Telepathic Instruments has announced the global availability of Orchid, Tame Impala’s ‘Idea Machine’.
The Orchid was introduced last year, and two initial batches sold out quickly.
Telepathic shared a wonderfully weird intro video, featuring Matt Berry (IT Crowd) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords).
The Orchid is described as “an advanced chord generating hardware synthesizer”. It combines a variety of tools most Synthtopia readers will be familiar with – including synthesizers, sequencers, arpeggiators, chord organ and loopers – into a single device, designed specifically for developing musical ideas.
Pricing and Availability:
Telepathic has a signup form on its site to be notified when the next batch is released, and pricing is expeccted to be $549 USD.
Kudos to them to getting Matt Berry & Jermaine Clement to do the video.
I dunno
Kinda gives off “we are struggling to sell this overpriced product ourselves so we hired some celebrities you might like, who have nothing to do with music tech to try and sell it to you” vibes
You might want to have a look at the back cover of Matt Berry’s album Music For Insonmiacs. He’s been releasing music pretty constantly for 25 years.
https://www.discogs.com/master/690426-Matt-Berry-Music-For-Insomniacs
Have you heard about Flight of the Concords? They’re the almost award-winning fourth-most-popular folk duo in New Zealand.
As a recovering advertising guy, it is genuinely restorative to see an ad that wears its loathing for advertising proudly on its sleeve. Well done. Also this thing looks amazing.
The pricing has already increased $100 since this post has been made? Have to say, the ad is pretty funny though. Enjoyed watching it. I can see how this would be a great device.
They nailed the houseplant touch 😉
Whenever I see the word Orchid I think of a vicious multi-bladed hand weapon in a Samuel R. Delany novel. This appears to be leaning toward the Learn-Less-Play-More school of let’s pretend we’re musicians. As Michael Moorcock saged, “All art strives for the condition of Muzak.”
kevin parker isn’t pretending.
Amusing to see the critical comments in the linked earlier article, next to how this thing nowadays has been embraced by people who actually make music / have an audience.
and what people would they be?
“Since it first launched, Orchid has been adopted by a wide array of music industry professionals: it can be heard on Kid Cudi’s Submarine from his 2025 album Free; Don Toliver used it to write chords for his track Call Back, while other artists harnessing its creative potential include Janelle Monáe, Diplo, Ryan Tedder, Fred Again, Joy Anonymous, Madison Beer, Logic, Mark Hoppus, Murda Beatz, Gracie Abrams and Sarah Landry.”
Or you could’ve just googled yourself instead of being a big baby.
It’s cool they include ppc support for their software.
Best gear promo ever? The kind of thing that can only be made by gear nerds that have seen at least 24857 gear promos.
Also, Matt Berry is a MF’ing hero. If you only know him from the IT Crowd, I’m jealous! You get to see him in so many brilliant other things for the first time. Also, he writes and performs the (great) music for many of those things!
That we don’t have 10 seasons of Year of the Rabbit yet is an absolute crime.