Musical Beings Tembo is a new family-friendly drum machine with real-time sampling capabilities, programmed with magnets.
Good news: the Musical Beings Tembo is now on Kickstarter and has already raised more than 234,000€.
To coincide with the launch of the Kickstarter campaign, the Tembo also received a new design with improved usability.
The price is a surprise: the early-bird offer starts at $369, and the final release price is $550. That’s far cheaper than some feared. However, delivery won’t take until January 2027.
Keep in mind that crowdfunding campaigns can involve risks. See for this, the project site for details.
Article from February 24, 2026
In recent years, there has been an increasing number of electronic instruments designed not just for us technically gifted people but for the whole family. They have very hands-on concepts and can be used by kids, parents, or even your grandparents.
These have opened up a new field in electronic music instruments. Examples include the Dato DUO synth, the new Dato Drum, the entry-level Stylophone gadgets, or the Blipblox series. The newest product in this category is the Tembo, a playful drum machine from the new company Musical Beings.
Musical Beings Tembo
Tembo is a playful drum machine and sampler designed for the whole family. It lets you jam and create groovy loops in just a few minutes.
Musical Beings has taken many of the things we love about drum machines and created an original, very immediate, and childlike instrument in Tembo. No, it doesn’t try to compete with a traditional drum computer from our nerd universe.
Instead of focusing solely on tech enthusiasts, the goal was to create an instrument that lowers the barrier to entry and inspires even those with no experience with drum machines.
This is evident in various aspects of the design, starting with the interface. Programming here is done without a cumbersome menu system or tiny display. The pattern generator is here, immediate and tangible.
Playful, Tangible Programming
Round magnet dots are used, arranged on a 5×8 grid. Wherever a magnet is placed on the sequencer, a sound is triggered. To trigger sounds with subdivisions, several magnets are stacked on top of each other. There is also a swing function and mute per channel.
Additionally, the interface provides real-time visual feedback of the sequencer. With 8 steps, the patterns are quite small; after all, you’re not exactly designing the next techno banger for Berghain in Berlin here.
But who knows what Tembo will do for a child? Maybe they’ll be the next techno star.
The very playful, direct sound setting allows quick pattern manipulation, whereas with large tech drum machines, menu diving is necessary. The Musical Beings Tembo is both a toy and a real instrument with many features of larger tech-focused machines.
Sample & Sequence It
As mentioned before, there are 5 tracks, each with an 8-step sequencer. The sound engine is sample-based. You can either use the sounds built-into the device.
Alternatively, you can use the built-in sampler in the Tembo hardware with the built-in mic or the line-in, allowing you to bring in any sound possible. This is also very direct and immediate. No menus, no finger acrobatics with button combinations…
Simply press the button, and record your sound into the device. This way, even children can incorporate sounds from their play area without parental assistance.
Even though there are no deep sound design options, you can polish any sequenced sound with an effect or modulation controlled by the knob in each row.
On top of that, you can easily add backing track loops to your rhythms
Take It Further
If your mom or dad is a musician and likes to take the rhythms further, they can easily export the sounds at any time.
Musical Beings Tembo offers both a line and MIDI connectivity for connecting to your favorite DAW. It also ships with a companion VST plugin for deeper integration in your existing setup.
Yes, it comes with a plugin, but Tembo is a standalone instrument that doesn’t require a computer. It has a built-in rechargeable battery and a loudspeaker, allowing you to create anywhere.
Plus, it has a headphone socket with its own volume control and ear-protection limiter to help safeguard your hearing.
Musical Beings Tembo First Impression
I find it exciting that more companies are making the world of electronic music more accessible, including to children and people who aren’t particularly familiar with it.
Tembo looks very fun and intuitive, and I can imagine it’s a great way to teach people a feel for rhythm. We’ll have to see how much all this fun costs.
You can now support Musical Beings Tembo at Kickstarter starting at $369. The final price will be $550. Shipping will start in January 2027.
Keep in mind that crowdfunding campaigns can involve risks. See for this, the project site for details.
More information here: Musical Beings /Kickstarter
dasja mal n cooles konzept
ho wow, it’s very gorgeous, I already love it, thank you for the article!
I’m loving everything about this thing. Wouldn’t it be just great at an affordable price point? It seems like the whole point is to be inclusive, so let’s hope that includes non rich folk too. I’m most certainly in if it does.
The first drum machine which triggers me!
As a novelty product, or even as a teaching device, I think the price point is far too high. I subscribed and paid the early-bird fee on Kickstarter, but when I finally saw the price, it immediately became a “no” for me. I do hope it reaches its intended audience because there seems to be a lot of excitement around it. That said, the price was surprisingly high for something marketed primarily as a teaching device.
an original sampling drum machine with backing tracks + FXs from a small startup for $369 in the early-bird seems to be fair priced to me.
I don’t know how much cheaper it can get. The development, production, and staff have to be paid for somehow.
the price seems to be fine for the people otherwise they wouldn’t received almost 750k € from 2169 supporters.
You re right. It’s cheap to replicate but it ain’t to innovate.
Price point is very good for what this does
I thought of Reed switches first, then realised that it had be hall effect ics to get the one/two option for the discs. They’re polarity sensitive, so if the two sides of the discs were identified, then more options.