When Leon Gruenbaum moved to New York in 1988, his interest in “melodic
contours” in jazz and bebop led him to the idea of the idea of the Samchillian, an
interval-based keyboard controller, for which he received a patent. He subsequently
began recording and performing on it worldwide with such artists as Vernon Reid,
James Blood Ulmer, Burnt Sugar and many others. In recent years, this invention was
brought to Eventide and made into a Eurorack device, encompassing many of the
features of Samchillian, but also adding some new ones, including automation and
manipulation of tone row patterns, the ability to play from a standard MIDI
controller, and a comprehensive array of user-definable functions.
