A Czech Synthesizer Maker Just Launched a Thumb Piano You Can Play Through Motion

Bastl Instruments, a synthesizer company based in Brno, Czech Republic, has released a new electronic instrument called the Kalimba. It combines a physical design inspired by the traditional African thumb piano with digital sound creation and motion sensors. The device started a crowdfunding campaign on May 7th at an early price of 389 EUR (about $420), with a final retail price expected to be 500 EUR.

The name references the traditional kalimba—an acoustic instrument played by plucking metal tines with your thumbs. Bastl's digital version keeps that core idea but adds electronics underneath. The main interface is 12 metal bars you can touch and pluck, but the device also listens to sounds around it through built-in microphones and responds to how you tilt and move it through a motion sensor (similar to what makes your smartphone know when you've rotated it).

How It Makes Sound

The Kalimba has two different "sound engines"—think of them as two separate toolkits for creating noise. One uses a method called FM synthesis, a mathematical approach to sound design that's been around since the 1980s. The other simulates how real acoustic instruments vibrate and resonate, so the tines actually behave a bit like they would on a real kalimba.

The microphones and motion sensor feed into these engines in real time. When you pluck the bars, hit them, or knock on the device, the microphones pick that up and send it into the sound engine. When you tilt or rotate the whole instrument, the motion sensor changes which sounds come out of each speaker and adds effects.

On top of the two core engines, there is a suite of digital effects—reverb to simulate a big room, delay to create echoes, distortion, chorus, and others. The instrument also has a looper so you can record what you play and layer new sounds on top, and an arpeggiator that automatically plays sequences of notes.

Why This Matters

Bastl Instruments has a track record of sharing its designs openly. Since the company was founded in 2013, it has released the source code and circuit diagrams for most of its products, allowing other musicians and makers to study, modify, and build on the work.

The fact that a small, independent company spent three years developing this instrument suggests real engineering effort went into making all these different input methods—the touch-sensitive bars, the microphones, the motion sensor—work together without delay. That latency-free response is crucial for a musical instrument; any noticeable lag between what you do and what you hear breaks the feeling of playing.

The broader context here is that motion sensors and touch interfaces, which we take for granted in phones and tablets, are still relatively new to musical instruments. This design shows how those technologies have matured enough that smaller manufacturers can use them to create something genuinely expressive and new. We saw this happen before when touch screens moved from smartphones into other devices; now it seems to be happening with motion sensors in specialized creative tools.

What's Next

At 500 EUR (around $540), the Kalimba sits in the same price range as premium desktop synthesizers from other makers like Elektron and Arturia. The crowdfunding campaign runs through June 6th.

If the Kickstarter succeeds, it may be a sign that other instrument makers will follow a similar path—blending familiar, tactile interfaces with sensors and digital processing to create instruments that feel physical and responsive. That tends to be what draws people to music-making in the first place: the direct connection between what your hands do and what comes out of the speakers.