Electroplankton Theremin for the 21th Century

[Taro Toporific]

[floatr][/floatr] New handheld hardware from Electroplankton man
via B2 / Pocket Gamer news, 24 July 2006--- Installation artist Toshio Iwai wowed the gaming world with Electroplankton, his wacky sea creature-based synthesiser for Nintendo DS. Now he's going one stage further and launching his own handheld music-making device. Called Tenori-On, it's a collaboration between Iwai and Japanese electronics firm Yamaha... consists of a 16 by 16 grid of LED buttons within a square aluminium frame about the same size as a lightpen tablet, and also contains two in-built speakers.... LED buttons can either be lightly strummed, sort of like a harp, or alternatively pressed down, whereby each button lights up....

[Charles]

[Visitor K]

i saw jim orourke fiddling with something that looked like this (maybe a prototype) last year after a show with saxaphonist akira sakata. he had headphones on, so i didnt hear it, but it looked like he was having fun.

[rebuto]

[Taro Toporific]

Anyone know by any chance if this thing has a midi output? to use it as an external controller...

wouldn't that be useful.

Damn, if I can tell if there any midi output since there is no description of the Tenori-On device's specifications. Meh.

While visiting the Tenori-On website I found it impossible to cut-and-paste the description of the product or point to the SPECIFIC page/information URL (because of crappy Flash design). That's just B-A-D for publicity and PR.

Why do Japanese sites screw up such obvious needs like making the text of a Flash site available to users? Gee, like how I'm supposed to praise the Tenori-On product if I cannot refer to specific information, a URL sub-page, or quote any the contents? Arrrg.

[Taro Toporific]

i saw jim orourke fiddling with something that looked like this (maybe a prototype) last year after a show with saxaphonist akira sakata.

UPDATE: Olly Farshisays: I filmed his impromptu mini-performance on my mobile phone.
CLICK to view ToshioIwai.mp4 (1.5MB)

[Visitor K]

if you click on "introduction" at their website, you can see what looks to be a midi out in the lower right-hand corner.

[Taro Toporific]

Some technical info on the tenori-on:
"Tenori-On uses the Midi protocol and can communicate with other Tenori-On, synchronizing them. Remote mode allows you to control Tenori-On from a PC or another Midi instrument."

http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/tenori-on
http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/toshio-iwai-futuresonic

Via http://news.3yen.com/2006-07-25/japanese-theremin-for-the-21th-century/#comments