We gave priority to marketing the Korgue (also known as the “Deka-Korg”) first, which used a polyphonic sound generator, as we believed that a mono- phonic instrument that couldn’t play chords even though it had a keyboard would not be well received. Unfortunately, even though the Korgue had many new features like the Traveler controller, it did not sell well at all because of our lack of a distribution network and the fact that the instrument was expensive. Our next move was to offer the miniKORG 700 and 700S monophonic synthesizers. Although we received some complaints in Japan about the inability to play chords on these instruments, with customers concerned that the product might be faulty, these synthesizers were big hits worldwide owing to their stable pitch and incredible sound quality.

The following year, we released the 800DV, a two-voice synthesizer that featured two miniKORG 700 sound generators and could play two different pitches and sounds at the same time when you played two different notes on the keyboard. Although DV stood for “dual voice”, I felt that two voices really weren’t enough, and so we put our efforts into developing a polyphonic instrument right after the 800DV was released.

One of the differences between the sounds of a synthesizer and an organ is that synthesizers feature a VCF (voltage-controlled filter) to change the harmonics of the sound over time. Actually, the year before we released the PS-3000 series, we made the PE-1000 Polyphonic Ensemble. This instrument featured 60 oscillators (one per key) that could be tuned separately and 60 basic EGs (envelope generators) and a VCF. Although we didn’t call the PE-1000 a synthesizer, this was indeed a polyphonic synthesizer.

In writing these recollections, I went back to the handwritten circuit diagrams and mechanical drawings for the PS-3300. These documents reminded me in detail as to why we developed this instrument at that time and what it was like to develop. For example, our idea of “polyphonic” at the time was quite different from how we think of it nowadays. It would be uninspiring if you just treated a polyphonic synthesizer as a monophonic synthesizer played with chords. We had all kinds of ideas about this, considering that we had an instrument that could make more than one note sound at the same time. For instance, what if the synthesizer could generate pitches in all kinds of tunings, not only equal temperament? Or, what if the instrument could create sounds by producing notes not just as chords, but as clusters of tones? This instrument even attracted the attention of people who research different tunings, and was modified so that players could alter the tuning as the song progresses as a result.

Although not many units of the PS-3000 series were shipped due to its high price, the technical elements developed for these models became the impetus for creating many other products, including the MS-20 synthesizer, the M-500 SP (micro-preset) preset synthesizer with speakers, the X-911 guitar synthesizer and so on. I should add that although the PS-3000 made its debut as a “fully polyphonic synthesizer” for which all the keys you play would produce sound together, we hadn’t actually tested that internally, as one would need one finger for each key, or 48 fingers to do so. That said, I came across a band several years ago that did so. A number of band members gathered round the keyboard onstage and together they played all the keys at the same time, finally proving that our product was fully polyphonic! I was in the audience, and seeing that made me breathe a sigh of relief for the first time in decades.