The Tronichord also known as the portachord is a rare electronic musical instrument manufactured by Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation

Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation

is a Japanese company that produces a range of musical instruments.-History:Suzuki was founded in 1953, as a harmonica manufacturer.Suzuki's western U.S...

 of Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 in the early and mid-1980s. A precursor to the larger and more complex Omnichord

Omnichord

The Omnichord is an electronic musical instrument, introduced in 1981 and manufactured by the Suzuki Musical Instrument Corporation. It typically features a touch plate, and buttons for major, minor, and diminished chords...

 and QChord 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!"

The instrument is played in much the same way as an acoustic autoharp

Autoharp

The autoharp is a musical string instrument having a series of chord bars attached to dampers, which, when depressed, mute all of the strings other than those that form the desired chord. Despite its name, the autoharp is not a harp at all, but a chorded zither. -History:There is debate over the...

. 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. 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 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
  Native Instruments is a technology company that develops software and hardware for music production and DJing. The company has originally been identified mostly with software instruments, but has also expanded to various other music equipment segments in recent years.Current products of Native...
  
  's Kontakt audio sampling software includes Tronichord samples in its samples library.