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Music startup Thoughtful Things has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for its first instrument, Engram. It\u2019s a sampler and groovebox that uses AI to mangle incoming audio and even hallucinate completely new sounds. This isn\u2019t Suno in a box, though. This isn\u2019t a \u201cpush-button, get-song\u201d device, aimed at creating something that sounds ready for top-40 radio. It\u2019s about creating experimental, uncanny sounds and pushing AI audio models beyond their limits.<\/p>\n
Engram isn\u2019t connected to the internet. Instead, it runs a \u201ctiny AI\u201d locally. According to the Kickstarter listing, the model is designed in-house and custom-trained. The company says:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve trained our audio models on open datasets that only contain audio licensed for commercial use (CC-BY or similar). We have not trained and will never train our models on non-commercial, pirated, or otherwise stolen data.\u201d<\/p>\n
The company also plans to open up Engram\u2019s firmware so that others can tweak it or load their own custom models. In the campaign video, founder Evan King uses his voice to ask for \u201cpiano,\u201d and Engram spits out something glitchy and vaguely piano-like. He says to think of Engram as a \u201cfield recorder for latent space.\u201d It\u2019s about exploring the world of AI hallucinations and experimental sound design. It even draws inspiration from circuit bending, allowing you to tweak and even break its tiny AI models.<\/p>\n
Thoughtful Things is launching with a limited run of Engrams for the Kickstarter campaign, starting at $675. The company hasn\u2019t said what the retail price will be, though it\u2019s likely to be between $850 and $900, as the $675 pledge is listed as a 30 percent discount.<\/p>\n