KORG is a global leading manufacturer of electronic musical instruments. From its company headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, the company enjoys a global sales network.

The company began ‘like so many others’ with the idea of being able to improve something.

For more than five decades now, KORG has been known as a technological pioneer in musical instruments and tools:  from the production of the first synthesiser in Japan and development of music workstations to the creation of the first portable tuner and much more. The ambition to always place cutting-edge, very user-friendly and innovative products of the highest quality on the market is the driving force behind the entire company.

It all began 50 years ago, when KORG founder Tsutomu Katoh was a club owner in the early 1960s. Tadashi Osanai, a well-known Japanese accordionist, played regularly at Katoh’s club. Katoh had the idea of underlaying his employee's accordion playing with the beat of a rhythm machine. Osanai, himself an engineer and graduate of the prestigious Tokyo University, was sure he could build such a rhythm machine himself and convinced Katoh to finance his efforts. In 1962, Katoh rented a small factory on the ‘Keio’ railroad line, where both men began development. The young company was called Keio Electronic Laboratories, which later became KORG a compound of the words ‘Keio’ and ‘ORGel’.