Akai (Japanese: 赤井, pronounced [a̠ka̠i]) is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946.
The "Akai Professional" electronic instrument division was spun off in 1999[2] and remains under separate ownership[3] from that of the main "Akai" brand.
Corporate history
Akai was founded by Masukichi Akai and his son, Saburo Akai (who died in 1973[4]) as Akai Electric Company Ltd. (赤井電機株式会社, Akai Denki Kabushiki Gaisha), a Japanese manufacturer in 1929[4][5][6] or 1946.[note 1]
The company's business eventually became discombobulated and it left the audio industry in 1991. At its peak in the late 1990s, Akai Holdings employed 100,000 workers and had annual sales of HK$40 billion (US$5.2 billion). The company filed for insolvency in November 2000, owing creditors US$1.1B.[1] It emerged that ownership of Akai Holdings had somehow passed in 1999 to Grande Holdings, a company founded by Akai's chairman James Ting. The liquidators claimed that Ting had stolen over US$800m from the company with the assistance of accountants Ernst & Young who had tampered with audit documents going back to 1994.[7] Ting was imprisoned for false accounting in 2005,[7] and E&Y paid $200m to settle the negligence case out of court in September 2009.[8] In a separate lawsuit, a former E&Y partner, Christopher Ho, made a "substantial payment" to Akai creditors in his role as chairman of Grande Holdings.[1]
The "Akai Professional" division specialising in electronic instruments became a separate business in 1999.[2] It was bought in 2005 by businessman Jack O'Donnell (later becoming a part of his inMusic Brands group)[3] and is no longer associated with the main "Akai" brand.
Many Akai products were sold under the name Roberts in the US[citation needed], as well as A&D in Japan (from 1987 after a partnership with Mitsubishi Electric), Tensai and Transonic Strato in Western Europe[citation needed]. During the late 1960s, Akai adopted Tandberg's cross-field recording technologies (using an extra tape head) to enhance high frequency recording and switched to the increasingly reliable Glass and crystal (X'tal) (GX) ferrite heads a few years later[citation needed]. The company's most popular products[citation needed] were the GX-630D, GX-635D, GX-747/GX-747DBX and GX-77 open-reel recorders (latter featuring an auto-loading function), the three-head, closed-loop GX-F95, GX-90, GX-F91, GX-R99 cassette decks, and the AM-U61, AM-U7 and AM-93 stereo amplifiers.
Akai manufactured and badged most of its imported hi-fi products with the Tensai brand (named after the Swiss audio and electronics distributor Tensai International[citation needed]). Tensai International was Akai's exclusive distributor for the Swiss and Western European markets until 1988.
Akai limited its consumer hi-fi product line in the United States and Europe towards the end of the 20th century[citation needed].
Introduction of the on-screen display
Akai produced consumer video cassette recorders (VCR) during the 1980s. The Akai VS-2 was the first VCR with an on-screen display,[9] originally named the Interactive Monitor System. By displaying the information directly on the television screen, this innovation eliminated the need for the user to be physically near the VCR to program recording, read the tape counter, or perform other common features. Within a few years, all competing manufacturers had adopted on-screen display technology in their own products.
Akai Professional
For the present-day owners of the "Akai Professional" brand for music-related products (now under entirely separate ownership from the "Akai" consumer electronics brand), see inMusic Brands.
In 1984,[2] a new division of the company[10] was formed to focus on the manufacture and sale of electronic instruments, and was called Akai Professional.
Akai's portable studio, Akai MG-1214 unit
The first product released by the new subsidiary was the MG1212, a 12 channel, 12 track recorder.[11] This innovative device used a special VHS-like cartridge (a MK-20), and was good for 10 minutes of continuous 12 track recording (19 cm per second) or 20 minutes at half speed (9.5 cm per second). One track (14) was permanently dedicated to recording absolute time, and another one for synchronization such as SMPTE or MTC. Each channel strip included dbx type-1 noise reduction and semi-parametric equalizers (with fixed bandwidths). The unit also had innovations like an electronic 2 bus system, a 12 stereo channel patch bay and auto punch in and out, among others. The unique transport design and noise reduction gave these units a recording quality rivaling that of more expensive 16 track machines using 1" tape. The MG-1212 was later replaced by the MG-1214, which improved the transport mechanism and overall performance.
Other early products included the Akai AX80 8-voice analog synthesizer in 1984,[11] followed by AX60 and AX73 6-voice analog synthesizers ca.1986.[12][13] The AX-60 borrowed many ideas from the Roland Juno series, but used voltage controlled analog oscillators (VCO) as a sound source as opposed to Roland's more common digitally controlled analog oscillators (DCO), and also allowed the performer to "split" the keyboard (using different timbres for different ranges of keys). The AX-60 also had the ability to interface with Akai's early samplers through a serial cable, using 12-bit samples as an additional oscillator.[14]
The S612 12-bit digital sampler in 1985, was the first in a series of (relatively) affordable samplers already in 19-inch studio-rack format but in black color.[11] It held only a single sample at a time, which was loaded into memory via a separate disk drive utilizing Quick Disk 2.8-inch floppy disks. The maximum sample time at the highest quality sampling rate (32 kHz) was one second.
S6000 remote
S900
Z4
The introduction of a "professional" range of digital samplers began with the 12-bit S900 in 1986,[11] followed by the X7000 keyboard sampler in 1986,[15] and the S700 rack-mount version in 1987.[11] Unlike the single-sample S612, however, they allowed the use of six active samples at once, had a built-in disk drive and could be extended with six individual outputs via cable and a flash memory extension which added another six samples to the memory for multisample playback. The S700/X7000 sampler series were light-grey colored, which didn't change throughout the whole "professional" range of Akai samplers.
The 16-bit Akai S1000 series followed in 1988, adding the option to read CD-ROMs and write to hard disks via SCSI. This range was superseded by the S3000 series in 1993, with optional built-in CD-ROM drive, followed by the S5000 and S6000. Additional releases of note were the Z4 and Z8 24-bit 96 kHz samplers.[11]
Akai also produced several Digital MIDI sequencers and digital synthesizers such as the MPC range, a line of integrated drum machines, MIDI sequencers, samplers and direct-to-disk recorders.
New ownership of Akai Professional
In December 1999, one year before the application of the Civil Rehabilitation Act [ja] to Akai Electric Company Ltd., the brand of its musical instrument division, Akai Professional was acquired by a company of the United States. The new company was dubbed "Akai Professional Musical Instrument Corporation".[2] (AKAI professional M.I.) was established in the same year, however it was bankrupted in 2005.[10]
In 2004, following a US distribution deal, the Akai Professional Musical Instrument division was acquired by Jack O'Donnell, owner of Numark Industries and Alesis. In 2012, inMusic Brands was formed as a parent company for O'Donnell's companies, including Akai Professional.
Current products
In early 2003, Grande Holdings began undergoing a re-exposure of Akai's brands by marketing various audio visual products manufactured by Samsung. In the same year, Grande began to distribute Akai home appliances such as air conditioners, vacuum cleaners, and refrigerators. In the 2010s, it began to distribute Akai smart phones in collaboration with some Chinese smart phone manufacturers such as Gionee, in India and other countries.
^
Although reliable sources are not yet found, according to the several sources (kotobank.jp, ja:Akai Professional), Masukichi Akai established Akai Press Industry in 1923, then his son, Saburo Akai established Akai Electric Company Ltd. in 1946, and Masukichi served as the president of both.
^ abcd"Akai Professional / Akai Digital – Company History". AKAI professional M.I. Corp. c. 1999. Archived from the original on 2013-05-03. Akai Professional entered the electronic musical instrument world in 1984 with one purpose – to give artists the tools they need to express and explore new musical ideas.", "In 1999, Akai Professional Musical Instruments Corporation (APMI) was formed.
^ ab"About inMusic and Jack O'Donnell". Archived from the original on 2023-02-26. Retrieved 2023-05-24. In 2005 [..] O'Donnell purchased [..] Akai Professional, one of the world's most influential manufacturers of music production gear
^ ab"Akai Electric Company Ltd". Reel to Reel Tape Recorder Manufacturers. Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording. Retrieved 2013-07-02.
^ abアカイプロフェッショナルエムアイが破産手続き開始 [Akai Professional M.I. entered bankrupt proceedings.]. 神奈川新聞 (in Japanese). 2005-12-07. Archived from the original on 2006-01-12. 民間信用調査会社の帝国データバンク横浜支店によると、音響機器製造のアカイプロフェッショナルエムアイ（横浜市都筑区北山田、駿河道生社長、従業員十七人）は七日までに、東京地裁から破産手続き開始決定を受けた。... 同社は一九九九年十二月、赤井電機（東京都）の電子楽器部門のブランドを買収した米国系企業が、製造・販売目的で設立した。
[Abstract: according to the private credit research company, Teikoku Databank Yokohama branch, by the 7th (December 2005), Akai Professional M.I. received a bankruptcy proceedings decision by the Tokyo District Court. ... Akai Professional M.I. was established in December 1999 to focus on the manufacture and sale of electronic musical instruments, by a company of the United States who acquired the brand(s) of musical instrument division of Akai Electric Company Ltd.]
^"Akai Professional AX73 / VX90 / AX60". Archive Products. AKAI Professional M.I. Corp. 1999–2005. Archived from the original on 2013-07-28. (archived on HollowSun.com).
“The AX73 was a simple analogue synthesiser based around the Curtis CEM 3394 chips ... Internally, the AX60 had the same voice architecture as the AX73 and VX90 ... Common to all models in the range, however, was a proprietary 13-pin DIN socket that allowed you to connect an S900 for processing through the synths' analogue filters. ...”
