A very large modular synthesizer originally assembled by Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff. (The name is an acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra".) The instrument began as a Moog modular purchases by Margouleff in 1969; he combined it with a second Moog in 1971 to make one larger modular. To this was then added an ARP 2600 and a bank of Oberheim SEM's, and the instrument began to snowball, with Cecil and Margouleff adding nearly anything modular that they could get their hands on, including some modules designed and built by Cecil himself. In 1974, they brought in Rex Probe and a team of people from Serge Modular, who built a number of Serge circuits and mounted them behind Moog-like faceplates, and added them to the system.
The duo released two albums performed mostly on the T.O.N.T.O. in the early 1970s, under the project name "TONTO's Expanding Head Band". The compositional style was as experimental as the music itself, and the two albums are often cited as major influences by contemporary performers. However, the bulk of work done in that decade by T.O.N.T.O. shows up on the albums of others. Stevie Wonder employed it extensively on his mid-'70s albums, and it significantly influenced his songwriting and his sound. Billy Preston and the Isley Brothers were among many other artists who made use of it during this period.
Cecil bought out Margouleff's share of T.O.N.T.O in 1975 and became the sole owner of the instrument. Although Cecil continued to reconfigure T.O.N.T.O., most of the modules in it date to about 1977 or earlier; it contains many long-out-of-production pieces such as an EMS vocoder. In its current form, it consists of 9 wide-format racks plus two consoles containing keyboards and controls. Cecil moved the instrument several times during his ownership. In 2013, he donated it to the National Music Centre of Canada, which installed it in its Studio Bell building in Calgary, AB, in 2016. In Studio Bell, the instrument is functioning and available for use by appointment.
Malcom Cecil passed away on March 30, 2021.