TENORI-ON launched

A couple of days ago, the TENORI-ON has been officially launched in London.
Let’s have a look to some of the details of this new creation of Toshio Iwai e Yamaha.

TENORI-ON is basically a new instrument and controller, and it’s closely associated with the concept of “performance”. TENORI-ON means more or less sound in your palm, and the device works actually as a real instrument: it does not need a computer, it can work on batteries, it has onboard sound and (limited) effects, and of course it has speakers too. So it’s perfect if you want to play something on the sofa!
Talking about performance, the added value in the TENORI-ON is in its visual features: the audience can see what the musician is playing, which is cool especially after years of boring laptop based performances.
If you’re asking, no, TENORI-ON is not a synth and is not a sampler. Onboard sounds are not editable, you can add your own samples (but you can’t use the unit to create or edit samples). It comes with a well thought Pc/Mac samples management software, which lets you upload the sounds to the SD card. Samples are limited: 1 sec. lenght, but hey, you could be creative even with 1 second, isn’t it?
Price: 599 uk pounds, (more or less 900 euro or 1200 dollars). At the moment it can be sold only in UK, it’s in a marketing test stage.

You can download the manual and watch some interesting videos which show the different instrument’s modes.

TENORI-ON and monome side by side
TENORI-ON going global
TENORI-ON article in Italian