The creators of CHOMPI – a new sampling keyboard that’s designed to make musique concrète style audio manipulation fast and fun – shared this sneak preview of the portable sampler.
As the video demonstrates, CHOMPI is designed to make it easy to sample sounds and play them back, using the built-in keyboard. The interface provides big, dedicated controls for sampling, pitch, sample editing and effects.
CHOMPI also features a looper, so you can record phrases and play over them, and even overdub layers.
Features:
- Flexible hardware platform
- Built on the powerful Daisy platform (by Electro-Smith) unlocking easy firmware updates, and flexible programmability options.
- Screenless workflow, w/ RGB LED indicators & endless switching encoders for multi-page parameter controls
- Utilizes the widely popular MX Cherryswitches for its Hot-Swap enabled, two octave keyboard (switches & keycaps are infinitely customizable)
- Custom Panel Enclosure allows for limited edition colorways (artist series already in the works)
- Custom made BOBO Keycaps
- Quirky sampling Engine
- Unique Sampling Workflow Encourages User Exploration
- 7 Voice Polyphony
- 14 Slots to Save/Recall Presets
- Sample Playback Speed & Direction Controls
- Sample Start & End Point Controls (w/ Additional Attack + Decay Envelope)
- Single Knob Multi-FX Section (Multi-Mode Filter, Lo-Fi Saturation, Granular Delay-Reverb, & More)
- Tape-Style Looper
- Sound-on-sound stereo looping engine
- Transport knob provides control over: Manual Tape Scrubbing, Loop Playback Speed / Direction, as well as other additional ‘easter eggs’ to be found by advanced users
Pricing and Availability:
The developers will be making CHOMPI available via a Kickstarter project launching later this month, priced at $499 USD for backers (normally $599). See the CHOMPI site for more information.
via Petros, Goudron
Seems like a lot of fun, but a stiff price for a simple device. Let’s see how it develops!
how do i connect this without using a laptop or anything
I am so into this. All the stuff I want simplified. Makes me think of an organelle but…simplified and intuitive.
Until first users demand more features and the feature creep will set in and it will transform into a shift function shortcut machine in no time.
looks fun Im thinking a 300$ would be more fit for the capabilities
but I haven’t played with it . def looks like a nice tactile feel.
now, that looks like fun to play with.
Sure wish it had many so you can run those loops along a drum machine
Them be TE prices! I would buy one of two if it was in the Volca range which seems appropriate?
looks nice…i was wondering that no stepsequencer is implemented, but maybe it is possible in some way, even if there would be only 15 steps possible in the bottom row. price is quite high if you compare it to other samplers that have much more control…but some people will still love it. i like it! 🙂
Super fast, super simple, and looks super fun. Sampling and mangling is what I really have focused on the last few years. Definitely curious.
I definitely appreciate the simplicity and focus on just a few bits of functionality!
I love that mechanical keyboard switches have returned to instrument design. Between this, Perkons-HD 01 and NINA, the studio is finally clickediclacking again 🙂
As someone who has never worked for a synth company or designed or sold anything in my life, I think this thing should have been priced differently. I also would have made some changes to the features and aesthetics.
So different price, look and features. Different instrument altogether then, isn’t it?
Very cool and sweet – the website states there will be an ecosystem of music devices – making one curious.
Hopefully the handle is removeable, looks like it can get into the way with other things on your desktop.
Also there are some good and cheap sampling apps for your phone and many hardware loopers (pedals). A lot of competition exists.
Apps…………..finds its way into every conversation. As for hardware, I can say that ive used every looper device, tape loops, Instruo Lubdah, VCV rack, organelle, “Apps”, Boss loopers and EHX 45000-95000. I have a lot of experience in the “loop/overdub” and sampling space. This is a welcome addition, apps and vst’s are a dime a dozen.
At the very similar price point you can get Roland SP-404 sampler with many more features which incidentally received firmware update 2 days ago and it doesn’t look like a toy 😉
Unless I’m missing something, it’s built on the Daisy platform which is like an Arduino for music. Given you can buy these things for $29 (not in bulk), the price does seem steep. With that said, it looks like a fantastic fun toy, and I’ll probably end up backing it.
Anybody that thinks the electronics have anything to do with the price of synth gear has never done any DIY.
The buttons on this cost more than the electronics.
What you’re paying for is a well-designed, well-built piece of hardware, not for a chip and some resistors.
Yes….and no. It is not difficult to determine that the margins on this are high, and understandably so, and all you have to do is peruse the site to understand how and whom actually built this.
As for the keys costing more than the electronics, possibly depending the sourcing.
Totally agree, but these DIY boards exist to remove the tremendous overhead & capital once required for traditional hardware development. Not trying to trivialize the work put in, and it’s incredibly impressive if this was built by a team of 2 people, but given they didn’t have to develop their own hardware, it does seem expensive IMO. They have clearly sunk a lot into marketing, design, and thought deeply about the User Experience and I wish them the best.
“given they didn’t have to develop their own hardware”
You really need to look into what the Daisy does, it’s just one component out of many and although it accelerates hardware development it does not eliminate hardware development.
Exactly – it’s like people bitching about the fact that Korg used a Raspberry Pi in the the modwave, wavestate and Opsix.
Using a inexpensive, common component is just smart design and might even ensure repairability.
But hardware design is a lot more than choosing a hardware platform!
If y’all can build a sustainable business by selling something like this for 200 bucks, by all means, do it! Don’t sit on that magical formula, but use it to make great affordable gear for all of us.
Exactly – they’ll find that no indie developer can build a sustainable business by selling something like this for 200 bucks.
Even Behringer couldn’t make this for $200 bucks. Look at the synths that they’ve announced under the $200 price point – they’re all cheapy plastic knockoffs.
If the price of a piece of gear is a problem for you, just be honest and say “This is out of my price range.” I don’t get the constant criticism towards creative people that actual design cool stuff and take the risks to make it.
spoilt for choice if you have the money for these fun little gadgets…
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2023/02/17/kiviak-instruments-wofi-sampling-synth-sneak-preview/
This looks awesome! I’d like to see more companies focus on making electronic music gear that’s fun and easy to use.
The gear I go back to, again and again, is not the gear that can do a million things (Octatrack, cough cough), but the gear that you can just pick up and have fun with.
Like others have said, this would be more interesting to me if it were cheaper, but I understand that small companies can’t compete on price, they have to compete by doing something unique and original, and this fits the bill.
Looks really nice but for 500 bucks its a hard pass I would think about it at something around 150-200…
For the price of a Korg Volca? That tiny plastic thing with hardly any buttons? I think $499 is a pretty reasonable price. Not knowing their margins, im sure a lot of people will buy this but $200 is just strange thinking. You might own an Ipad.
I also thought this would be interesting for $150 maybe even $200 but not for $1 more than that because then it’s in the price range of something like the liven lofi 12 or Model:samples which are way more powerful than this-
You hit the nail on the head, Tim. Its clearly going after the people who want the experience of sampling to be as enjoyable as the result. I like it in concept but it’s a pretentious market-grab triggered by Teenage Engineering and their ilk.
They would probably make more revenue selling it at $200USD at volume.
“it’s a pretentious market-grab”
Comments like that make think that electronic musicians are turning into luddites, afraid of anything new, and only wanting cheap copies of gear from 40 years ago.
$200 would bankrupt you quickly. You can’t build something like this for $200 much less turn a profit selling it at that price, not unless you outsource production to China.
$499 is a totally fair price for a nicely-designed bespoke device like this. Seems that those who spend their days haunting the Synthtopia comment section to complain about the cost of gear should become gainfully employed… you could hardly manufacture something like this in the US for less than $200.