Member Profile - Jerry Kovarsky | Korg Technology Senior Product Manager

Jerry Kovarsky is one of our most ardent supporters at IMSTA. As Korg Technology's Senior Product Manager, Jerry has been instrumental in getting the MI giant to join our up and coming organization. We were also happy to meet his Japanese colleagues who are equally enthusiastic about IMSTA, our program and our sister organization IMSTA Japan.

How did you get involved in Music?

Like most people of my generation, it was the Beatles. My parents woke me up to see them perform on Ed Sullivan and it stuck with me. I didn't want to be a musician, I wanted to be a Beatle! Guitar didn't work out for me so I eventually gravitated to piano and organ. All the main classic rock players had their impact, from Goldy McJohn/Steppenwolf through to The Allman Bros, Nicky Hopkins, Lee Michaels, Greg Rolie (Santana) and onward. Frank Zappa opened my ears more (especially finding out about George Duke!) , and then I found Keith Emerson. He advanced my tastes and opened up my ears to classical music and on toward jazz/fusion. I was hooked and immersed myself completely.

I went to Manhattan School of Music for one year on a Saturday program and then got accepted at University of Miami - what a time. The school was a hotbed of talent (Pat Metheny, Steve Morse and what would become the Dregs, Jaco, Bobby Watson, Cliff Carter, Hiram Bullock) and I got my a** kicked. After a few years there, I came back home to NJ/NY and finished my Jazz Performance degree at William Paterson College and went out into the world as a player, teacher, programmer - whatever it took to get by. My path into the musical products industry has taken me through 8 years with Casio, 8 years with Ensoniq, and now Korg, but I still think of myself as a musician first and foremost, and I wish I could be out playing and tearing it up with live players more. << Jerry participating in 'Software Day' at Musik Messe 2007

How long have you been with Korg and what projects did you get to work on?

It's been 10 years now - hard to imagine that much time has passed already. I came here in 1996 in time to see the launch of the N364. The Trinity was still the main workstation, along with the Prophecy and some other cool toys. The first projects I worked on from inception were the SGproX and the Z1, then the Triton, and it's been a wonderful ride that I still enjoy every day. I'm lucky to be able to be involved in so many different things - from synths, to workstations, to recorders, to software, to... who knows?

What are some of your favorite projects at Korg?

Wow, this is a hard one - I've worked on so many projects, and so many different types of products since coming to Korg.

One has to be the TRITON, because it was the first project that I got to put some of my personal viewpoints on user experience and workflow into a Korg workstation. The Product Planning and Engineering groups were so open to dialog and investigation of all the ideas, and we got together a real international team to spec it out. It was also the first project where I got to work with the whole legendary MPB team (MIDI Patch Boys). What a wacky, talented, and dedicated bunch of artists. I must have made over 10 trips to Japan on that project alone, and it was very satisfying to see it go on to become so successful.

Another would be the KAOSS Pad/Electribes, which we worked on at the same time. There was so much "out of the box" thinking that went into the products, and working with some of the more electronic and future-oriented members of the Korg family was a gas.

OASYS is certainly another. I came into Korg when the orginal OASYS was still on "life-support", so after deciding that the original project wasn't completely market ready, and then doing the PCI card, it was great to bring the whole concept back to life in the way that we did, taking it far past what any of the previous configurations had ever done. OASYS is the project that most represents Korg "firing on all burners", with the Japanese, N. CA and Italian development groups all working together, contributing elements to the project. The sound of the OASYS has spoiled me for most of the other gear I own, and listen to in the market...

Korg's flagship Oasys is a project Jerry had a hand in

Do you get time to play much music?  Do you play in a band?

You're hitting a nerve here - lately my work has been so all-encompassing that this part of my life has been suffering. Not enough time making music to keep me happy. When I do have time I tend to just play acoustic piano, or a good piano patch on a keyboard and improvise to release emotions, tensions, whatever. But I really miss the give and take of playing with other musicians - I have always played in bands and am pretty much a jazzer/funkster so I like to play off of other people. Ask me again in a year and if I haven't improved this answer kick me in the butt!!

How does a company like Korg approach the piracy problem?

It has forced us into using forms of copy protection that we wish we didn't have to. It complicates things and we empathize with our loyal/legit users, but we see no choice. The original Legacy Collection was cracked and on the torrent sites before Korg USA ever received piece one in our warehouse. We weren't even able to get started without it rearing its ugly head. All we can do is forge forward, use the copy protection and keep improving the product regularly to keep ahead of the curve. But it certainly leaves us with a bad taste and wondering what the future holds for legitimate companies who want to invest resources to innovate in this area, and get a reasonable return for that effort.

People think of Korg as a Hardware synthesizer company, how did you come to join IMSTA?

We've been making software versions of some of our classic synths since 2004, with the original Legacy Collection. So we're solidly in the business of software as well as hardware. Plus we make controllers that work with software, and I think I have a close friend at every major (and not so major) software company out there! So I have been aware of the piracy issues for a long time now, and the misconception that software doesn't cost anything except the media it comes on, which in the case of the Internet is simply bandwidth. So from both a business and ethical standpoint I am 1000% behind the message and the cause, and Korg is glad to put our name behind the message.

Relatively speaking, how important is the software side of Korg?

Well, given the state of the software retail situation I can't say that it's a high percentage of our business, but it's still important to us. We understand our users and what they want to do and we know that software is only going to grow in importance to them. And we intend to be there with cool, useful, and inspiring tools to help them make their music.

Anything you want to say to the pirates out there reading this?

You mean like, hi, nice to meet you? :-) I would say that everyone who makes a product or service deserves the right to decide how they offer that item to the public. If they choose to give it away fine. If they choose to sell it, you should respect that decision. Just because you may disagree with someone doesn't give you the right to take what hasn't been given to you. Just because something is easy to do doesn't make it right to do so. It's a matter of respect and ethics, not just convenience. You absolutely have the right to vote with your dollars, by withholding them if you don't like something, or its value, but then ethically you should just walk away from it. And if you can't afford a given tool, look around for another one that you can afford, or one that might be free. Don't take what hasn't been rightfully given to you just because it's out there.

Tadahiko Sakamaki, Takahiro Sato and Koji Oisha of Korg Inc enjoying Software Day at Musik Messe 2007.

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