It’s all kicking off this week in synth land as the Tembo Kickstarter hits $2M of advanced funding, whilst discoDSP have caused a furore with their dip into the open-source world of The Usual Suspects.

Musical Beings Tembo Hits $2M on Kickstarter

Resembling a Tic-Tac-Toe gameboard, or some form of stunted chequers, Tembo set out to be a simple, screen-free music-making device made of wood and using a grid-based system adorned with chips with inlaid magnets to trigger steps.

At first glance, you might dismiss Tembo as yet another hipster-esque musical tool designed to be looked at and fawned over rather than be used as a serious compositional tool. On closer inspection, however, Tembo is much more than that.

You can sample into Tembo, use its built-in sounds, and it has its own effects engine and some basic sound-shaping tools. The chips can be placed, stacked, and easily moved around to manipulate the beat, and there’s a built-in speaker and battery for a truly wire-free experience.

Well, if you’ll excuse the pun, Tembo seems to have struck a chord because, at the time of going to press, the Kickstarter campaign had raised more than $2,000,000, achieving nearly 4000% of its initial goal! That is a staggering achievement and a truly remarkable endorsement of Tembo’s appeal.

It has been such a rip-roaring success that the people behind Tembo, Musical Beings, had to draw the campaign to a close just days after it started! If you missed out, I suggest you sign up for the campaign to see if extra units might be made available, or a stretch goal created.

All we can say is congratulations to Musical Beings, and we hope to get our hands on a Tembo when they finally start landing in customers’ hands in January 2027! Find out more at the Musical Beings website.