The Tronichord, also known as the Portachord,
/ref> is a rare electronic musical instrument manufactured by

Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation The is a Japanese company that produces a range of musical instruments. History Suzuki was founded in 1953 by Mr. Manji Suzuki. Initially the company manufactured Harmonicas and later developed the Melodion which in 1956 was officially adopted ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

in 1981-1985Suzuki TronicordMiniorgan.com
Retrieved August 17, 2009. A precursor to the larger and more complex

Omnichord The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument introduced in 1981 by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate known as "Sonic Strings", preset rhythms, auto-bass line functionality, and buttons for ma ...

and Q-chord series of instruments by the same maker, the Tronichord was designed in large part for ease of use. The packaging included the slogan, "Sound like a pro—make music instantly, your very first time!"Suzuki Tronicord PackagingMiniorgan.com
Retrieved August 17, 2009. The instrument is played in much the same way as an acoustic

autoharp An autoharp or chord zither is a string instrument belonging to the zither family. It uses a series of bars individually configured to mute all strings other than those needed for the intended chord. The term ''autoharp'' was once a trademark of ...

. The player touches one of a set of touch-sensitive areas on the unit's front plate to select a chord, which then sounds as a drone with level set according to the "Chord Volume" knob on the left side. Sweeping a finger along the touch-sensitive strip along the bottom edge strums notes from the currently-selected chord. The volume of the strumming is set using the "Sonic Strings Volume" knob at the lower left.Suzuki Tronicord - control closeupMiniorgan.com
Retrieved August 17, 2009. This knob also turns the unit on and off. The "Instant Off" touch pad silences the output until another chord is selected. The unit is powered either by an external 12VDC adapter, or internally from eight AA batteries. Audio output is from a loudspeaker built into the case behind the "Tronichord" logo, or via a standard 1/4" jack on the left side of the unit suitable for a guitar cable. A trimpot for tuning the instrument's pitch is accessible on the rear of the unit through a recessed opening.

Tronichord players

*Martin Gore of

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depeche ...

played one in studio for a segment in the song "Wrong". *Kathryn Stevenson of KSProductions has used the instrument in music-oriented therapy for developmentally disabled children and adults. *

Native Instruments Native Instruments is a German company that develops, manufactures, and supplies music software and hardware for music production, sound design, performance, and DJing. The company's corporate headquarters and main development facilities are lo ...

Kontakt Kontakt may refer to: * ''Kontakt'' (film), a 2005 Macedonian film directed by Sergej Stanojkovski * ''Kontakt'' (magazine), a Norwegian political magazine (1947–1954) * Kontakt (software), a music sampler See also * Contact (disambiguation) * ...

audio sampling software includes Tronichord samples in its samples library.Native Instruments Kontakt 3Sound on Sound Magazine
January 2008. Retrieved 17 August 2009.

References

Electronic musical instruments