Or good ideas and poor implementation and quality (Alesis AirFx comes to mind, which I truly enjoyed 5 presets of [no tweaking possible] until it broke for no reason, as does their Photon X25, which also broke for no reason, while sitting around not being used).

I think the divide between controller and instrument is an odd one to make. Every instrument has both features, it’s just that recently we’ve been able to separate the two.
Which would be really useful if there were actually an assortment of controller types but I can’t afford $700 for a midi horn much to my chagrin. But a computer is, without the slightest bit of leeway for argument, incomparably supperior to a sampler not the least of which because a computer can contain many samplers which are not possible in hardware that’d be cheap enough to bother trying to sell at this time.

I daresay that Mr. Iwai would feel much the same about many of our daily visionary music thoughts and I’d be the first to throw many projects and the concommitant cash his way to develop them.

Then again, I thought the Kaoss Pad was an unbelievable quantum leap in hardware until I actually saw what it did. How can a company of that age and experience mess up something so simple as proper midi out implementation?!

If I could afford I-CubeX’s essentially modular hardware controller pieces I’d never even glance at something similarly prices from a hardware manufacturer.

Maybe someone will figure out a way to make OSC plug-ins popular amongst 3rd party developers and somehow bring the price and speed of production of Continuums to the mortal realm? I’m not holding my breath.

Then again, as much as I’m impressed with the monome, also, I’m rather glad that I found free software and a deal on a touchscreen for $186 which isn’t a terribly far cry from similar performance features. Sadly, it broke for no reason and is awaiting a replacement.

Toshio Iwai, the Tenori-On’s designer, has been doing sound art / interactive visuals since the early 90s, and I think has done quite a lot of innovative things. The fact that he got Yamaha to productize it is a big achievement, which is why I think it’s appropriate here — it’s proof that musical instruments can take any form or function, not just those that you’ve seen in the past.

OK, what should I copy and give less visionary features to?

(sorry, I had to)