, founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese

multinational corporation A multinational company (MNC), also referred to as a multinational enterprise (MNE), a transnational enterprise (TNE), a transnational corporation (TNC), an international corporation or a stateless corporation with subtle but contrasting senses, i ...

that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and

guitar pedals An effects unit or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion/overdrive, often used with electric guitar in ele ...

, recording equipment, and

electronic tuner In music, an electronic tuner is a device that detects and displays the pitch of musical notes played on a musical instrument. "Pitch" is the perceived fundamental frequency of a musical note, which is typically measured in Hertz. Simple tune ...

s. Under the Vox brand name, they also manufacture

guitar amplifiers A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce sound through one or more loudspeakers, which ar ...

and

electric guitars An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic g ...

History

Korg was founded in 1962 in Tokyo by Tsutomu Kato and Tadashi Osanai as ''Keio Gijutsu Kenkyujo Ltd.''. It later became because its offices were located near the Keio train line in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

and Keio can be formed by combining the first letters of Kato and Osanai. Before founding the company, Kato ran a nightclub. Osanai, a

Tokyo University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

graduate and noted accordionist, regularly performed at Kato's club accompanied by a

Wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

Sideman rhythm machine. Dissatisfied with the rhythm machine, Osanai convinced Kato to finance his efforts to build a better one.Julian Colbeck, Keyfax Omnibus Edition, MixBooks, 1996, p. 52. The company's first product was an electro-mechanical rhythm device, the Disc Rotary Electric Auto Rhythm machine, Donca Matic DA-20, released in 1963. The name "Donca" was an onomatopoeic reference to the sound the rhythm machine made. Buoyed by the success of the DA-20, Keio released a solid-state version of the Rhythm machine, the Donca matic DE-20, in 1966. In 1967, Kato was approached by

Fumio Mieda Fumio (written: , , , , , , , or in katakana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese illustrator *Fumio Abe (1922–2006), Japanese politician *Fumio Asaki, Japanese ski jumping sports official *, J ...

, an engineer seeking to build keyboards. Impressed with Mieda's enthusiasm, Kato asked him to build a prototype, and 18 months later Mieda returned with a programmable organ. Keio sold the organ under the name ''KORG'', created by using the first letter of each founder's name plus "RG" from their planned emphasis on products targeted for the organ market (emphasizing the letters R and G in the word "organ"). In 1970 the firm name changed again to Keio Giken Kogyo Inc. (京王技研工業株式会社). Keio's organ products were successful throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Concerned about competition from other organ manufacturers, Kato decided to use the organ technology to build a keyboard for the then-niche

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

market. Keio's first synthesizer, the

Korg miniKORG The miniKORG is a two VCO monophonic analog synthesizer that was released in 1972 from Korg. It featured 37 keys, three ring modulators and built in analogue effects. It has wooden side panels and all the controls for the unit are not on the fro ...

, was released in 1973. During the 1970s, Korg's synthesizer line was divided into instruments for the hobbyist, and large expensive patchable instruments such as the PS series. In the early '80s, Korg branched into digital pianos. Korg is credited with a number of innovations. The "key

transpose In linear algebra, the transpose of a matrix is an operator which flips a matrix over its diagonal; that is, it switches the row and column indices of the matrix by producing another matrix, often denoted by (among other notations). The tr ...

" function was Kato's idea after a singer at his club needed her accompaniment played in a lower key, which the accompanist wasn't able to do. Korg was the first company to feature effects on a synthesizer, and the first to use a "sample + synthesis" sound design. The M1 workstation, released in 1988, sold over 250,000 units, making it the bestselling synthesizer ever at that time. The M1 is still to this day regarded as the perfect workstation.

Relationship with Yamaha

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle d ...

has always been a major partner of Korg, supplying them with circuitry and mechanical parts. In 1987, shortly before the release of the M1 Music Workstation, Yamaha acquired a controlling interest in Korg. The takeover of the company was amicable, with Kato drawing up the terms, and the two companies continued to independently develop their product lines and compete in the marketplace. In 1989, Korg recruited the design team from

Sequential Circuits Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer; it became a market leader and industry standard, use ...

as they were relieved of their duties by then-Sequential owner Yamaha. In 1993, after 5 successful years under Yamaha's control, Kato had sufficient funds to repurchase most of the Yamaha shares.

Recent history

Korg has since diversified into digital effects, tuners, recording equipment, electronic hand percussion, and software instruments. In 1992, Korg acquired Vox, then primarily a manufacturer of guitar amplifiers. Korg was the exclusive distributor of

Marshall Amplification Marshall is a British company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, speaker cabinets, brands personal headphones and earphones, drums and bongos. The company also owns a record label called Marshall Records. It was founded in Lon ...

product in the US for decades. This arrangement ended in 2010. Kato died of cancer on March 15, 2011.Korg Mourns the Passing of Chairman Tsutomu Katoh
", Keyboard Magazine, March 15, 2011

Products

References

External links