Greg Chaffins Many of us have now played with a sequencer of some kind, whether it is a professional unit or experimenting with GarageBand. The concept is easy enough, you have a grid and lay out notes and events to happen on a given beat. It has proven to be a powerful way to make music. But now Tembo takes that mechanism out of the screen and into the real world.
Tembo cleverly uses magnets placed on its surface to create the musical sequence, allowing you to make and customize music in a very simple but enjoyable way. The device incorporates a 16 step sequencer as well as a sampler, allowing for a wide variety of musical application. There are 8 columns for the sequencer, and by flipping the magnetic pieces and it plays on the second 16th note. Stack two of them and you get two 16th notes. The emphasis is on a tactile experience, turning simple interactions into real music.
Tembo look like it could be a lot of fun, and it can be found on Kickstarter with an Early Bird special of $389 as of this writing.
