Behind the Curtain

We know this blog post is long overdue, but this is honestly the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write one all month 😅

November has been wild, and we have A LOT to talk about!

Gamma Batch 1 Shipped 😳

Starting with the biggest news: ALL OF GAMMA BATCH 1 HAS SHIPPED!!!

Man, it feels good to type that for the first time 😊 

The PCBs for Gamma landed the first week of November (after a small delay at customs) and we immediately got to work building. The first week of assembly was largely figuring out the most efficient processes to use and prioritizing what needed to be done first (we’ll get into this later in the blog).

After what felt like the longest 3 weeks of our lives, we finally shipped the last Batch 1 Gamma out on Friday, November 21st.

November flew by in a blur, but hearing from customers throughout the month pulled us back down to earth.

Feedback📡

Reviews

Getting feedback on something we poured our heart and soul into is terrifying. 

What if we missed something? What if people feel like the design isn’t intuitive? What if they don’t like the presets we made?

All these thoughts ran through our mind prior to the first reviews….

You can imagine the massive sigh of relief when we found that feedback is overwhelmingly positive so far! 🫠

You can read all public reviews at the bottom of Gamma’s product page, we also encourage you to leave a review there if you’re up for it. If you need some more time with the device first, then you can drop a comment on this blog instead 😊

Upcoming Software Features/Bug Fixes

Besides the public reviews, we also had a fair amount of people reach out to us directly with their thoughts - as well as feature requests and small bugs they happened to find.

Here’s what we’re aiming to address in the short term:

• Long press encoder to return to the home screen from the menu system.

• Enabling octave up/down shortcut while in the menus.

• Adding scales/keys other than standard major/minor.

• Ability to jump back/forward to any pet level you’ve already unlocked.

• Fix “MIDI” bug found when turning on -> off -> on.

• Fix “Buffer” bug found when switching keys.

• Fix “Hold” bug found when changing presets.

Here’s what we’re aiming to address in the medium to long term:

• Random preset generator.

• Audio over USB.

• USB MIDI IN.

• Stereo control (i.e. panning).

• Ability to put one preset on the chords and another to keys.

• Simple looper/sequencer.

• Fun live/performance features.

• Community focused features (i.e. sharing presets).

• Web editor for easier preset creation (this one is the farthest out).

If you feel like we’re missing something in the above, drop a comment!

Thank you to everyone for their thoughts/comments/feedback. It’s awesome to be reminded just how passionate everyone is about this project. We’re so excited to continue making it better with every software update!

Assembly Behind the Scenes 🏭

Shipping Batch 1 was no easy feat. 

Besides the time consuming nature of assembling in house, we also had to contend with learning new assembly processes, organizing build stations, dropping off shipments every other day, and staying on top of customer inquiries on our progress.

Saying it was a lot of work would be an understatement.

Yet…it was so satisfying seeing units go out the door after all this time!

As previously mentioned, week 1 was largely spent working on efficiencies - but we did also get a small batch out the door that Friday.

Weeks 2 and 3 were entirely spent going through each task in the build process over and over and over again…We worked day and night (even through the weekends) to get these out the door as fast as possible. We knew people had been waiting so long, so we didn’t want to waste a second.

All in all, no major problems popped up during the assembly period, which I largely account to our experience designing and manufacturing in-house products. There are a lot of moving parts and variables, but having gone through this a few times (NMSVE, MIDI BLASTER, NM2) played a huge role in creating a smooth assembly process.

Now that Gamma Batch 1 is complete, we set our sights on Batch 2….

Gamma Batch 2 Timeline ⏳

*Ding* *Ding* ROUND 2!!! 🥊

Batch 1 took longer than expected because we were finishing the product while also ordering components, all while facing some unavoidable delays.

While unavoidable delays may still crop up, we expect a much faster delivery of Batch 2 units since development is largely behind us.

Batch 2 is currently looking to ship at the end of January.

As always, we will keep the community updated on this timeline 😊

LC-1X+ Update 🚨

Don’t worry, despite all the Gamma news we haven’t forgotten about LC-1X+, our collab with Boomlights on their MIDI lighting solution.

We currently have all parts on order for a small batch - enough to cover the current pre-orders and have a little stock left over as well!

As of writing this, we have a sample PCB in the mail going to Boomlight’s head engineer for confirmation to proceed with mass manufacturing.

Expect LC-1X+’s to start shipping in December or early January.

Black Friday Deals 💸

It's still insane to me that it’s the end of November 🤔

Anywho, the end of November means Black Friday deals are about to drop!

NMSVE and NM2 will be 10% off until early next week; if you’ve been eyeing these products we recommend you act quickly, as stock is already pretty low 😬

Other TIN News

• I think we covered everything in the meat of the blog post this time around! Good job everyone *pats on back*.

TIN fun fact (the more you know 🌈🌠)

The name “Gamma” has an unexpected origin. 

I was on a call with Schuyler talking about Gamma’s first prototype (at that time codenamed “Morbius”), and I happened to mention the gamification element with the pets at the core of the device. In classic fashion, I mispronounced “game-ification” as “gamma-fication” 🤦 After having a good laugh, we both agreed the name “Gamma” sounded pretty cool.

As fate would have it, the word “Gamma” is the third letter in the Greek alphabet, and this synth would be our third product line as a company.