Nobular — first instrument
Instruments you can see.
The Sweet 16 is a 4×4 grid of push-encoders with a 4″ screen that shows all 16 values at once. No more guessing what your knobs are set to mid-performance.
The idea
Great encoder controllers already exist. What none of them do is show you the state of your instrument. On stage, that means staring at a laptop to answer the simplest question: where are my knobs?
Sweet 16 puts a 4″ display at the centre of a 16-encoder matrix. Every value, every page, visible in one glance — the way a mixing desk shows you its faders.
Open by default
The firmware will be open-source, and we publish our costs honestly — prototype bill of materials, production targets, the lot. No black boxes.
We're a small London company building performance instruments for producers who play them.
Sweet 16 — at a glance
- 16 push-encoders, 4″ colour display
- 128 presets in 8 banks, Program Change switching
- Snapshots — capture all 64 values, 16 slots per preset
- Morph between snapshots with adjustable time
- Motion recorder — loop a knob performance per preset
- Per-encoder LFOs and macros (1 encoder → 15 CC targets)
- USB-C + DIN MIDI in/out, thru/merge routing
- Everything editable on-device — no editor app
MIDI 1.0 at launch; MIDI 2.0 arrives as a free firmware update.
Try it now
The simulator runs the actual Sweet 16 firmware compiled to WebAssembly — not a mockup. Drag knobs, push them, switch presets. It sends real MIDI via WebMIDI.
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