The Omnichord will be re-produced to commemorate our 70th anniversary | Hacker News Reader

The Omnichord will be re-produced to commemorate our 70th anniversary

suzukimusic-global.com

152 pointscglong44 comments

As most of the messaging on this page implies the release will occur in 2023, I figured it was worth noting this excerpt towards the bottom:

  We will be exhibiting the Omnichord OM-108 and announcing the new official release date at the Winter NAMM show to be held in Los Angeles, USA from January 25, 2024.

So, release date to-be-announced, and (early) next year at that. Still, a very cool device, and I hope they get it out there.

This isn't just a toy, some cool music has been made with it (well its original):

Amon Tobin Long Stories: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/amon-tobin-long-s...

And Spotify if you want to listen: https://open.spotify.com/album/0X9PhyGtg7jJ6Ry4uOfkFa?si=HzG...

Gorillaz owe their sound to the Omnichord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wn0NtSNeQEQ

I love how Zane Lowe unintentionally added to the loop with a Gorillaz-style vocal sample.

That’s amazing. Never knew.

I thought that sounded like a drum machine. It turns out, it's mostly, because it was.

Nice find, I never knew this for certain.

This is mindblowing.

I remember electronica noise band Add N to (X) using one in their live shows (along with whatever electronic junk they could scavenge, it looked like they had patch panels on guitar straps). TBH I'm not sure if they had an actual tour van or just raided skips near Radioshacks.

Here's a clip - you can see what looks like an OM-100 at 9 1/2 minutes in on... Robot New York I think? It's all stuff off their Avant Hard album anyway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9mM_ynzOtU

They were very entertaining live but I'm glad there's footage of them without the dodgy films they projected on the side wall on that tour.

>dodgy films What, like pornos?

Exactly.

The fantastic song "Plug Me In" was a double entendre with a very NSFW video. A quick search shows that it's sadly lost to the modern internet.

Great band!

Indeed! Daniel Lanois, musician and grammy award winning producer (U2, Neville Brothers, Emmylou Harris, etc.) uses the Omnichord extensively in his own music. He used it throughout the soundtrack for Slingblade. He even named one of the songs, Omni: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7HME3-TROg

And it's a big part of his song, The Maker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-JtAcpKtYQ

(The rest of the soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw_cbSkhe5w&list=PLtDcokwpri...)

He also did much of the soundtrack for Red Dead Redemption 2 I believe

My subwoofer loves that first link

Wikipiedia has a list of notable Omnichord users: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnichord#Notable_uses

Remember You, from Adventure Time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9BGFlDjRlo

Definitely! I was listening to some Omnichord demo videos and then I recognized it in one of my favorite My Morning Jacket tracks. Very distinct intro, and I'm pretty sure he's rocking the Rock1 Preset here too:

https://youtu.be/j3PciCWIGLE

Steven Universe's early music also relies heavily on the Omnichord.

Amon Tobin fans unite!

Tim Henson also wrote some of Playing God on one he has.

I discovered the Omnichord when I wondered what instrument David Bowie was using to play his gentle cover of 'America' at the 2001 'Concert for New York City'.

https://youtu.be/afifZfUkU8I?si=4RhmQtkaL6Db72_Q&t=78

(I keep on wanting to buy one... but I've enough musical instruments I don't spend enough time with already.)

I love the sound of the Omnichord. It brings me back to a mall in the 90s. I can smell the fountain and see the pennies at the bottom.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZM6NtBHQf/

I know everyone is adding their favourite songs with the omnichord but Barnaby Dixon did a song with one too [0], you even get a brief look at the insides as he has to fix a solder joint. If you would prefer to skip the skit at the beginning here is where they start playing with it[1].

---

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfuSEdOdNz0

[1] - https://youtu.be/jfuSEdOdNz0?t=121

Maybe this time they can ship it with a better midi implementation!

Trying to use midi out from it is very weird, it’s all pitch end and +1/-1 for strum direction..

Sadly it looks like Midi support is not confirmed as of December 2023 for the OM-108. But given the decision to call it OM-108 and I think it was the OM-200M, OM-250M, and OM-300 that had Midi output, it worries me somewhat that it will not be present. As much fun as it looks plugging this into various effects, I can equally well imagine it being a blast to use it as a Midi controller with a very unique interface.

The Omnichord has/d some excellent capability, and I remember the first time I saw it was in the video for Robbie Robertsons "Somewhere Down the Crazy River"

The newest Meshell Ndegeocello album used it a lot, called "The Omnichord Real Book" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM-oUR-eNfw

This is so cool!

Checkout this video for a cool overview, brief history, and demonstration of the Omnichord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAIar0O-yvg

Ooh that’s where the drum machine beat from Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood is taken from.

A built-in preset, no less.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsmjyCU4sNM

I want to pick one up, old or new, at some point because they are wonderful instruments that make beautiful sounds almost no matter how you play it. A perfect instrument to show my son and watch him just overjoyed by making nice sounds :)

Very neat commemoration, I appreciate Suzuki and Yamaha quality and commitment to music. Hands-on development is a wonderful avenue for learning and expression. This instrument provides great access.

Related, 1 month ago, 18 comments : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38150333

Sounds like they decided to skip MIDI but them's the breaks. Glad to see Suzuki bringing this back rather than having it cloned by Behringer.

I mean... I get some of the feeling there, but based on precedent, behringer version would've included midi (pricing vs cloning considerations aside)

Kind of awesome how Behringer went from being the crappy version of gear to being the generic, affordable version of actually good gear within the past ~10-15ish years.

When I was selling gear just before my estimated time-line it was known to be basically Yamaha* or Peavey-ish company (does a very wide line of products at affordable prices), but "ever-so-slightly" crapish. Since then they have become a/the goto if you want essentially Moog or those other big names for less than 1 carrot.

I have a Prophet 5 v2 so no real need for me (in terms of analogue synth), but great to see this kind of stuff getting into the hands of more people.

Sure, the pots, etc. aren't quite as solid as the big ($) versions, but that kind-of doesn't matter at all, for a lot of use cases.

I might even get one of their thingies at some point. For less than the price of a beater car it's become a tempting case to have GAS [0] for Behringer [1].

[0] https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/48282

[1] https://www.sweetwater.com/c510--Behringer--Synthesizers

*Yamaha actually makes a lot of very high-end gear as well, from piano to guitar, they have fairly extensive custom-shop stuff. I brought them up because, in addition to handling mid and high-end gear, they always made really quality entry-level gear as well.

Yup, I had a deepmind 12. Kinda regret selling it. The keyboard and build were decent. I found you had to menu dive the built in FX to make interesting sounds, but as a unique synthesizer it was a very good entry :). I also have a small xenyx mixer which was basically fine.

The YouTube video someone else posted mentioned some alternatives with MIDI.

There's Le Strum DIY : https://six4pix.net/product/lestrum/

Or Le Grand Strum pre-built : https://six4pix.net/product/grandstrum/

Hm... app for a tablet?

I bought the 'Chordion' iOS app years ago. Plays better than the old Omnichord I have and can sound very much like one. And has MIDI out ;)

I own the Le Strum, but honestly a tablet app would be almost as good. There's no tactility for the strum bar anyway.

Kinda old news. I’m pretty sure we’re still waiting to hear about a new projected release date since the delay was announced

It seems like it should be possible to replicate this in code; has anyone done so?

https://onlineomnichord.com/

Is there any indication of which model they will re-produce?

TAKE MY GODDAMN MONEY REEEEEE

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