Ikutaro Kakehashi

Ikutaro Kakehashi (梯 郁太郎, Kakehashi Ikutarō, 7 February 1930 – 1 April 2017), also known by the nickname Taro,^[1] was a Japanese engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur. He founded the musical instrument manufacturers Ace Tone, Roland Corporation, and Boss Corporation, and the audiovisual electronics company ATV Corporation.

Kakehashi founded Ace Tone in 1960 to produce electronic organs and early drum machines. He founded Roland in 1972 and was involved in the development of various influential electronic instruments, such as the TR-808 and TR-909 drum machines and the TB-303 and Juno-60 synthesizers, in addition to Boss guitar amplifiers and effects pedals. He was also key to the development of MIDI, a technical standard that connects a wide variety of electronic instruments, in the 1980s; in 2013, Kakehashi received a Technical Grammy Award, shared with Dave Smith of Sequential, for the invention of MIDI. Kakehashi's inventions are credited with shaping popular music genres such as electronic, dance, hip hop, R&B, rock and pop music.^{[2][1][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}