The Tenori-On, the grid-based musical instrument with whimsical sequenced lights created by Toshio Iwai, has been gradually becoming more affordable. The original model, complete with its rounded metal case, has already been cut to US$999 here in North America. Now, Yamaha announces that it is making an “Orange” version which also slices costs. A plastic case stands in for the metal one, the lights are orange instead of white, and lights appear only on one side. Yamaha says this is for “home use” — that is, you don’t need the device lighting up on the other side if no one’s watching you. Unfortunately, by removing this novelty and eliminating the Tenori-On’s fantastic battery power option, I suspect Yamaha may also be slicing out some of the appeal of the device.

In the UK, MusicRadar reports the device will ship at £649. Here in the US, I’ve confirmed with distributor Keyfax that the price will be $699. Now, unlike other recent grid rivals (Launchpad, APC40, Ohm64) and the monome, the Tenori-On is capable of making sound. But I’d be inclined to either spend the extra $400 and make it light up on both sides and use it in bed sans wires or skip the idea altogether. I’m curious to know if others feel the same way.

MusicRadar also gets the scoop from Yamaha in the UK that a firmware upgrade is due for the Tenori-On fixing its somewhat problematic MIDI sync:

We’re told that this will address a number of areas, including syncing of the Tenori-on to DAWs and also the MIDI sync implementation.

Yamaha announces ‘more affordable’ Tenori-on Orange [MusicRadar]
Tenori-On product page [Yamaha worldwide]
Tenori-On USA [Keyfax]

It’s worth poking around the store if you do own a Tenori-On. Those brave early adopters can now make the instrument a pretty practical addition to a live set, with a nice case, stand, and (finally) stand mic stand adapter to feature it in your sets. And in another nod to the design, the Tenori-On recently entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In the meantime, I’m still curious to see if someone mashes up a synth engine and monome to make a computer-less monome.

Today was full of good news for people interested in carrying pads in the palm of their hand.

Fans of the Nintendo DS in North America, the Korg DS-10 Plus synthesizer for Big N’s game system is now coming to your side of the Pacific Ocean. (That also bodes well, I think, for other parts of the world.) The DS-10 I think really deserves some credit for making a straight-up music title a hit on gaming platforms, and its success certainly surpassed my own expectations. It’s not a game, it’s not an interactive experience, it’s not a music game – it’s actually a synth and music workstation that happens to run on a game platform. The DS-10 Plus beefs up the original’s features, though it now has a commercially-available rival in the form of Rockstar’s Beaterator for PSP.

In Plus for both the DS and DSi:

• MUTE/SOLO built into the SONG mode
• EDIT/PLAY enabled for all modes within the SONG mode

Apparently DSi-exclusive (as I had speculated in the original story on the new edition):

• Twice the analog synths (4 of them, instead of 2)
• Twice the drum machines (8 instead of 4)
• Twice the tracks (12 instead of 6)
• Expanded song mode: programmable track mute, realtime editing (that is, edit parameters inside the song mode
• Two effects layers instead of just the usual effects routing (the equivalent of running two instances of DS-10)

(Previously: Korg DS-10 Plus Coming, with Beefed-Up Features for Nintendo DSi)

I’m also pleased that, if the Joystiq story confirming North American distribution is correct, only the extra effects layers require the newer-model Nintendo DSi. It sounds as though the rest of this functionality works just fine on other DS models.

Correction: As Liam notes in comments, and as I’ve clarified above, many of the new features are indeed DSi-exclusive. That means this is probably worth upgrading if you have a DSi, and a reasonable purchase if you don’t already have DS-10, but something you’ll ignore if you have a pre-DSi system and the earlier DS-10 title. Joystiq apparently mis-interpreted the press release, which is easy enough to do; it’s confusingly written.

XSEED press release

Via Joystiq’s David Hinkle:
XSEED bringing Korg DS-10 Plus to North America

Policy, intellectual property, and changing business models remain hot threads to follow on this site as we watch the transformation of music distribution in the electronic age. This time, we welcome a new contributor to look inside the issues. Surprise: one radio host sides with the record industry, and the issues may not be as clear as you think. Jo explains. –Ed.

Imagine this:  A track from your new record is being played out on the radio — nonstop. All the major indie stations in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami and Atlanta have picked it up. At this point, I’m sure you’ve already ordered a fancy synth that you plan to pay for with your big check. But there is a problem: You did an acoustic version of Jimmy Edgar’s “My Beats.” So who gets paid? Jimmy Edgar. Guess who does not get paid? You!

The Performance Rights Act is a bill before the US Congress that would require terrestrial radio stations to pay royalties to the performer of a track. It is being supported by artists like Billy Corgan (who recently testified on behalf of the artists’ rights group, the musicFIRST coalition) Don Henley, Jay-Z, Billy Idol, as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Aside from the issue of “fairness,” the United States is one of the few countries that does not require payment to the performing artist when her track is played on the radio.

Celia Hirschman, host of “On the Beat” on Los Angeles’ KCRW public radio, a broadcast on changes and trends in the music business, says she agrees with the act. (Celia notes these are her personal views, and do not necessarily reflect the position of KCRW.)

“For decades, the laws have favored a free license to play artists’ music on radio,” says Hirschman. “This was ratified by Congress and basically accepted by all concerned…This free pass no longer makes any sense, especially for commercial radio. A reasonable compulsory license fee for all radio, with lower rates to non-commercial is an equitable solution for artists and labels.  Commercial radio stations earn their income by selling advertising because of their programming content.  It’s only fair that the content providers are compensated.”

“This free pass no longer makes any sense.”

Celia Hirschman, host of “On the Beat” on KCRW

Opposing the bill is the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) who claim the legislation amounts to a “tax” and will force many radio stations to go bankrupt. Additionally, opponents of the bill point out that many artists were first discovered because of radio exposure, which translates into sales (ticket sales, album sales and merchandise) and promotion of their brand. If the station goes under, so does the performing artists’ potential income.

Dennis Wharton, EVP of NAB, claims that the RIAA “relies on cherry-picking international examples that paint a distorted picture of copyright law.” “The US protects sound recordings for 45 years longer than Canada and many countries in Europe, says Wharton. “If it’s “international parity” that RIAA is looking for, they ought to examine the entire landscape.”

In fact, the international landscape is not equal.  Many countries in Europe run stations owned or subsidized by government funding. The foundation of our copyright laws are different as well. In the United States, we use the term “copyright” whereas many European countries use a term equivalent to “author’s rights.” “Copyright” reflects an attitude that is concerned with the restriction of uses for economic reasons, whereas the term “author’s rights” reflects an attitude that is concerned with the extension of the author’s intellect and self.

I recently spoke with Brian Lee Corber, an IP attorney who has closely followed the Performance Rights Act. In his opinion the bill will not pass. “Collecting royalties for the songwriter is already inaccurate; it’s based off of surveys. Logistically, collecting royalties for the performer is even more complicated…what happens when the performer is an orchestra?” Corber feels this logistical nightmare may make it difficult for the legislature to justify passing this bill.

As a reaction to the Performance Rights Act, NAB is backing the Local Radio Freedom Act which calls for no tax or fee for the performance of a sound recording on the radio. As of March 24th, 9 more lawmakers signed onto the Local Radio Freedom Act, making the total number of co-sponsors 158.

For More Information:

Music First Coalition: www.musicfirstcoalition.org

National Association of Broadcasters: www.nab.org

KCRW: www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ob

Sources:

Dougherty, F. Jay. Copyright Law Class at Loyola Law School, March 24, 2009.

“Mr. Corgan goes to Washington for a Bigger Piece of the Radio Pie”

http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2009/03/updated_mr_corgan_goes_to_wash.html

“NAB disputes RIAA Claim Ahead of Performance Rights Hearing”

http://radioink.com/Article.asp?id=1206143

“NAB, musicFIRST go Head-to-Head on Royalties”

http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=1235167

“Smashing Pumpkins Singer, Billy Corgan Testifies Before Congress”

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/news-smashing-pumpkins-singer-billy-corgan-testifies-before-congress

Los Angeles-based CDM contributor Jo Ardalan is the Managing Director and Founder of Fixed Noise, a community-based company specializing in audio software development, artist management and business development in tech and entertainment.

She’s a veteran of Waxploitation and Native Instruments, an experienced sound designer and engineer, and consultant.

And she has a Reaktor tattoo.

While I’m discussing the potential to take new directions in the arts and technology worldwide, and about ways in which creative technology can help repair the global economy, I’d be remiss if I didn’t make one sobering concession:

To many policy makers, the “arts” don’t count as the economy. If you’re employed as an artist, (and by extension in creative fields), you’re not a worker. Um… thanks?

Never mind that in the US alone, nearly 6 million people are employed in the arts – or that that figure itself is  probably wildly conservative, compared to the many more creative freelancers and the economies around them. (Ask companies like Yamaha, Roland, Korg, Avid, and Apple, who then sell products to musicians, many of them pros.)

It’s not just a US problem, either. The Dutch government – just the kind of liberal European government decried by American conservatives – had to be convinced of the value of its music technology research center in 2008.

To me, this shouldn’t be an issue that pits liberals versus conservatives. In fact, important issues around the economy have always been solved by cooperation between people of different political persuasions and parties. Unfortunately, conservatives have decided to declare the arts “liberal.”

The Heritage Foundation claims funding for the arts amounts to “pork.” Leading Republican Jeff Flake, when asked for an example of pork in the current proposed economic stimulus bill, replies:

"For example, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts," Flake says. "There’s no better example than that. How that stimulates the economy, I don’t know."

Does ‘Pork-Less’ Stimulus Bear Porcine Whiff? [NPR]

Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some pork in there – but the NEA funding is all Rep. Flake can come up with? This seems to be less about policy and more about reigniting culture wars.

Specifically, the conservative talking point is to focus on “productivity” and producing goods. The implication: if your job involves the arts, you’re not a “productive” member of society. (I’ll have to scratch my head to work out just what “goods” the financiers buying up bundled debt were producing. I’ll get back to you on that one.)

Of course, the way in which arts funding would stimulate the economy is obviously the way any other part of a stimulus package would – by providing support to people doing work in a field during rough times, support that in this case provides an educational and cultural resource shared by everyone. Ironically, part of the reason these aren’t arts jobs for individuals is that the US long ago eliminated direct funding for individual artists, a move designed to placate conservatives opposed to arts funding.

Yet for some conservatives, the arts have been used as a key talking point, even though it’s $50 million out of an $875 billion bill. That’s a tiny fraction of one percent of the funding, like arguing over the number of pennies in the tip on a $1500 steak dinner. Now, I’m all for some genuine fiscal conservatism – it’s badly needed in these economic times. And likewise, I would hope the opposition party in Washington is tough on the Administration plan. But where are those conservatives? Why are they beating up on a tiny line item over philosophical reasons? In the past, conservatives and Republicans had long been patrons and supporters of the arts. We could use some old-fashioned conservatism right now if we’re going to save the planet and its economy.

If you want to stimulate the economy, you invest in jobs, in making actual goods. In 2008, the US taxpayer funded hundreds of billions of dollars in handouts to the failed finance sector that singlehandedly created the economic crisis. Billions of those dollars wound up ending up as executive bonuses.

But, guess what? If you’re an artist, if you’re a creative person, you don’t even count as a person with a job.

I bring this up because if you do live in the US, you can call your Representative tomorrow and tell them what you think about this issue. It’s especially important if you’re a Republican or a conservative, because I think there are more important points to be made – and this can distract from them. This could be a bipartisan issue again. And for everyone else, we clearly – as an artistic community – have some messaging to work on. We can’t allow this to be a political issue, a wedge issue. And as former NEA chair Bill Ivey puts it:

"Once we move away from a consumerist view of a high quality of life — once we’re forced away from it — arts and culture, creativity, homemade art, those things can begin to come to the fore."

Stimulus Package Includes Millions For The Arts [NPR]

American citizens have turned their eyes to the incoming Obama Administration for all kinds of change. It wouldn’t be overstatement to say that just about every possible hope is being pinned to the new government – practical or not. But there’s good reason to believe some significant changes may be in store for both the areas of arts and technology, in ways that are not only relevant to CDM readers in the US, but could impact the global climate for these areas.

The federal government in the US can’t do everything, particularly when economic pressures are likely to make budgets tight. But they can do something to set the tone. Even more importantly, there should be opportunities for people who want change to become active and vocal, and to learn from each other, wherever we are in the world.

The agenda I think we’ll want as tech-using artists and makers:

• Defend innovation, commercial or common, from patent abuse (see: White House)
• Embrace open source – something that could benefit, again, commercial and community endeavors alike (see: BBC, OSI)
• Make the arts a priority, and one that via technology connects to renewed interest in math and science (see: NYT)

As you can see, regardless of your party affiliations or even country of citizenship, these are things we can work on together. For a start, I’ve already talked about personal changes – not simply governmental or political changes – that can make a difference in our communities:

Your Own Times of Change: Greetings, “Makers of Things”

Here are some additional issues that may well interface with the incoming US government, with impacts on the US and around the world.

Above: Remixing history, through the ears of the UK.
Obama’s Inauguration as Reaktor Mash-Up: Tim Exile

Technology: Patents

You can read the Obama technology agenda on the new White House site (itself a subject of discussion and hopes for new transparency).

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/technology/

A lot here reads like campaign language, so it’s tough to say what the actual policy will be. But this bullet should be especially interesting to digital musicians and visualists:

Reform the Patent System: Ensure that our patent laws protect legitimate rights while not stifling innovation and collaboration. Give the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) the resources to improve patent quality and open up the patent process to citizen review to help foster an environment that encourages innovation. Reduce uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation.

I think flawed patents may be the single biggest to new creative technologies. It impacts both hardware and software, and everyone from DIY makers to useful research in big corporations. (And yes, even big corporations can do research that’s useful to the rest of us. For one thing, even some of that corporate research is open source.)

Patents in the US in particular have been wildly abused. Companies who don’t make anything have effectively “squatted” on ideas that might someday turn into products. Those patents are defined so broadly that by the time a genuine innovator invents something real that works, they often find they’re in “violation” of a nonsense patent. Large businesses, acting defensively, have added to the problem by over-patenting their own research. Clearly, we need some common sense rules so that patents cover people actually making stuff.

There are few political issues more directly relevant to the music and visual technology covered on CDM. I’ve seen patents stifle innovation countless times on this site, and when that hasn’t happened, fear about patents has often been a factor in preventing people from more aggressively pursuing their inventions. It’d be unrealistic to expect the Obama Administration alone to magically solve these problems. But a friendly Administration could invigorate debate, meaning now is the time to get active on this issue. I’m no expert in patent law, but I’ll certainly welcome people who are to become involved.

I’d also like to see the open source community begin to formulate a way of responding to patent issues. Open source has almost exclusively dealt with licenses in copyright terms. Certainly, the community is sensitive to the issue, but just sitting around worrying about patents does nothing: open source inventors need to start formulating a concrete strategy. They’ll need help, not only from the government but experts in the field. But the timing is right.

Whether people want to open-source their inventions or not, I think DIYers and researchers and even businesses who actually create stuff have a common need here. So it will be equally important for that open source community not to just blindly rail against patents, but find policies that work for everyone. “Makers of things,” not just open source advocates, have an opportunity to come together.

Technology: Open Source

The Obamas clearly have the power and popularity to popularize trends and ideas. Sometimes, that borders on the absurd: when it was revealed the Obama children wore J. Crew, the clothing company’s site crashed. It’s little wonder, then, that open source advocates would hope the new Administration would champion their cause. BBC News’ Maggie Shiels has a great story on those possibilities:

Calls for open source government [BBC News, via Slashdot]

One figure behind the rallying cry for open source is Sun co-founder Scott McNealy. That’s interesting, as Sun was actually quite late to the open source party. Sun didn’t open its flagship Java technology until after McNealy’s tenure. The fact that he has been won over I think is telling – McNealy created one of the world’s biggest tech vendors. The rationale for his appeal is simple: open source is cheaper.

I think the case should actually be broader. If the US – and, indeed, the economically-weak planet – want to advocate new growth in education, science, and technological innovation, it’s a no-brainer to have at least some technologies common and shared. That could ultimately lead to benefits for big vendors and individuals and the economically challenged alike.

And if you want to push open technology, artists should be among your first stops. We push the real-time capabilities of computers harder than anyone. For instance, when researchers wanted to demonstrate real-time Java, they chose a Bach performance. Why? Playing Bach turns out to be more timing-critical than one of the other applications – controlling a nuclear submarine. (The Army phrase “Be all you can be” comes to mind.) The drive of self-expression can be a powerful way of to realize technology’s full potential.

Direct quote on that, by the way:

Music synthesis is, in fact, more stringent in its real-time needs than many other hard real-time systems. For instance, avionics typically operate at a period of 20 milliseconds, or about 10 times longer than the synthesizer.

Harmonicon research at IBM

Open source needs music and visuals – and we often need open source. In music and visuals, the lack of interest in basic, open frameworks has often stifled the success and expressivity of the tools we use. I was impressed by the new stuff at this year’s NAMM. But many of the leading technologies – Novation Automap and M-Audio HyperTransport for controllers and Akai’s APC and Native Instruments Maschine among the hardware announcements – were limited by aging standards and proprietary implementations of control. Those same vendors struggle with drivers for proprietary computer operating systems owned and controlled by someone else. The result: music technology is often hard to configure and unreliable, limiting its appeal and reducing the number of customers. The solutions there aren’t all easy, and open source is no panacea, but I don’t think I’m overstating the problem – or the lost potential that could be coming from the open source world.

Of course, the Obama Administration is unlikely to do anything of practical use to artists or musicians when it comes to open source. But it could set a tone – and I’d argue, it already has. The Open Source Initiative’s Michael Tiemann noted just after the election that the Obama campaign had benefited from running open source tools. Whether or not Obama mandates federal offices run OpenOffice or something like that, I’d say the proof of open source’s utility is already out there:

Barack Obama proves the power of Open Source [Open Source Administration blog]

And that should be the main interest of arts technologists and creative tech vendors – politics aside, open source can pay.

Arts

We have mixed blessings in the US. On one hand, government arts funding has often been scant. On the other, we have an artist community that has vigorously defended its own value against the harshest critics, a uniquely-generous private funding climate, and a bootstrap, DIY approach by artists to supporting themselves. Arts advocacy groups are nonetheless eager to use the Obama Administration as an opportunity to get more badly-needed support – and they’re using the economic stimulus as a new angle:

Arts Leaders Urge Role for Culture in Economic Recovery [Robin Pogrebin for The New York Times]

Don’t believe them? Here’s a number for you: US$167 billion. That’s the amount Americans for the Arts says nonprofits contribute to the US economy. (They also employ some 6 million people.) And that’s just nonprofit groups; the impact of the arts and music are of course far bigger than that. As evidenced by this site, that cultural economy is increasingly globalized, meaning the entire business of making things could grow around the planet.

Much of the actual policy here would be more symbolic than practical. The additional US$50 million advocates want for the National Endowment for the Arts would have little meaning to an individual artist, though I’m sure the agency would love to have it. But “reframing” culture as an important part of the business of America is something that’s badly-needed.

Along the same lines, calls for WPA-style support for artists as part of economic recovery:

Will Act for Food [Newsweek]

More practical, I think, is the need for US policy that makes healthcare more affordable and accessible to the self-employed, a significant group of American readers of the site. If individual musicians or visual artists or freelancing coders and visualists and the like didn’t have to worry about spiraling health care costs, they could contribute in other ways a lot more easily.

Globally, we need a climate that’s friendlier to artists in general. The recent struggle of music tech research centers like STEIM in Amsterdam and IRCAM in Paris – places Americans might have assumed would be safe – is solid evidence of that.

Connecting this to the material and business of this site sure isn’t hard. Musicians and visualists increasingly sell to fans and one another, build their own businesses from scratch, innovate technologically, share open source research, teach others, volunteer, and add DIY tech businesses to their portfolio as they make their own hardware and software.

One thing missing from the traditional arts advocacy approach is the ability to use music, movement, and motion to aid in innovating in and teaching math and science. With technology (or even without it), expressive media are a fantastic way of demonstrating math and science concepts and making them creative and personal. I know I would have had a much easier time in school with topics like physics and Calculus if I could have connected them to music and animation, and I don’t think I’m alone.

That’s the philosophical framework, anyway. Given that tone matters for all of these issues, it’ll be interesting to see whom Obama makes NEA chief and what steps that agency and the Obama Administration take in arts policy.

So, thus concludes the post-Inauguration edition of this story. But you can expect to see a lot more on all three of these issues as they directly relate to the subject matter(s) of these sites – and expect more than just the President making some of the headlines.

Music DRM may be a thing of the past, online sales may be growing, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. record industry has missed a beat in its ongoing legal and lobbying campaign against music piracy online.

The latest battle starts today in Rhode Island federal court. The difference this time: the RIAA and record companies will have to face a Harvard Law prof and his students. Prof. Charles Nesson and his team allege the industry is abusing the court system, unfairly making “examples” out of the people they’re suing, and invading privacy.

Whatever your feelings about the righteousness of litigation as a deterrent to piracy, the case in particular gets pretty strange. Rhode Island residents Arthur and Judie Tenenbaum face having their home computer seized as evidence, despite the fact that even the industry legal team doesn’t contend this particular computer was used for the alleged downloading. The couple’s son faces a stunning $1 million+ in possible damages, but only allegedly shared seven songs on Kazaa – and the couple didn’t even own the computer when their son lived with them.

The team will be up for interviews, so I’ll try to follow up – let us know if you have questions for them. More here:

RIAA v. Joel Tenenbaum @ the blog CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion [Harvard Law]

Updated: Early word is that the hearing has been rescheduled, Prof. Nesson isn’t admitted to argue in a Rhode Island court, and the judge (rightfully) denied the RIAA motion to look at Joel Tenenbaum’s parents’ computer, since it wasn’t involved. More official details forthcoming.

In other news, Jim Griffin of Warner Music Group continues to push a plan to offer a blanket license to campuses to avoid litigation by allowing students to pay a voluntary monthly fee to download music from file sharing services. It’s not entirely clear to me why this scheme continues to attack such ire online. Ars Technica rightfully says hold the kneejerk responses and wait for the details. There’s certainly a precedent: clubs, bars, concert venues, and the like already pay blanket license fees for performance rights, and the revenue is ultimately distributed to the people who own the work (think publishers and writers). That’s not to say the plan isn’t rife with potential problems, and it seems to me could even endanger efforts to encourage things like Creative Commons licensing. But without more details, it’s tough to criticize the idea without taking into account both its pitfalls and potential.

One thing everyone ought to be able to agree on, perhaps even some of the beleaguered record labels: ongoing litigation has been ugly and unproductive, and still doesn’t solve the underlying problem. With broad wireless Internet access on the horizon, even if I were to play devil’s advocate and assume I was an RIAA member wanting to stop campus sharing, it seems just scaring campuses into blocking these services isn’t really a solution.

And as artists, our primary concern ought to be that these responses aren’t doing what we most desperately need: establishing a real business model and promotional possibilities for emerging distribution online.

US distributor Keyfax NewMedia reports that it has Yamaha’s Tenori-On in stock and shipping out now. (Pre-orders began at the beginning of May, but this is apparently the first the US unit has made it to our shows — unless you happened to win one from createdigitalmusic.com, that is, in April, in which case you know who you are.)

Every time I mention Tenori-On, despite the awe and lust it inspires in some musicians, someone raises the point of its somewhat retro-styled, simple sound bank. Fair enough: the minimal sounds are fantastic in the hands of creator Toshio Iwai and were specifically programmed and voiced to match his aesthetic. Other people, perhaps, not so much. So it’s interesting that reader Steven aka Nomad Cinema sends along this video (seen at top) of the Tenori-On paired with the absurdly deep luxury modular synth Kyma, along with a couple of beloved new analog synths. He writes:

In order to tap the real power of Yamaha’s new Tenori-on, it helps to pair it with external equipment capable of producing more satisfying sounds than the somewhat lackluster soundset included with the Tenori-on itself. In this video, no internal Tenori-on sounds were used whatsoever. Tenori-on is functioning purely as a sequencer with external equipment, including advanced sound-shaping from Kyma and analog synthesis from Alesis Andromeda and Dave Smith’s Prophet ‘08. Sequencer data coming from Tenori-on is processed in Ableton Live (utilizing midi scale and chord filters, as well as injecting some generative randomness) before reaching Kyma, Andromeda, and Prophet ‘08.

That to me remains the Tenori-On’s unique strength: to me it’s really an alternative step sequencer, exploded into an array of flashing lights and animated with game-like motion. This is to me also another way in which it isn’t a Monome, which feels more like an intelligent, programmable set of pads an an extension of your software, in comparison to the Tenori-On which seems to be re-imagining a giant pixel as a controller. I will be getting around to showing off some hands-on applications very soon, at long last.

A quick recap, there was a little show and tell, a few instructional sessions showing what people do, and several jam sessions during which people walked around and were able to watch each other in action. MLR was the most used app, though many others were used, including some homemade apps. Everyone seemed to be coming from different genres, which created a wild mix. I think everyone walked away saying that we need to do it again, so hopefully you can make the next get together!

Monome users in other places, how about you? Perhaps a Monomefest in the device’s hometown of Philadelphia?

Here’s a time-lapse video of the NJ meetup. Granted, not any big win for, um, diversity (not visibly, anyway), but that, too, may change with time — and any time we get out of our bedroom studios and together with other folks is a welcome change:

East Coast Monome Jam (4/19/2008) from makingthenoise on Vimeo.
More Monome Meetup Videos From Around the US

Also on Vimeo:
See the Portland Monome meetup
and the Los Angeles Monome meetup — with none other than Monome celebrity Daedelus. (Daedelus, I like to think of you as Monome’s Keith Emerson.)

West Coast vs. East Coast Monome — fight!

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d be a little confused and freaked out if I woke up and saw this first thing in the morning (and I lived in Ohio):

And it’s not just Dan Deacon. Dynamic duo Beatrix*Jar had a similarly awkward experience. There’s something strange about what’s going on here. The news people conducting the interviews are are genuinely enthusiastic, but there’s something not quite connecting in their approach. I don’t know if it’s an intentional lack of arts-based analysis or if they just like to keep it light & fluffy for the morning viewers, but the ultimate result is surreal.

Maybe it’s because it’s really early in the morning and these musicians are night owls? They seem a bit out of their element, trying to connect to that internal place that makes music happen, but they seem to be working uphill in that particular environment. When they do connect, the newspeople look a bit alienated and confused, like they just let a wild beast loose in their studio.

Here’s Getlofi.com’s Talking Computron and Igloo Martian on an evening news program in Madison, WI:

Don’t get me wrong- I think this trend is awesome. It feels like the media companies are really starting to get a whiff of this whole DIY-Maker-Bender movement, and they like what they smell. And really, what isn’t there to like? In many ways, this is human ingenuity and creativity manifest. People making the most of what’s around them, creating solutions instead of buying them, only limited by their creativity. It’s not just a fluff piece, it’s what got us to where we are today, and a sneak peek at where we might be going in the future.

That’s assuming that the future is strange, nerdy, glitchy and loud. I, for one, salute our future weird overlords.

Note: BENT festival 2008 takes place this week in NYC and next week in Minneapolis, and you can read all about it on the festival website.

Here’s the good news: the Tenori-On is really going on sale here in America. It’s about the same price as in the UK, as expected. (GBP600 = about US$1200.)

The bad news? If you want to buy one, good luck. Yamaha says initially only about 100 units a month will be available. (We also heard “1000 units” for the whole year, which would mean they stop doing 100 units each month after September, if that’s right.) To put this in perspective, the Monome 64, with zero press behind its launch, sold out a 100-unit run in 120 seconds. After getting hands-on with the Monome, I want to reemphasize that a square grid of buttons are the only things these two designs have in common — but you can bet ravenous demand will be one other common feature. (Another example: the permanently-backordered x0xb0x.)  Heck, even the Arduino board, a USB kit for electronics makers, has 500 units on-hand at one vendor alone, and they typically sell out when a new semester begins.

That means that Tenori-On is getting the same cautious launch it got in the UK, even though the UK is a much smaller market than the US. (We may not be as electronically-savvy, but there are five times as many of us Yankees.) And there’s the US press blow-out likely to happen (Gizmodo and Engadget were on-hand at the press event last night; Friday the launch hits San Francisco.) And there’s a full half year of buzz. We didn’t even hear word that Tenori-On would be available in record shops in the US as in the UK; word was distribution will be exclusively online, via Keyfax. (Updated: There’s nothing on the Keyfax site, so head to www.tenori-on-tour.com.)

It’s not for lack of manufacturing capability; the Tenori-On is expensive to produce, with its unusual, rounded magnesium frame, but Yamaha literally has robots for that. (They had pictures of what would look like mass production, but isn’t.)

It was curious to hear people muttering "too expensive" in association with the unit, because I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Anyone wanting one, plan to have a party by your mouse the night before 5/1.

Benny Goldman has an early review at Gizmodo. That’s actually my voice you hear in the video, talking to Yamaha about when the "experimental" limited run will end and the Tenori-On will become a mass-market product. I’ll have to see if I screwed up Engadget’s sound, too.

Of course, the best way to get a Tenori-On in the US is to build a sophisticated interactive table and win over a crowd of people, but that’s been done already, and there is the danger of winding up with just a hat. More on that later today.