Tenori-on released
Toshio Iwai, creator of the Electroplankton music games for Nintendo DS, has teamed up with Yamaha to release a new visual musical interface. The tenori-on is a 16x16 push button matrix on which you can "draw" scores where each button is a note event and multiple step sequences, loops and patterns of buttons can be set up. There is a parallel matrix on the back of the machine so the audience can see your patterns too! The interface (reminiscent at times of 2D cellular automata) can set up interesting visual and/or musical patterns than can animate as the sequencer progresses or when buttons are triggered. The Tenori-on is a self-contained device with display and speakers built into the interface unit and can be battery powered, making it highly portable. There there external headphone/audio, MIDI, AC, and SD memory card connectors. The matrix arrangement combined with repetitive pattern sequencing functions lends itself to loop-based and minimalist musical styles. It features a pretty standard wavetable synthesizer and a very limited amount of on-board sampling. The device makes simple computational patterns concrete and is hours of fun for the whole family!More video demos... (more)
