Video: Yamaha’s Tenori-on

It took Yamaha 6 years to develop the Tenori-on, and the electronic musical instrument will finally go on sale in Japan next month. A promotional event for the Tenori-on was held in Tokyo yesterday, and reporters got to try out making music with its 16 by 16 grid of LED switches:

It will hit stores on May 12th and cost 121,000 yen (about $1200).

16 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - April 26, 2008 at 1:21 pm

Categories: Technology Tags: gadgets, japan, music, tech, Technology, tenori-on, yamaha

Montsan

I saw one of these demoed last year and it looked quite impressive in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing. I still don’t quite understand how one could actually master such a tool when it’s so difficult to tell differentiate between the white dots…
Pingback: Video: Yamaha’s Tenori-on · Buwin Technology
http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Looks super, but 121,000 yen? I’d pay up to 20,000 yen. I’ll give it a month before Chinese knock-offs are selling for 2,000 yen.
http://www.sanokame.com Sano

Reminds me of the KORG Kaoss pad. For 121,000 yen you can get the Kaoss Pad KP3, it’s actually cheaper and that’s professional DJ equipment. This thing looks really hard to master too. Oh well, it’s pretty cool anyway.
bob

looks like an overpriced toy to me. there are plenty of devices and software that do much more amazing things for a lot less. hard to believe it took 6 years to develop!
Kirbz

Decently pricey for what I would consider a must-have present for someone that has ADHD.
mike

it looks like a big puchi puchi to me. pretty cool though, but agree with everyone else, it’s a bit expensive
Dr. Pepsi

I find an etch-a-sketch more impressive.
jjjtango

hhmm…. it would be more impressive if the notes didn’t sound like my keyboard. Cool to look at but very pointless. With that price tag, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went out of business.

Zing

They don’t have to – you can upload whatever samples you want.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

You can’t judge the instrument by the video linked above. You can’t play a sitar if you haven’t learned how to, same goes for this. Some unskilled journalist pushes a few buttons, that’s not “playing it”, that’s “playing around with it”.

I’m sure the Tenori-on has a high learning curve, but so does a piano. It’s an instrument, after all. Not being anything more than simply a music enthusiast myself, I won’t be buying this.
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

By the way, there’s a few demos in MP3 format:
http://www.global.yamaha.com/tenori-on/demo/index.html
jjjtango

You can definately judge the instrument by watching a news reporter play around with it. We got the gist of it… it plays electronic notes with cool light patterns and also plays beats according to the tempo.
Eric

Can anyone say Monome?

http://monome.org/40h
John Holmes

this is like playing Electroplankton on the Nintendo DS.
glitch

A lot of us have been waiting forever for this thing to hit someplace besides the United Kingdom (where it’s been selling briskly for ~599 GBP as part of a test-marketing program). In fact, I’ve been holding off as long as I can from ordering a unit out of the UK.

Two questions, though: First, does anybody know the stores in which it will be on sale come the 12th of May?

Second, the sole American distributor (Keyfax) is offering only limited quantities which will be available on a “first come, first served” basis. They are limiting it to a mere 100 units per month sold in the whole of the United States. Is Japan going to subscribe to this same asinine “scarity scheme” as the US?

Video: Yamaha’s Tenori-on

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