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.
Enormous bang for buck with The Swarm !
For all those who gripe about not have the space for … , this takes care of that.
FWIW, this appears to be, amongst other things, a new midi keyboard. Hard to figure out more than that, though.
Guesswork:
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: 
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.
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.
Some sounds in their instagram:
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 
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.
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)
MIDI Goblin
Very inexpensive, and you probably can think up a way you can use it to mess with MIDI CC.
I agree. But I also see an important distinction between “being a beta tester” and just using a product that isn’t feature-complete, but is sufficiently low on bugs in the features it does already have that you’re able to use it freely and reliably for those features.
I deliberately say “low on bugs” because no product is ever bug-free. The question is whether a bug is what developers call a “show-stopper”, which for those of us who perform live is not even a metaphor. If the bugs are minimal enough that you’d consider performing a live show with the thing (use your imagination if you don’t perform live), then I’d argue you’re just a user, not “paying to be a beta tester” as some people so often complain.
Yes, there are situations where companies do overpromise and underdeliver and ship products with show-stopping bugs in their core features. But there are also many that just take an iterative approach to growing and improving their product. And in those cases, often you end up getting new features for free that a couple of decades back would have required waiting for new hardware and then buying the new box.
Ooh, this looks very cool! Right now, I could do everything this does with an iOS app and/or Axoloti…BUT, I also typically have far more interesting things for which I’d like to be using those devices. So having a cheap and cheerful little hackable box like this would let me offload those functions to the Goblin and free up resources. Yes, please!
And I like the idea of my Minitaur having a Goblin bestie. Mythical creatures unite!
I notice that there are already a lot of videos for the MIDI Goblin, like – how to save patches for the Volca Keys, which doesn’t have a MIDI out. This guy is definitely planning to support this device.
Was this one mentioned already? HiChord - Pocket Chord Synthesizer
Another small synth likely to awake skepticism or plain lack of interest here while doing great in their crowdfunding campaign. 
Tha’s the smallest screen I’ve ever seen. A screen for ants.
$250 USD seems like a bonkers price for what appears to be a neat stocking filler.
Where is our Brave New World poster to really excoriate this ? Though as icaria36 points out, as a crowdfunding thing this is really ringing bells !
Another design win for Electrosmith. They are really making a lot of people a lot of money.
