Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play

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Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play

I recently bought an Otamatone; I had seen an ad for a show at the Giant Robot store on Sawtelle to introduce the instrument / toy but couldn’t attend. I was so happy when I saw ThinkGeek offering one a couple days later; you can purchase one from them here.

There are four controls for the instrument, two in front and two in back. The two in back are:

  • A slider switch to select off, mid-volume or full-volume, and
  • A pitch range for low, medium or high.

The front of the note stem is a pitch slider – if you touch that slider, you play a sound; pitch is determined by the position on the slider. And you open or close the note body to change the volume of the sound.

Hear are some pictures of the instrument:

The front of the Otamatone
A detail shot of the rear of the Otamatone showing the controls
The inside of the front and back, containing the instructions
The front and back of the package
A picture of a white Otamatone

Its a fun instrument to play but not easy to control – like a Theremin, its hard to hit an exact pitch without a lot of practice. Here is a short video where I (try to) play this little toy:

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Posted in Music, Tags: ,

21 Comments

  1. purplehayz (purplehayz)
    2:46 am on March 21st, 2010

    New post: Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  2. uberVU - social comments
    12:11 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by purplehayz: New post: Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu…

  3. L_Hawkins (Lyle Hawkins)
    12:23 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  4. etrendzshop (Debbie Fagan)
    1:14 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @L_Hawkins: RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  5. CrazyMikesapps (Michael Vallez)
    1:55 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  6. iPhonenut (Bob Evans)
    1:55 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  7. DebbyBruck (DebbyBruck)
    2:18 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu RT @MichaelVallez

  8. iPhonenut (Bob Evans)
    9:20 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  9. CrazyMikesapps (Michael Vallez)
    9:20 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  10. CrazyMikesapps (Michael Vallez)
    10:55 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  11. iPhonenut (Bob Evans)
    10:55 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  12. DebbyBruck (DebbyBruck)
    11:15 pm on March 22nd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  13. iPhonenut (Bob Evans)
    12:20 am on March 23rd, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  14. roncallari (【ツ】Ron Callari)
    10:59 pm on March 29th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  15. DebbyBruck (DebbyBruck)
    5:25 am on March 30th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  16. HomeopathyWorld (DebbyBruck)
    5:25 am on March 30th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  17. sogeshirts (Tim Sogeshirts -Dave)
    12:05 am on April 8th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  18. L_Hawkins (Lyle Hawkins)
    8:36 pm on April 28th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  19. jcvdude (Joe Vass)
    1:00 pm on June 4th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  20. L_Hawkins (Lyle Hawkins)
    4:47 pm on June 15th, 2010

    RT @purplehayz Review: the Otamatone, a musical note you can play http://tinyurl.com/ydkhecu

  21. kaiyo
    10:35 pm on October 25th, 2015

    It is really amazing! I got an Otamatone Deluxe.
    http://www.alexcious.com/products/detail274.html

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    • I'm a father and husband, have two schipperkes, like to read, compose music, travel. And I manage a couple software development teams at DIRECTV.