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 mangle incoming audio and even hallucinate completely new sounds. This isn’t Suno in a box, though. This isn’t a “push-button, get-song” device, aimed at creating something that sounds ready for top-40 radio. It’s about creating experimental, uncanny sounds and pushing AI audio models beyond their limits.
Engram isn’t connected to the internet. Instead, it runs a “tiny AI” locally. According to the Kickstarter listing, the model is designed in-house and custom-trained. The company says:
…
Finally, a hardware tool that embraces the uncanny valley instead of polishing it away. Perfect for experimental sound design.
Local AI only? Smart move for latency, but can it really compete with cloud-based samplers yet? Excited to test this!