Arturia 2 manual Introduction, ROLAND/JUPITER-8 Story

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1ROLAND/JUPITER-8 STORY

The history of Roland is intimately tied to the personal story of its founder, Mr Ikutaro Kakehashi.

When he was just 16 years old, the young Mr Kakehashi noticed there was no watch or clock industry in post-war Japan. He therefore understood there was a thriving business

to develop repairing existing timepieces.1

Mr Kakehashi found a part-time job in a watch repair store, but he quickly felt frustrated with the pace at which things were progressing. In the traditional Japanese organization of work, becoming a master in any technical area would take a seven-year apprenticeship. Consequently he left after a few months, bought a book on how to repair watches and set up the “Kakehashi Watch Shop”.

This first venture happened to be so successful that he quickly decided to expand and turn his enthusiasm for music into business. It became legal at that time to have a short- wave radio and to listen to foreign broadcasts. While he scanned the airwaves for new music, Mr Kakehashi learned the basics of how radios operated. He then used broken sets to create working units. His repair shop started to repair broken radios in addition to clocks and watches.

1It is remarkable that a man named Mr Torakusu Yamaha had also started out as a watch repairer. In fact the same is true of Matthias Hohner, the founder of Hohner. Even the Hammond Organ Company started out as a sub-division of the Hammond Clock Company.

8 ARTURIA – JUPITER-8V – USER’S MANUAL