Cube Kirby: Otamatone Deluxe Kirby Ver.

The Otamatone is an electronic musical synthesizer. It was developed in Japan in 1998 by the CUBE toy company and the Maywa Denki design firm. The Otamatone is a singing toy whose body is shaped like an eighth note it also somewhat resembles a tadpole “otamajakushibeing Japanese for “tadpole” with sound emerging from a “mouthon the notehead. It requires two hands to play: while one hand holds and squeezes the “head” the other hand controls the pitch of the tune by placing the finger on a ribbon controller on the stem; a higher position on the stem creates a lower sound. The ribbon controller is deliberately delinearized to resemble a guitar so there is a shorter distance between higher notes than between lower ones. Varying the pressure on the head thereby opening and closing the “mouthof the Otamatone creates a wah-wah effect and shaking the neck and thereby slightly changing pressure on the head creates a vibrato effect. Switches on the back of the head allow users to change octave turn it off or on or change the volume. The sound made by this toy can be compared to the sound of a theremin synthesizer or jinghu.