The future of the music instrument industry lies in synthesizers, and nowhere is this more apparent than the suite of tiny, pocket-sized synths more than capable of making bleeps and bloops. You’ve got tiny Korgs and Pocket Operators, and the time is ripe for people to wake up to tiny, pocket-sized synths.
The latest in a wide, diverse range of pocketable synthesizers is the Bitty. It’s a pocket-sized drum machine that’s the closest we’ve seen to a pocketable MPC to date. It’s a Kickstarter project that’s already completely funded only a day into the campaign.
The core of the Bitty is built around the Arduino, and for good reason. The last few years have seen some incredible advances in Arduino audio libraries, and this is no exception. The Bitty is built around the Mozzi library that gives it actual oscillators and ready-made wavetables. The Bitty comes with ‘software packs’ that include the Theremin Bitty, Techno Bitty, Basement Bitty, Trap Bitty, Lofi Bitty Bitty, and Beach Bitty. All of these are different sounds and samples, turning this tiny device into an all-in-one sampling solution. Seriously: look at how many Pocket Operators there are, how much they sell for, and realize this is a device that can download new samples and sounds. There’s a market here.
The Arduino-compatible Bitty is available on Kickstarter right now, with the base reward starting at under $100, with delivery in February, 2020. You can check out the video demo below.
“The future of the music instrument industry lies in synthesizers …”
Oy, Brian, I know you do this on purpose to provoke discussion, and I’ve fallen for it, but these dangerous comments will one day come back to bite you when you decide to run for office, or perhaps are on trial for something unrelated.
As for the kickstarter … I’d buy it as soon as I record a song that needs the sound of a saw cutting wood, an Atari 2600 making an explosion sound effect, or a 20 Hz repetition of “doink” sound.
haha electronic “music” am I right?? when will they make one that plays the beatles?
Why something like this over the PO-33? That’s an already well-established pocket sampler. What does this do that the PO-33 cannot? Something like the PO also has the ability to record and mangle arbitrary samples which bitty does not,and even the backer price for the bitty is above that of the PO-33.
I thought the same exact thing. Looking at the Kickstarter, however, it seems the Bitty allows you to change sample banks and has more ‘hackability’ than the PO-33 which is mostly focused around sampling sounds via the mic or input signal chain.
Also those big fat buttons on the Bitty look fun. I have a few PO-s and while the buttons are great they are pretty tiny.
The Bitty also apparently has 12-bit output, to provide a ‘crunchy’ authentic sound.
Similar products, different niche.
Pretty much THIS. Using the Mozzi library makes this even less impressive or needed. Plug in arduino, load code, add a dollar worth of components=profit though. I will never understand people.