Superbooth 2017: What’s Yamaha inventing with the Reface Robot?

Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Yamaha refacerobot · Source: gearnews.com Yamaha Reface Robot · Source: Yamaha facebook

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Our man at the show snapped an image and a quick video (below) of something weird on the Yamaha stand. Digging around all I could find was this lovely photo from the Yamaha Synths Instagram and Facebook account. It looks like some extraordinary steampunk interface attached to a plastic Yamaha Reface style keyboard.

Reface Robot

I thought Yamaha had given up on being cool and interesting. Maybe not. The Instagram post refers to Anno Lab, who are a design company in Fukuoka, Japan.

The scrappy piece of paper next to the machine says the following:

“#refacerobot”. Custom made robot for reface CS dynamically controlling all sound parameters. From it’s fierce and full blast performance you will experience unheard sounds freed from conventional two hand tweaking.

And then underneath there’s a little about Anno Lab:

“#annolab”. anno lab is an emerging creative group forces on media art and interactive design. Most of their works aim at inspiring curiosity and fun in people in their daily life. By creating intervention in people’s life they hope to trigger unexpected and unconscious reactions, which allow them to access more complex and rich realities that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

What’s it all about? Is it simply a design installation, a curiosity, or a hint at the rebirth of Yamaha innovation? Is it just for fun? Hopefully, this will become clear. More information as I have it. Check out the video clip below to get a sense of the awesomeness.