Generalmusic was an Italian

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

manufacturing company focusing on

digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

and acoustic pianos, synthesizers and

music workstation A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of: *a sound module, *a music sequencer and *(usually) a musical keyboard. It enables a musician to compose electronic music using just one piece of equipment. ...

s. The company produced three lines: a musical instrument series called GEM, a various studio equipment series called LEM and electric organs/synthesizers called ELKA. It was founded in 1987 and ceased business in 2009 before becoming bankrupt in 2011.

History

Early Years

Generalmusic's first arranger workstation models were their WS series, released in 1990. Featuring a 5-track sequencer, 32 built-in arranger styles, and 32 user-programmable styles, they predated the

General MIDI General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Commi ...

standard. This limited easy interoperability with other devices. The WX series (released in 1993) did implement General MIDI, offered a large blue

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directly but i ...

display, a user-friendly interface and some vintage synth sound presets like

Oberheim Oberheim is an American synthesizer manufacturer founded in 1969 by Tom Oberheim. History and products Tom Oberheim founded the company in 1969, originally as a designer and contract manufacturer of electronic effects devices for Maestro (mos ...

ARP 2600 The ARP 2600 is a semi-modular analog subtractive audio synthesizer produced by ARP Instruments, Inc. History Developed by a design team headed by ARP namesake Allen R. Pearlman and engineer Dennis Colin, the ARP 2600 was introduced in 1971 ...

Prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...

Elka Synthex The Elka Synthex is a polyphonic analog synthesizer produced by Italian music instrument manufacturer Elka from 1981 to 1985. Overview The Synthex was conceived and developed by independent Italian designer Mario Maggi, who then gained the finan ...

. Although designed as arranger workstations, WX series had some professional synthesizer capabilities like filter and cutoff (resonance) editing with an integrated powerful 16-track sequencer. The company also offered more sophisticated versions of the WX series as S series synthesizers. The S2 was similar to a Kurzweil K2000 for its functionalities such as optional sampling, and layout and patch manipulation. Generalmusic bought the GEM company, which had itself bought Elka-Orla, a piano and organ maker that transitioned into synthesizers in the 1970s. The Synthex is the best known of a range of Elka instruments.

After 1990

From the 1990s to 2000, Generalmusic made a physically modeled, digital half-rack piano module called the RealPiano Expander. It featured realistic, physically modelled grand pianos with continuous damper pedal functionality. The RealPiano Expander has a delicate LCD readout that is prone to failure. This is due to the internal placement of the LCD ribbon wire in proximity to the top front edge of the plastic front bezel. To prevent damage to the LCD ribbon wire, users should not place heavy objects on top of the module. Users have replaced the LCD ribbon wire themselves. A damaged LCD ribbon wire does not affect sound quality or other functions at all. The device also has a few bugs related to key velocity that were never corrected in the upgradable

EPROM An EPROM (rarely EROM), or erasable programmable read-only memory, is a type of programmable read-only memory (PROM) chip that retains its data when its power supply is switched off. Computer memory that can retrieve stored data after a power ...

firmware. The RealPiano Expander was succeeded by the GEM RP-X half-rack module in 2006. The RP-X featured the DRAKE ( DSP

RISC In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set compu ...

Advanced Keyboard Engine) which simulates a

Fazioli Fazioli Pianoforti (), translated as Fazioli Pianos, produces grand and concert pianos from their factory in Sacile, Italy. The company was founded by engineer and pianist Paolo Fazioli in 1981. The craftsmen at Fazioli build 140 pianos a year. ...

F308 and

Steinway & Sons Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Henry E. Steinway, Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to ...

grand piano among other instruments. The last generation of Generalmusic synthesizers is the Genesys series, offering onboard sampling from an integrated CD-ROM,

audio sequencer Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of soun ...

tracks, and

flash ROM Flash memory is an electronic non-volatile computer memory storage medium that can be electrically erased and reprogrammed. The two main types of flash memory, NOR flash and NAND flash, are named for the NOR and NAND logic gates. Both use t ...

. In addition to Genesys, the company offered an entry-level version named GK series and a simplified WK version named WK-1000/2000. Generalmusic also produced digital pianos, the Promega series, which attracted more interest than their synthesizer products. In February 2009 Generalmusic dismissed all employees and immediately filed for bankruptcy, which was declared in 2011. In December 2014 the Finnish group Soundion Oy Ltd (new owner of GEM, LEM and Elka) announced that, in 2015, Generalmusic will bring to market a product lineup composed of re-issued as well as brand new technology models. The new production is planned to be set up in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

. As of July 2015, there were plans to launch a reissue of the classic

synthesizer, and a crowdfounding campaign was set on Indiegogo. Unfortunately it failed to reach the expected funding and the Synthex project seems to have been cancelled. As of 2021, Generalmusic (Finland) is producing a range of digital pianos branded Gem Promega 2+ using "UpDRAKE" technology which appears to be a further development of the original Generalmusic DRAKE technology for digital organs (US Patent 5,442,128)

References

External links

Official site

Download resources

*{{Cite web, url=http://www.gem-generalmusic.com/download.php, title=Downloads - generalmusic, date=29 March 2016, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160329084018/http://www.gem-generalmusic.com/download.php , access-date=26 June 2022, archive-date=29 March 2016 Audio equipment manufacturers of Italy Musical instrument manufacturing companies of Italy Loudspeaker manufacturers Synthesizer manufacturing companies of Italy