I’m going to Yamaha’s “Innovation Road” museum!

Whoo-hoo! We managed to get a reservation to visit Yamaha’s Innovation Road museum in Hamamatsu, Japan! Innovation Road is Yamaha’s interactive museum, packed with instruments that the legendary company has made over the past 130+ years. And yes, you’re allowed to play them, because the museum is meant to be a hands-on experience. I hoping to at least see, if not play, the Yamaha DX1 (pictured above), a synth of which only 140 were ever made, and one that I’ve never seen in real life. For any synth players out there, it’s basically two DX7s in a single keyboard, and with much better displays. In 1983, it retailed for $13,000 (alomst $44,000 in today’s money): Here are a few tunes you’ve probably heard that feature the DX1… I happen to be the owner of a couple of vintage Yamaha keyboards — and they’re hard-to-find ones, too! One of them is the DJX, released in 1998, and the other is the DJX 2, released in 2000. The ones pictured below are mine… Here’s a little bit of noodling I did on…