23rd February, 2010 by adina
Tags: Japan, MacOS, MIDI, News, Tenoti-on Orange, USA, Windows, Yamaha
On February 19, 2010, Yamaha has released its Tenori-on Orange to the USA public. This is a unique musical instrument, initially launched in Japan, which is technically a lower-cost variant of the company’s original pad; it creates light and sounds just by pressing on any of the 256 LED buttons. Yamaha Tenori-on Orange is more appropriate for personal performance rather than for a public one. In comparison to the original pad, it omits the lights on the back, it uses a plastic frame instead of the original magnesium one and it can no longer rely on AA batteries.
The Tenori-on is designed so that it can simply interact with PCs; it benefits from MIDI in and out – this allows sync with other Tenori-ons or control for a PC or another instrument. Compositions can also be loaded through SD cards; it comes with preinstalled Mac OS X and Windows software in order to make transfer easier.
Surprisingly, Yamaha has set Orange’s price at $1,000, but it seems that the company expects clients to obtain a $700 price (which is probably a street price) at music stores. There will also be available a firmware update for the top-featured variant; this will have a $1,500 price tag, but will actually cost $1,000.
