I started the thread.
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Good practice for crowdfunding developers is to :
Under promise and over deliver.
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It’s funny to think about the phases on a crowdfunding project.
I suppose a marker coming up for the Loom is April 11th, when the pledges close and your money gets taken and you’re locked in. Is that the start of the Anxiety Phase ?
I guess we don’t stop speculating, just how and what gets speculated over.
It’s an individual thing, but there is plenty of people that flip over to the Anger Phase next.
A favorite post for me was when Expressive E was called, “Those chiselers”.
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“Anxiety phase” is a good word for it. It’s a very thin line between the FOMO of getting in on early bird pricing and the “OMG what have I done?” of plunking down several hundred dollars on a thing that might not work how you like (or, indeed, actually exist)!
Personally, I really like getting to help fund projects that have made thoughtful design decisions and solid planning (and I think the OP is that sort of project, FWIW). It feels like making a tiny step toward a world where that sort of work gets recognized over the potential profit margin — and, not coincidentally, this sort of project tends to actually deliver. But I also get people being anxious about it. Especially for anything over $100.
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Nanoloop still has yet to deliver on the second option. About a year ago he emailed me saying it was about it was about to ship and then went silent. Kind of accepted that I will probably never see a product at this point.
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myTracks from Blipblox going on KickStarter.
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Interesting one from the folks behind Hungry Robot pedals: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/artiuminstruments/artium-instruments-the-swarm
I have liked their guitar pedals for a good long while and this seems like a simple, well thought out product. Immediately seems like it would be great for live use, as you can easily route external things through the effects in parallel. Can see pairing this with my Rytm and maybe Oxi One as a fun setup for performance.
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Enormous bang for buck with The Swarm !
- 8-note polyphony
- Versatile Monophonic Arpeggiator
- Detunable SuperSaw Oscillator
- Onboard effects including Freeze, Delay, Chorus, and Reverb
For all those who gripe about not have the space for … , this takes care of that.
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FWIW, this appears to be, amongst other things, a new midi keyboard. Hard to figure out more than that, though.
Guesswork:
- big buttons are white keys
- small buttons are black keys
- red yellow and blue buttons are ‘C’
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Kickstarter starts on April 23 and there are some videos. Looks like targeted for kids? Although some adults might take advantage of the small form factor and MIDI…
EDIT: ah, here is the shorter promo video for adults to scratch their pockets: 
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Muro Box N40 Standard & Sublime Tone Music Box
MIDI controlled 40 note mechanical music box. On Indiegogo.
The Sublime version plays two separate sets of tines together at the same time, but they are detuned 14 cents from each other, giving an extra richness to the sound.
Here’s a video where you can compare the sound between the two versions.
They also sell an N20 version, that they crowdfunded 4 years ago. The N40 has two of those mechanisms, tuned to give a wider note range. So the Standard N40 has two tine sets, the Sublime version has four.
In addition to MIDI, it also allows you to preload songs, or sequences if you want to think of it that way, though no idea about looping or syncing. Not that that really matters obviously you could sync in MIDI.
A little pricey, but i like the idea of setting this up next to a keyboard, and playing acoustic with this, or perhaps adding some effects after this. ( See this post. )
Note : This is not 100% chromatic, there are some gaps in the bass notes, so it wouldn’t play in any key if you are looking for “bass” notes.
Also : As this is mechanical there is a small restart delay when playing the same note again. Not clear how this might respond.
Looks good quality, and given that the original N20 has been around a few years it should have a track record.
You’ll have to add your own twirling ballerina.
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ALT – Analog five voice pin grid synth
Made by French startup Cyma Forma, this looks potentially something of interest to those in this forum.
They will launch on Kickstarter on May 22nd, right after Superbooth ( thread ), where they will be exhibiting.
No sound samples or videos that i know of, yet.
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Some sounds in their instagram:
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It’s live now on KS, and is going gangbusters.
Are people buying for kids, or themselves ? At the price it certainly can be an impulse buy.
They say in their newsletter that it will be $99 the first three days and then (if I read this correctly) $199.
There is a review from a musician who usually reviews Raspberry Pi / open source music products (no idea if there is a relation):
EasyPlay crowdfunding has started and so far so good for them. Maybe all this is marketing, but it’s been… less than an hour and they are about 3x their goal.
I love the idea of a compact keyboard, but coming from the isomorphic layout of a bass guitar, this takes the already non-isomorphic form of a standard keyboard and further distorts that with a transformation that leaves no regular patterns whatsoever.
It would absolutely do my head in. YMMV 
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I think perhaps i see a new method of “crowdfunding” being used.
I won’t name any particular products or companies, that just gets E’nauts mad, but there’s one in particular and it goes like this…
Announce a product with a detailed list of features. Either use something like Kickstarter or take paid pre-orders.
Then in a reasonably short period of time, release the product with some subset of the originally described features. Continue to promote and sell on the original promise, and then along the way release new features in a long series of new updates.
To some extent there is nothing new to this. It actually is a described development model, called things like continuous development, or rolling releases. I think what is being shown now is a way to monetize this. I’ll call it “Trickleware”.
Part of what makes this possible are highly reliable ways to upgrade firmware, without any risk of bricking hardware, and relatively easy ways to distribute updates via the internet.
The product i am thinking of was promoted early on with images and a paper description, but notably without substantial audio demos. This company also has a major competitor with a substantial reputation also with a new product in progress.
Not completely new but more a refinement in a way to grow a firmware feature based product line, without a lot of upfront capital.
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If the company offers a discount for essentially being a beta tester during the period where promised features are being developed, I see no problem with this. It’s becoming more common in software too – see eg Polyverse’s Filterverse or Zynaptiq’s Morph 3. I bought both of these plugins and am happy with them even though they’re not yet feature-complete: I got excellent discounts and they’re very usable as is.
I see this as a win-win for consumers. Do you want to wait until the product is complete and buy it at full price, essentially following the usual release model? Sure, you can still do that. Do you want to buy in at a lower price and take some risks? That’s also an option as long as you accept that things might not work out as expected. Nobody loses out.
Of course, lots of tech companies like to release unfinished products at full price. That’s clearly bullshit (cough cough Rabbit r1 cough cough Tesla)
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MIDI Goblin
Very inexpensive, and you probably can think up a way you can use it to mess with MIDI CC.
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