Pocket Integrator Turns Your Pocket Operator Into a Maraca

Electronic instruments tend to sound very digital — even when they rely on analog sound synthesis hardware. This is because they sidestep the imperfections that human musicians impart on the music they play, such as tiny timing mistakes or variations in pressure. Now you can reintroduce those imperfections by using MSL's Pocket Integrator to convert your Pocket Operator drum machine into a maraca.

Pocket Operator is a line of small, affordable electronic instruments. Depending on the specific model, they can either synthesize or sample various sounds. The PO-32 "Tonic," for example, is a drum and percussion synthesizer. But like all drum machines, users choose the beats on which to play sounds. Even if that is the sound of a maraca, every beat will sound exactly the same unless otherwise specified. The Pocket Integrator is an add-on board that changes that by letting you shake the whole device when you want to play.

Coming soon on CrowdSupply, Pocket Integrator is a handy accelerator-equipped expansion board. Shake or tap it to play whatever sound samples you have loaded up on your Pocket Operator. It has its own built-in Microchip ATSAM4S8BB microcontroller to interpret the data from the six-axis LSM6DSO32X iNEMO accelerometer/gyroscope. It also includes USB MIDI clock out, an additional analog sync channel, and a battery eliminator that lets you power the Pocket Operator and Pocket Integrator via USB instead of batteries.

The Pocket Integrator is open source (OSHWA certification pending). Subscribe on the CrowdSupply website to get a notification when the Pocket Integrator becomes available for pre-order.