Engram is a sampler that turns broken AI hallucinations
Thoughtful Things launches Kickstarter for Engram, an offline AI sampler and groovebox starting at 675 dollars with custom small models.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
- Engram is a sampler and groovebox designed to mangle audio and generate new sounds using AI.
- The device operates offline by running a custom in-house small AI model locally.
- Kickstarter backing starts at 675 dollars, representing a 30 percent discount off retail.
Music startup Thoughtful Things has launched a Kickstarter campaign for its debut instrument, Engram, which functions as a sampler and groovebox utilizing artificial intelligence to manipulate incoming audio and generate entirely new sounds from AI hallucinations. Unlike mainstream prompt-based music tools aimed at top-40 radio ready tracks, the device focuses on producing experimental, uncanny audio and pushing AI audio models past their conventional boundaries.
Engram operates without an internet connection, instead running a small AI model locally on the device. According to the Kickstarter campaign listing, the model was custom-trained in-house using open datasets containing exclusively commercially licensed audio. The company explicitly stated that it has not utilized and will never utilize non-commercial, pirated, or unauthorized data to train its models.
Stock photo for illustration only, not from the actual event
In the campaign promotional video, founder Evan King demonstrated the hardware by speaking the word piano into it, causing Engram to output a glitchy, vaguely piano-like audio response. King described the device as a field recorder for latent space, aimed at exploring AI hallucinations and experimental sound design while drawing inspiration from circuit bending to let users tweak and fracture its small AI models.
"We’ve 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."
Thoughtful ThingsThe company also outlined plans to open up Engram’s firmware, allowing third parties to modify the system or load custom models. Thoughtful Things is offering a limited production run through Kickstarter with pledges starting at 675 dollars. While final retail pricing has not been officially confirmed, the 675 dollar tier is advertised as a 30 percent discount, putting the expected retail price between 850 and 900 dollars.
Shifting AI audio generation from cloud-based text-to-song generators into dedicated physical hardware opens a new frontier for experimental electronic musicians. By embracing model hallucinations and offering local, offline processing with firmware openness, Engram targets creators seeking hardware-level chaos and sound mangling rather than polished commercial compositions.
Source:
The Verge
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