Tembo, the Playful Step Sequencer Designed to Make Everyone Feel Musical, Now on Kickstarter

Music, especially deeply rhythmic music, is a language we all understand. We may struggle to speak it, however, and express the feel, the sway, the sounds we hear inside. Tembo from Musical Beings is a musical instrument designed to let everyone express themselves in music from the moment they touch it.

Fully featured yet highly playful, Tembo is tactile and inviting, designed to look as good on a coffee table as it functions in a studio. Its wooden interface offers satisfying visual cues to guide creativity. A beginner can pick Tembo up and start making music intuitively. (See Tembo in action here.)

Yet its welcoming exterior disguises a sophisticated set of features that let Tembo evolve and grow with its player. Features include a sampler with built-in mic, a MIDI out, adjustable audio effects, and a line in for an external mic or instrument. Together, they turn Tembo into an endlessly versatile access point for composition, recording, and live performance, something you might spot in a creative musical home or in the world’s best studios.

Musicmakers, parents, design aficionados, and tech lovers can help bring Tembo into the world by participating in Musical Being’s first-ever Kickstarter campaign. Launching March 11, 2026, supporters will get access to the earliest batch of Tembo units. Supporters can find out more here. 

Hailing from impressive tech and music productions backgrounds as veterans of Google, Waves Audio, Wix, and Simply, Musical Beings’ founders have one thing in common: “We’re not professional musicians but music is huge in our lives,” reflects Ayal Rosenberg, Musical Beings co-founder. “We’ve been playing and making music our whole lives as amateurs. But we never felt truly good at it or highly musical. We want to change this. We want everyone to feel musical, especially the youngest musicians.”

Tembo sprang from a project that Rosenberg started as he studied creative tech at NYU. He wanted to harness the existing potential of electronic instruments to empower children’s early music experiences. He wanted to create an electronic instrument that felt friendly and warm. 

As he contemplated the design, he heard an inspirational TEDx talk by five-time GRAMMY-winner and teacher Victor Wooten. Wooten asked the provocative question of why we don’t approach mastering music the same way as we learn to speak. We could get fluent in music by playing and experiencing music directly and naturally, the way children converse with adult speakers, instead of engaging in endless practice and isolated exercises. 

Rosenberg took this concept and ran with it, developing an early prototype of what later became Tembo, and testing it with more than 300 musicmakers, from kids to pro musicians. Tembo is a step sequencer/drum machine that uses magnetic “Beats” to trigger a sound when placed on Tembo’s grid. Every sound can be manipulated easily using knobs and buttons, no screen required. With a library of cool percussion sounds to start with, players can make something beautiful in a flash, then continuously add their own sounds using the sampler. 

Tembo connects with people, be they GRAMMY-winning musicians or complete musical newbies. It invites exploration and experimentation, while making everyone feel at home thanks to its natural materials and gameboard-like looks. Handcrafted in Musical Being’s workshop, Tembos’s beautiful design has won it prime spots in some of the world’s best studios.

Tembo feels worlds apart from typical electronic music gear. That’s on purpose: “If you search for step sequencers or drum machines, they look complex and intimidating, even if they are also beautiful. They are metal and black, and they lack the aesthetics of something inviting,” explains Rosenberg. “We chose to make Tembo out of wood to get people feeling natural next to it. This is something I want to keep on the dining table, because it’s inviting and pleasant to look at. Wood integrates naturally into any room.” 

“It’s a serious instrument, though I’ve never had this much fun,” says Damian Kulash (OK GO). Now parents, kids, and pros can all join in by supporting Tembo on Kickstarter.