm not a fan of patents, but in that case, it's not like some bigco seeking to perpetually extend monopolistic rights on some product - the inventor is alive, they made what seems like a genuine contribution to the world, and that contribution is very concrete and complete - not some hollow vaguely generic not directly usable "design".
So it's actually a case where patents are a good fit: the inventor gets to decide the life of their design (and make a bit of money out of it) before anyone can use it freely.
> I'm not a fan of patents, but in that case, it's not like some bigco seeking to perpetually extend monopolistic rights on some product - the inventor is alive, they made what seems like a genuine contribution to the world, and that contribution is very concrete and complete - not some hollow vaguely generic not directly usable "design".
If the inventor keeps the prices too high, then it is basically the same as ensuring that the public can't have it. That's not good. Inventors and investors should be compensated, and cheap alternatives from other manufacturers should appear.
That might be good for the inventor, but that whole thinking that the inventor’s rights trump the rest of the world’s is pre-modern. As we have seen from the last couple of decades, it is always better for consumers when the “official” product exists alongside some cheaper version that one can order from e.g. Aliexpress.
Owning a harpejji is not exactly a human right or anything. Let the guy get some money off the massive R&D and creativity that went into the instrument before kicking it over to Behringer to release the $300 clone.
I'm confused. You made a statement that they're not licensing their patent. I'm asking you what is that based on. Who asked to license their patent and was denied? Surely you have that since you made that claim right? Just your imagination or actual verifiable evidence that the rest of us can check? If challenging your claim is trolling or sealioning or cat fishing or bear baiting or worm wiggling, then so be it.
It’s a form of patent trolling. The point of patents is that inventors should be compensated fairly for their inventions. Not that they should be able to prevent the production of those inventions like little dictators - that does not advance society.
No, it's not. Patent trolling has a specific meaning (having vacuous broad patents or using patents against companies who aren't really infringing, associated with not having an actual product and making your money off this, usually having hoarded many patents exactly for this purpose).
This is simply the creator of this design enforcing their patent, like any business with a patented product does.
>Not that they should be able to prevent the production of those inventions like little dictators - that does not advance society.
Nope, it's exactly that they should be able to control the production of their inventions. If it wasn't for that control, patents would have no practical purpose.
A patent is a time-limited monopoly on an invention, so yes, preventing others from making the same thing is exactly what a patent is for. The idea being that during this time, the inventor can either be the sole source of the widget, thus profiting from it directly, or licence it to someone else. Either case means that they get "compensated fairly".
That's exactly what a patent is. The purpose (at least for the US) is stated in the US Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clause 8:
> [The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
"A U.S. patent gives you, the inventor, the right to “exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling” an invention or “importing” it into the U.S. ... What is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import the invention, but the right to stop others from doing so. If someone infringes on your patent, you may initiate legal action."
Please explain its true purpose then. The "exclusive rights in exchange for publishing" seems to have been the very idea behind patents for hundreds of years, all the way back to Jerusalem and Venezia according to Wikipedia, and also defined as such in the modern patent systems established later, in the US and elsewhere.
The inventor is not holding on to the rights in order to collect payouts from third parties that inadvertently infringed on the invention. No, it's not a form of trolling at all.
The point of patents is that you get an exclusive monopoly for the invention for a limited time, but to get that monopoly you have to publish (as a patent) the design and it's a free for all _after_ the monopoly time has passed.
You are free to license the invention to others, but there's no requirement - it's not a part of the patent system.
Society wouldn’t advance if anyone could copy the work of others either. Gender would swoop in, create these on the cheap and completely ruin the sound that the creator intended.
Here's a photo I took of the original StarrBoard in Gainesville, FL in 1997: https://imgur.com/pilVv8b
[1] https://starrettguitars.com/
[2] https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q2hIMZ8AAAAJ&hl=en
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarrBoard
[4] https://www.marcodi.com/pages/about-us