As the May 1 sale date approaches, US distributor Keyfax is taking pre-orders of the Yamaha Tenori-On. The only way to order it will be (oddly) via the Tenori-On tour site:

http://tenori-on.keyfax.com/

Keyfax explains:

So that everyone has an equal purchasing opportunity, pre-sale orders are being taken via Tenori-on Registration on a first-come first-served basis.

As shipments arrive, KEYFAX NewMedia will personally contact those registered; your order will be processed, and your unit shipped.

I’m not entirely convinced Keyfax and/or Yamaha understand Web communities. Aside from a clunky website design, they’re asking for people to manually send them MP3 links and videos "for review and consideration." (That’s a bit odd coming from a hardware distribution company; if that site is supposed to be a "community," why the tough content policy?) There is some sparse but useful discussion on their forum.

So, anyone with cool tracks on Tenori-On, feel free to send CDM links. We’re happy to look, too.

But all of this makes me wonder — how much longer will Yamaha treat Tenori-On’s launch as an "experiment"?

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.

Peter Dines, known for his work with Reaktor (don’t miss his fantastic Reaktor Tutorial Project blog) got a first-hand look at the Yamaha Tenori-On’s first North American stop on its launch tour. He brings us some impressions of the launch, and introduces the phrase "switchboard acrobatics" to the lexicon, which I think will have to find a home in these discussions from now on.

I’ll be at the Brooklyn event tonight, so if you’re there, do say hi! We’ll have coverage of the artists and event soon. (Yeah, I cheated — these are London launch event photos.)

Here’s Peter — and yes, it’s interesting to know that those buttons aren’t necessarily immediately intuitive when you’re under the gun!

Since I am an extremely lazy person I had only a cursory knowledge of the Yamaha Tenori-On when I arrived at SAT for its gala Montreal launch. A number of the little blinking beauties were set up at kiosks separated from the loud music of Pheek by the flimsiest of curtains. I waited in line for my turn to have a poke at it, and when I got it I was baffled.

Yes, there were instructions. Step four required the user to hold down a function key while pressing an LED in row nine. Now I don’t know about you but I don’t immediately recognize groups of nine out of an array of sixteen by sixteen identical, evenly spaced das blinkenlights, especially when there’s a queue of impatient people behind me. There was also no obvious way to turn up the volume to a level that would be audible in the venue. Disheartened, I passed the headphones to the guy breathing down my neck, got a beer and settled in to watch musicians who evidently knew the ins and outs of the thing as they worked it on stage.

Free, odd soundware keeps on coming — hot on the heels of faux bent instruments and a tape-recorded Roland 606 and 808, here are more sounds to satisfy your need for unusual sounds.

Stephen Haunts was inspired by the cassette-recorded 808, and writes to tell us he’s decided to give something back. He’s uploaded 22 kits from a Korg ElecTribe ER-1, a kit from a Yamaha DD-10 (pictured amusing the awkward fellow at right from the manual), and a Yamaha PSS-80. The Yamahas steal the show: they’re little toy keyboards with a decidedly lo-fi sound. I always admired the Japanese sound designers for their minimalism on these low-end hardware units. You almost don’t need to circuit bend this.

Free Drum Machine Samples by Creature [Haunted House Records]

Stephen, aka Creature, used these samples for his Distant Horizon album featured in Mike Una’s round-up of music from the forums.

Toy drums not to your liking? How about a toy music box instead?

Our friend Tom at Music Thing has repaired and sampled his Fisher Price record player music box, then uploaded the results to the open source soundware site Freesound:

Sampling a Fisher Price Music Box Record Player [Music Thing]

You may remember said Fisher Price kit from the tongue-in-cheek Fisher Price turntable “review” by DJ Tech Tool’s Ean Golden.

What’s great about both these sound collections is they’re actually different enough to give you some real inspiration musically. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time to take my handheld recorder around the house and grab some other sounds.

At long last, the Yamaha Tenori-On, the unusual sampling/sequencing instrument bestrewn in light-up buttons, is getting its worldwide release.

And it’s going to be an amazing party.

Launch cities:

• Frankfurt and Berlin, Germany
• Paris, France
• Montreal, Quebec
• New York, NY
• San Francisco, CA
• (most appropriately) Tokyo, Japan

The tour kicks of in Frankfurt first on March 12, then hits the other towns April 8 - 25, finishing where the Tenori-On was born: Tokyo.

Launch artists:

Keyboard Magazine, I have a challenge for you:

I think this solo desperately wants a Keyboard transcription. You know, “Play like Sun Ra.” It may require a larger insert, but maybe it could be sponsored by Yamaha or something.

Okay, granted, Earthlings might argue that this sounds chaotic, but on Sun Ra’s native planet Jupiter, this actually borders on the pedestrian. It’s pretty conventional 83-fingered hyperlocramixydixylycradidian mode, transposed here to what is apparently a Yamaha YC-30. Sun Ra even makes a nod to the fact that the Jupiterians’ torso typically rotates at increasing speed during live performances, as an especially “grupicosmilogical” solo causes their arms to detach.

What?

You want me to do the transcription?

Due when?

SUN RA - Live - Keyboard Solo (1980) [Matrixsynth]

In all seriousness, this just happened to coincide with listening to some Sun Ra records this weekend … if you don’t know his music, take some time to listen to it. YouTube excerpts with bad sound could easily give you the wrong idea. The ability to order a certain amount of entropy into larger forms that really are connected with the jazz tradition is amazing. And for those of you running boring, equal-measured loops in Ableton, spend some time with the polyrhythms. Sun Ra does have good stuff to teach. And it makes me look forward to Yuri’s Night in April all the more — Sun Ra is the artist who really went to space, and brought us back some music. Who needs Virgin Galactic?

I love you, Roland. I really do. But it has to be said:

You’re completely clueless when it comes to the coolest things you’ve ever made.

And if an ordinary keyboard with a silly guitar-style body and shoulder strap can be cool, I’m not sure I can even blame you. You just have to listen to the people.

People love their 303, their 808, even their 909. Yet when these a whole generation of kids desperately wanted you to just re-release these things — or your Jupiter, or Juno, any of your other fantastic keyboards and sound toys of yesteryear — you’ve responded with souped-up, “modernized” versions that mainly share only the name.

But most importantly, you killed the keytar (the awesome, infrared-equipped AX-7) just before everyone decided they really had to have one. So, every week, I hear from people wanting them, just because of I mentioned the keytar in a random post back in April 2005.

Ironically, then, I said, the Keytar Lives. And it does, more than ever — just not in your catalog.

In comments, people sound desperate, hungry — sometimes even poetic. (They sing to the keytar, in Spanish, “ESTOS INSTRUMRNTOS SON GENIALES…..YO TENGO UNO Y LO RECOMIENDO, EL NIVEL DE EXPRESIVIDAD EN VIVO CON ESTA JOYITA ES INCREIBLE….”) Pure poetry.

It’s driven the AX-7 prices sky-high on eBay, though some cheaper items remain of lesser-known and older models. The really lucky people get theirs for fifteen bucks at a yard sale from people who don’t know better.

But why not new units, if they’re this popular? Yamaha — I hope you’re listening, too. Korg? How about a nice, cheap CME version with motorized faders and some band dumping paint on it?

But Don’t Take My Word For It

Take the Times. No, not the New York Times or LA Times - the Times, as in London. The one that gave us Times New Roman.

All Kaoss, All the Time: In a world of endless choices, what happens to the creative power of limitations? Back in November, we saw Norman Fairbanks make an album entirely on Tenori-On, Yamaha’s interactive blinking-lights button pad.

“Ah,” you said. “But that sounds suspiciously like the music of Toshio Iwai, the Tenori-On’s composer-inventor. And it costs a lot of dough. And I have to live in the UK to buy it.”

Enter our friend Gary Kibler. He’s also a huge fan of the Tenori-On — he did cover the UK launch event for us, and then lauded its innovative design. But his creation uses a decidedly more accessible instrument: the Korg Kaossilator, which can be yours for a mere US$200 street — about US$1000 less than the Tenori-On.

Here’s the surprise: the sound-packed Kaossilator can do just as much as the Tenori-On, arguably more. And Gary really didn’t need anything else. The Yellow Album is –

Produced and performed exclusively on the Korg Kaossilator. No other effects, EQ or sounds were added other than those incorporated in the original device. Audio was recorded directly off the unit and the only edits performed externally were simple volume balancing.

The Yellow Album (free MP3 album from Gary Kibler) Updated: New link from ReverbNation, to save Gary’s bandwidth!

There you go. All you need is a Kaossilator. You can now cease lusting after anything else.

Okay, that wore off fast.

All Monome, All The Time With Something Else: Meanwhile, while I got distracted by turkey and stuffing and neglected to post this back at Thanksgiving, the Monome got an album of its own. Matthew Davidson, aka Stretta, did an “all-Monome album” called Grids, and made it fully free and Creative Commons-licensed. Like Kibler, Davidson has some significant credits as a composer (Davidson did the only-ever live performance of Switched-On Bach with Wendy Carlos — that being the original and greatest “entirely made on xx” synth album.)

So, what is the sound of one Monome playing?

You got it: silence. Yes, unlike the Korg and Yamaha instruments, the Monome has no sound generation facility of its own, meaning Matthew “limited” himself to a Doepfer modular, Prophet 5, and MOTU’s MachFive 2. In other words, it’s not really an all-Monome album. But it is quite good, and the Max patches used to make it are available free. (Wait, that’s yet another thing that’s not a Monome used on this album, if you’re still bothering to count.) Matthew, to his credit, admits “the notion of an all Monome album is somewhat of a misnomer.” But he does put forward the idea of a Monomist quite effectively.

Grids - The All-Monome Album (also on Audio News Room, LadyC]

I’m waiting for someone to hack some internal sounds into the Monome. Get back to us if you have. In the meantime, yes, the whole appeal of the Monome over something like a Kaossilator is that it’s just a controller, ready to be connected to whatever you desire — even visuals, or robots, or a giant space laser that blasts pretty patterns into the moon.

Monome, Unplugged — Erm, Live: Part of the cult popularity of the Monome phenomenon can be chalked up to the fact that the talented electronic artist Daedalus was playing out with an early prototype before anyone had even heard of a Monome. Daedalus has an album of his own — live at the Low End Theory event in LA. His live show is simply fantastic, so an album version sounds great to me — and it helps bolster the cause of genuine live electronic performance. I’m very much looking forward to this one. It won’t be free, but I like paying for music. On January 22, you can pay for his music, too.

Daedelus Readies Live Album [XLR8R]

Alpha Pup Records

Donald Bell, aka electronic musician Chachi Jones, nabs what I believe is the first hands-on time with the LED-and-button-laden Tenori-On digital instrument on American shores. Yamaha’s Yu Nishibori stopped by the music tech boutique Robotspeak in San Francisco for a chat; I got to play Robotspeak in January and it’s a brilliant place. Donald recorded the conversation for CNET.

Hands-on with Tenori-On [Crave]

Not convinced? Here’s a very different Tenori-On demo on Music thing.

Tenori-On Stands Alone, and Praising Limitations

Donald shared some of his personal (non-official CNET) take on the Tenori-On. It sounds like seeing it in person changed his mind a bit and made him want it a lot more:

Norman Fairbanks has released the first album produced entirely on the Tenori-On, the unusual LED-bestrewn sequencing sampler instrument currently available from Yamaha in the UK. It’s a no-risk listen: the full album is available for download free from his website. The results sound like a Tenori-On album, with minimal looping patterns a bit like those you’d expect out of a newly-invented Pocket Steve Reich Machine, but the textures get immersed in a cool, ambient landscape. Good listening for gray November days here.

Now, pitching an album as produced entirely on a new, buzz-friendly instrument is clearly a nice gimmick — Yamaha even sent out a press release touting the creation. (One more reason for us non-Brits to be jealous.) But I was curious nonetheless what drove Norman to use just one instrument. The lesson here is nice: sometimes limited tools can be ideal. And this confirms for me what’s beginning to happen with new digital interfaces, which is that they’re not so much instruments in the traditional sense as windows into musical structure, part way between instrument and score. Here’s how Norman responded to CDM’s Five Questions: