Product Review

The Otamatone is an electronic musical instrument synthesizer. It was developed in Japan by the CUBE toy company and the Maywa Denki design firm, led by the brothers Masamichi and Nobumichi Tosa. The original Otamatone in black, white, yellow, blue, pink, and puce, and two transparent "skeleton" colours; The Otamatone Melody, or Otamatone Mini, a tiny variant which has no note selection slide and thus plays only predetermined tunes, also available in multiple colors; The Otamatone Deluxe, a slightly larger version (44 cm) with a longer neck, a line-out jack, a power entry, a three-level pitch switch and an analog volume knob. Available in black and white only; The Otamatone Wahha GoGo, similar to the original but with an alternate design with teeth based on the Wahha Gogo "laughing machine" developed by Maywa Denki in 2009, available in silver and gold; The Otamatone Digital, which replaces the slide-based note selector with a small piano-style keyboard, it allows chords to be played as well as multiple notes simultaneously. It is also capable of reproducing electric guitar or percussion sounds; The Otamatone Jumbo, a much larger version played side-slung like a guitar and incorporating a clamp to use to squeeze the mouth, used only at demonstration events.