Product Engineers
Larry Seaver spent decades designing, engineering and producing parts, instruments and tools for band and orchestras. The key to his success was simple, Larry was an engineer’s engineer! He was always thinking about ways to better a process or improve an instrument. Over his career in the music...
Mike Olsen has worked in the very shop his grandfather established right after World War II to make parts for band instrument makers in and around his hometown of Elkhorn, Wisconsin. At one point, after Mike joined the company full time after high school, three generations were working together. ...
Greg Mackie is the engineer who created a number of audio products that came at the perfect time to start a whole new era in sound production. Mackie Designs helped define the pro audio world beginning in the 1970s with a series of mixers that proved home recordings had a place in the industry. ...
Mark Sampson and his friend, Rick Perrotta, formed Matchless Amplifiers in Mark’s kitchen back in 1989. Two years later they pulled all of their resources to exhibit at the NAMM Show in Anaheim. They felt if ever they were going to make this company a success, it was at that moment: the 1991 NAMM...
Bill Putnam Jr essentially grew up in the music business. Bill’s father, Bill Putnam Sr., started Universal Audio in 1958 and was basically the inventor of the modern day recording console among many other fundamental recording technologies. Re-founded by Bill Jr. and his brother Jim in 1999,...
Marcus Spangler cut his teeth in the furniture business, working with his hands, seeing products to completion and adding his own ideas to the design and function of each piece. When he was hired by HP Wilfer to work at Warwick, Marcus found many of those same skills came in handy. As a product...
Takeshi Inomata is the noted jazz drummer who, among other things, helped design the first percussive instruments for Yamaha. His work with Yamaha took place during the early 1960s when the company began providing drum and percussive instruments and accessories. It was a contribution Takeshi was...
Nobunari Yanagisawa is the president of the company his father established just before World War II. The company began as a repair shop, which focused on the saxophone. The factory was used for military projects during the war but closed after the war. His father had a difficult time finding raw...
Akio Hiyoshi was on the engineering team at Yamaha in 1959 that designed the Electone Organ, which brought the small piano manufacturer into the electronic musical instrument market, where they would become dominant for decades. The team also worked on the Clavinova, the CS 80 (Yamaha's last...
Hirokazu Kato took part in the innovative engineering team at Yamaha in Japan who utilized FM Synthesis to create an electronic musical instrument, first the TRX prototype and then the revolutionary DX7. Kato-san began his career with Yamaha in 1965 when he helped design the company's first...