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Author Topic:  Ikutaro Kakehashi Roland Founder Passes
Godfrey Arthur

 

From:
3rd Rock
Post  Posted 2 Apr 2017 3:48 pm    
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The founder of Roland Corporation which has many divisions, has passed at 87.

http://cdm.link/2017/04/father-808-founder-roland-ikutaro-kakehashi-died/

His work has affected many a musician's lives with keyboards, amplifiers, effects.

If you've ever plugged into a Boss reverb or delay pedal, Boss is a division of Roland Corp.





Godspeed Ikutaro.
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Joachim Kettner


From:
Germany
Post  Posted 3 Apr 2017 3:10 am    
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I once played guitar through a loaned Jazz- Chorus amp. Beautiful sound. I liked the chorus effect so much that I bought it as a stomp- pedal from another firm. May he RIP.
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Richard Sinkler


From:
aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana
Post  Posted 3 Apr 2017 8:07 am    
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Used a couple or Roland synths and a Roland keyboard amp. Not to mention a Boss pedal or two. Sad indeed. RIP.
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Jeff Harbour


From:
Western Ohio, USA
Post  Posted 3 Apr 2017 11:21 am    
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When I got my first steel, I plugged it into a JC-120 that I already owned.
(...There were no other steel players around to tell me not to, now I know that I missed the memo that use of a Peavey Nashville-series amp is 'Mandatory'... Just kidding!)
Anyway, the JC-120 remains my #1 pick of amps. Everywhere I play, I always get big compliments for my sound (and I credit 90% of that to the amp). RIP Mr. Kakehashi.
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steve takacs


From:
beijing, china via pittsburgh (deceased)
Post  Posted 24 Jun 2017 9:32 pm    
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Thank goodness we were lucky to have this man for as long as we did. He touched many a musicians life. Two of his 80 XL CUBES are part of my set-up.

What about the BOSS company; was that also part of the Roland company? If so, the RV 3s a number of us use may have also been part of this man's impact.

Condolences to the family. Stevet
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Godfrey Arthur

 

From:
3rd Rock
Post  Posted 25 Jun 2017 2:30 am    
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steve takacs wrote:
Thank goodness we were lucky to have this man for as long as we did. He touched many a musicians life. Two of his 80 XL CUBES are part of my set-up.

What about the BOSS company; was that also part of the Roland company? If so, the RV 3s a number of us use may have also been part of this man's impact.

Condolences to the family. Stevet




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Corporation

Pedals made while Ikutaro was alive, as with many musical instrument devices and their makers do, will go up in price.

Boss pedals used to be made in Japan but the company shifted to Taiwan after a while to make them.

'Made in Japan'
Boss pedals command a higher price than the Taiwan re-issues. Then there's chip sets to consider that pedal geeks drool over so there's that whole side of this as well as discontinued pedals made in either Japan or Taiwan plant.

There are a some rare models that command high prices.




The SP-1 is a parametric equalizer with one frequency band. The spectrum knob sets the frequency range in an interval sweep of 500Hz to 5kHz. The balance knob sets the peak within the range. Highly sought after.



The circuit in the Vibrato VB-2 was patterned after the vibrato circuit in the Roland Jazz Chorus 120. This standard production pedal was discontinued for not being user friendly and is the hardest Boss pedal to find.




This gold DS-1 was but a handful made, not standard production and given only to dealers in Asia. One of these went for USD$6k at auction.

I use these discontinued pedals below a lot:



The PN-2 is a stereo panning device and can be set to glacier-slow pan settings. A fave in the shoegaze genre.



The EH-2 is an unusual EQ type pedal good for studio work. Adds very subtle high frequency correction, modifies high-frequency harmonics and restores the clarity of harmonic structures lost during signal processing.

Perhaps many of us have seen this chorus/vibrato pedal below, the CE-1:


An AC powered stereo chorus/vibrato effect made portable of the Roland Jazz Chorus amp circuit.

This pedal helped launch Boss pedals.

Sounds from The Police (Andy Summers) in the late'70's.

Because of the BBD Matsushita MN3002 circuit (licensed from Philips) you can only select chorus or vibrato as in the Roland Jazz Chorus amp.

Pretty heavy chunk of metal pedal.



Ikutaro with the National (Matsushita-Technics) SX601 1970's.

He also helped the Hammond organ corporation make Piper organs the world's first organ to feature a built-in rhythm accompaniment band in a box system.

Kakehashi started a relationship with Matsushita and designed an organ that became the National SX-601. Matsushita one of the largest companies in Japan, made products under the Matsushita brand name, the National brand name and known worldwide under the name Panasonic.

Ikutaro along with Sequential Circuits' Dave Smith co-invented Musical Instrument Digital Interface aka MIDI.

In 2013 Smith and Kakehashi received technical Grammy Awards for their roles in conceiving and directing MIDI.

These electronics inventors were highly influenced by home organs of the 1950's and '60's.

Kakehashi-san in 1955 experimented with monophonic electronic musical instruments and founded Ace Electronic Industries which became Ace Tone musical instruments before leaving Ace Tone in 1972 and starting the Roland Corp. Ikutaro chose a name that began with "R" and was easy to pronounce, looking it up in a phone book.

Orphaned at the age of two, fought TB (which killed both his parents) for three years in a hospital which drained all his earnings as a self-taught watch and clock repairman, was finally cured with the first Streptomycin drug experiments which at the time was very expensive, as he almost didn't survive the Tuberculosis that affected both his lungs.

So yes we are lucky he made it.

Coincidentally Hammond Organ's Laurens Hammond was a clock maker before making organs.

The Roland TR-808 was seminal in the recording studio to the hip-hop genre of music as well as other artists like the Beastie Boys, Marvin Gaye, Run DMC and as a drum machine heavily influenced music. Whitney Houston's I Wanna dance With Somebody featured the TR-808, one of the most influential inventions in popular music.


Roland TR-808




Ikutaro Kakehashi in front of his watch shop in Kyushu Japan circa 1946.
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