Pioneer of digital music

Born: February 7 1930;

Died: April 1, 2017

IKUTARO Kakehashi, who has died aged 87, was a Japanese engineer who pioneered digital music and founded the synthesiser giant Roland.

He founded Roland in 1972, and the company's first product was the rhythm machine. Since then, Roland instruments have appeared on the stage of top artists from Lady Gaga to Omar Hakim and had a significant impact on shaping the sound of electronic, hip hop and dance music.

Born in Japan in 1930, Kakehashi was drawn to engineering from a young age and built his own shortwave radios while in high school during the Second World War.

After the war, he started a clock and watch repair business before moving into radio repair and then experimenting with making musical instruments. By the 1960s, his shop was making electric organs.

He founded Roland in Osaka in 1972 and his first product was the TR-77 rhythm box. The following year, he introduced the first compact synthesizer and went on to offer an assortment of keyboards, guitars, drums, amplifiers and speakers.

As dance music spread, Roland's synthesizers became ubiquitous. "Music literally would not be what it is today without Mr Kakehashi," said Steven Fisher, now at Yamaha and a former employee at Roland, who worked with Kakehashi on electronic percussion and drum products.

Kakehashi always stressed that the advent of electronic music was not at odds with acoustic instruments, or that it was trying to undermine the rich legacy of music.

But amplification held great potential, including the possibility to create various speakers as well as present music to far larger audiences, like the hundreds at concert halls, not the previous dozens in old-style chamber settings, he said.

One Roland product he liked to show off was a guitar that was a collaboration with Fender, which could not only play Stratocaster riffs but also the sounds of an acoustic guitar, sitar and 12-string acoustic guitar, as well as instantly drop octaves and distort notes.

"The options have widened," Kakehashi said of electronic music at a Roland seminar in 2012. "I believe the ways of musical expression have expanded."

Kakehashi received a Grammy in 2013 for developing Midi, or Musical Instrumental Digital Interface, which digitally connects instruments.

Upon receiving the Grammy, Kakehashi noted how quickly the years had passed since the debut of the Midi protocol in 1983.

"It is my great pleasure that Midi played a significant role in their prevalence," he said at the time. "This year's Technical Grammy Award is the result of the co-operation by the companies who worked towards the same dream - growth of electronic musical instruments."

His death was announced by ATV, a company Kakehashi founded in 2013 after he left Roland.