Polyphonic Synthesizers
Steve Shelokhonov was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and was classically trained on the piano. As a teenager and young adult, Steve played in underground rock clubs in Russia before moving to the United States. He began writing music and attending the NAMM Shows where he was exposed to...
Fumio Mieda was hired by the founder of KORG, Tsutomu Katoh, back in 1967. Mieda-san began working on a number of innovations as he hoped to improve the function of electronic organs. The results of his efforts led to a number of advances for the emerging synthesizer. Just prior to this, Mr. Mieda...
Malcolm Cecil was the engineer and product designer behind the famous synthesizer known as TONTO! TONTO is the acronym for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra," the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world, designed and constructed over several years....
Isao Tomita was the world-renowned composer of electronic music who famously used the Moog synthesizers to create award winning music that influenced a generation of music makers! Among his most incredible contributions to music was his use of multitrack recordings to create polyphonic...
Erik Norlander is the perfect musician to have come into his own as a performer as the synthesizer and other electronic musical instruments were being developed in the 1980s. In addition to touring and recording, Erik also worked within the industry at Alesis Electronics where he was the...
Tom Oberheim is the inventor of the first polyphonic music synthesizer, who played a vital role in the establishment of MIDI standards back in the early 1980s. The Oberheim Company created a long list of innovative products, which remain sought-after as vintage instruments including the Oberheim 4...
Dave Smith was the founder of Sequential Circuits and inventor of the polyphonic synthesizer, the Prophet 5. Dave was also the designer and original pioneer of MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) technology. Dave became a part of an active group of innovators in the San Francisco Bay Area...