With one month to go, Scott Stevenson has already received commitments of $24,568 – almost one-quarter of his $100,000 target – in the Kickstarter campaign for his new musical instrument, the Mune.

The Mune is a hand-held instrument that allows electronic musicians to hold something the audience can actually see, thereby enhancing the performance. Electronic musicians now play a platform that sits flat on a table, which is a bit of a drag for performers working to connect with an audience.

Though the launch of the crowdfunding campaign is the first major announcement by St. John’s-based Mune, the company has been working away for years perfecting the instrument and developing a product that can be made in commercial quantities.  

Stevenson, an electronic musician who studied computer engineering at Memorial University of Newfoundland, has been perfecting the Mune for four years. He presented a prototype of the instrument at a demo day I attended in May 2014 in St. John’s. At the time, he said he hoped to launch the product in a Kickstarter campaign once he had a more “manufacturable” product.

He now is in a position to seek buyers for the product and launched the Kickstarter campaign last week.

“The Mune is a brand new device that combines the power of digital music gear with the simplicity, soul and expressiveness of an acoustic instrument,” said the company on the Kickstarter campaign page. “It's expressive, simple to pick up and play, and allows your audience to easily see the interactions you have with sound.”

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The instrument features 24 sensors placed on a panel, so the musician has a vast variety of synthesized sounds based on the combination of sensors touched. What’s more, the system operates off its own software called Symphony, which is open-source. That means that as more and more people use the Mune and dabble in the software, they can share the new sounds that they have discovered.

“My immediate plans for the instrument will be to work with the Mune open-source software once it's released to develop hardware that can bridge the gap between the digital possibilities of the instrument and the analog space,” Patrick McMaster, a Montreal synthesizer musician, posted on the Kickstarter page.

The Mune project began at Memorial in 2012 when electroacoustic composer Andrew Staniland wanted to improve on digital interfaces, which he found unsatisfying. He began a research project, bringing in Stevenson to help re-imagine electronic instruments.

They went through dozens of designs and created a few prototypes. The team grew to more than 10 people.

Stevenson and his team have been able to attract 72 backers in a range of price brackets in the Kickstarter campaign. The lowest price that lets the buyer receive the Mune is $776, which the company describes as the “early-bird special”. Only 20 purchasers could take advantage of this deal and it has already sold out.

The Mune has attracted four backers at $899 and one at the deluxe $2,499. The campaign also lets people support the project a lower price brackets ranging from $5 to $199.

The Kickstarter campaign lasts until Sept. 24, and the company expects to be able to ship the Mune in September, 2017.