, founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese

multinational corporation A multinational corporation (MNC; also called a multinational enterprise (MNE), transnational enterprise (TNE), transnational corporation (TNC), international corporation, or stateless corporation, is a corporate organization that owns and cont ...

that manufactures

electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a musical instrument that produces sound using electronics, electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital audio signal that ultimately is ...

s, audio processors and

guitar pedals An effects unit, effects processor, 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 el ...

, 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 amplifier A guitar amplifier (or amp) is an electronic amplifier, electronic device or system that strengthens the electrical signal from a Pickup (music technology), pickup on an electric guitar, bass guitar, or acoustic guitar so that it can produce so ...

s and electric guitars.

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 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 The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

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 *, Japanese politician *, Japanese ski jumping sports official *, Japanese sculptor *, Japanese karat ...

, 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 Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

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 market. Keio's first synthesizer, the

KORG miniKORG , founded as Keio Electronic Laboratories, is a Japanese multinational corporation that manufactures electronic musical instruments, audio processors and guitar pedals, recording equipment, and electronic tuners. Under the Vox brand name, th ...

, 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 1980s, KORG branched into digital pianos. KORG is credited with a number of innovations. The ''key

transpose In linear algebra, the transpose of a Matrix (mathematics), 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 ...

'' 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.

Relationship with Yamaha

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese multinational musical instrument and audio equipment manufacturer. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle division was establishe ...

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, which was widely used in the music industry. In the ...

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 Amplification is a British company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, Guitar speaker cabinet, speaker cabinets, and effects unit, effects pedals. Founded in London in 1962 by shop owner and drummer Jim Marshall (businessm ...

products in the US for decades. This arrangement ended in 2010. Kato died of cancer on 15 March 2011. The new line of more accessible digital synthesizers, including the wavestate, modwave and opsix, are featuring a

Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi ( ) is a series of small single-board computers (SBCs) developed in the United Kingdom by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in collaboration with Broadcom Inc., Broadcom. To commercialize the product and support its growing demand, the ...

Compute Module 3. In September 2022, Korg bought

Darkglass Darkglass Electronics is a bass guitar equipment company based in Helsinki, Finland. Darkglass was founded in 2009 by Chilean engineer Douglas Castro. In 2022, Darkglass was bought by Korg. The brand is known for their characteristic aggressive ...

Electronics.

Products

References

External links