Yvain Rouchaud's Nérée Is a Whale-Shaped Standalone "Tactile Synth" with a Wealth of Features

Maker Yvain Rouchaud has opened crowdfunding for the Nérée, a whale-shaped tactile synth with sampling, digital audio workstation, and drum sequencing capabilities — capable of operating entirely standalone.

"Nérée [is] a standalone sampler, synth, DAW [Digital Audio Workstation], and drum sequencer played with touch, pressure, and movement," Rouchaud explains of the unusually-shaped device. "Texture, time, and space are not just effects — they are core musical dimensions you shape directly with your fingers. No computer required. Just sound, motion, and intuition. Sound is not a preset. Time is playable. Space is sculpted. Texture reacts to your hands."

Rouchaud began designing the Nérée back in October last year, using a piece of wood "cut almost at random" as the basis — a shape that coincidentally resembled a whale, which would lead to the device's current design. "There wasn't even a screen," the maker notes of this initial prototype. "Being able to play was encouraging, but I was missing some fundamental features, like an integrated recorder to loop notes. I decided to add a screen and a simple user interface to include more functions."

After a few more iterations, the Nérée was born as a standalone music tool with 24-pad capacitive touch surface responding to both pressure and movement. There's support for up to 12-second samples, multiple internal synth engines with both wavetable and algorithmic voices, real-time performance controls including continuous pitch bending, touch-based modulation and effects, strum-based effects intensity control, an arpeggiator, a theremin-inspired glide mode, four-track integrated digital audio workstation, a five-track 16-step drum sequencer, scale system, and a non-destructive or baked effects engine acros color, space, time, glitch, stereo, ambient, and noise layers.

It's also standalone and portable, powered by standard AA batteries. "No computer [is] required for basic use cases," Rouchaud promises. "Sampling, synthesis, sequencing, looping, FX, and export [are] handled internally. This instrument was designed to feel inviting from the first touch. The interface can be learned in under one hour, regardless of age or musical background."

Rouchaud is crowdfunding an initial production run — "comparable in spirit to a development kit," he says — currently on Kickstarter, as a European-market exclusive with physical rewards starting at €130 (around $151) for day-one backers; success in this first campaign will see a second launched for international backers, the maker has promised.