The Yamaha Tenori-On is the most amazing piece of hardware that I’ve seen this year. Don’t brush this off as just another synth toy for house music geeks. This musical gadget has so many options and configurations that it makes the Chromatone 312 feel like it’s made by Fisher Price.
Although, after looking at it, the Tenori-On kind does look like a toy.
However, in order to truly appreciate what this thing-a-majig is truly capable, you need to see what it can do in the hands of the masters. Yamaha provides a video of Robert Lippok taking the Tenori-On for a spin. There’s also Atom Heart who molds this device like play-doh with his house tracks. And Jim O’rourke from Sonic Youth fame (and a few others) demos how easy it is to just dive in and play.
If that’s not enough for you (it wasn’t for me), take a look at the tech demos found on YouTube. This first one gets really interesting around 4 mins into it:
This next video shows how simple it can be to build a sequence and loop it:
If the concept looks familiar, that’s because it really isn’t that new of a concept. Check out this guy uses the KORG Kaoss Pad KP3 touchpad as a MIDI Pad:
Remember Electroplankton, that crazy import “game” from Japan? It also had killer looping effects.
Combine the Kaoss Pad w/Electroplankton and it gets crazy:
Ever since the introduction of synthesizers and wah wah pedals, adjustable touch interfaces have truly advanced the music industry in the past couple of decades. The Tanori-On by Yamaha looks like it’s the musical device to take us into the next decade and well beyond. I’m anxious to see what other tricks this has up its sleeve as more and more artists start toying around with it.
It launches next week in Europe. Yamaha hopes its launch does well so it can open up other markets. But the Tenori-On is so damned cool that I’m thinking of jumping on the next Virgin America flight out of here to be there for the launch parties!
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