Fumio Mieda

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 developed the Uni-Vibe, which was used famously by Jimi Hendrix (a fact he did not discover for some ten years). While at KORG he focused on monophonic and later polyphonic synthesizers including the now historic Prototype No. 1, and later the PE series of polyphonic synthesizers including the PE-1000, PE-2000, and the Poly-800 released in 1983. Over the years, Mr. Mieda has written monthly articles for the Japan Music Trades magazine focusing on the early development of technology. The magazine compiled these articles for a book entitled Electronic Musical Instruments Past, Present, and Future.