Music startup Thoughtful Things has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for its first instrument, Engram. It’s a sampler and groovebox that uses AI to alter incoming audio and even create completely new sounds. However, this is not Suno in a box. This is not a “push a button and play a song” device, intended to create something that sounds ready for Top 40 radio. It’s about creating experimental, strange sounds and pushing AI audio models beyond their limits.
Engram is not connected to the Internet. Instead, it runs a “little AI” locally. According to the Kickstarter listing, the model is designed in-house and custom trained. The company says:
“We have trained our audio models on open data sets that only contain audio licensed for commercial use (CC-BY or similar). We have not and will never train our models on non-commercial, pirated or otherwise stolen data.”
The company also plans to open source the Engram firmware so others can modify it or upload their own custom models. In the campaign video, founder Evan King uses his voice to ask for “piano” and Engram spits out something glitchy and vaguely resembling a piano. He says we should think of Engram as a “field recorder for latent space.” It’s about exploring the world of AI hallucinations and experimental sound design. It even takes inspiration from the curvature of circuits, allowing you to modify and even break your small AI models.
Thoughtful Things launches with a limited run of Engrams for the Kickstarter campaign, starting at $675. The company hasn’t said what the retail price will be, though it’s likely between $850 and $900, as the $675 promise is listed as a 30 percent discount.
