Seems like the bars are just there to produce the (almost) sine wave oscillation part of the synth which is neat I guess but it just seems like a gimmick if I am being totally honest. I still respect them trying new ideas though.
I don't think it even sounds that interesting. Especially if you have ever used the various physical modeling ensembles in Reaktor. It isn't even close to some of those.
I mean… this is pretty similar to how a rhodes works… are those a gimmick?
Doesn't the Rhodes use hammers to hit the bars though?