> How long has Doepfer been in business, anyway
>
> Bryan

Bryan,

that's a bit difficult to say as it began little by little. During my study
in Munich I was playing in a band and did some modifications of amps or
effect units for me and other musicians. During that time I heard about the
(unachievable) synths of Moog, Buchla, EMS, ARP and others. End of the
seventies the electronic magazine ELEKTOR began with a DIY series about an
analog modular synthesizer called FORMANT. Though it was not very cheap to
built this synth it was within my financial possibilites to built this synth
little by little. When the synth was finished some important features had
been missing from my point of view (like a analog sequencer, a voltage
controlled phaser, a voltage controlled LFO, a VCF with voltage controlled
resonance, an external input with envelope follower, a frequency divider and
many more). I began to develop these missing modules and offered the first
ones about 1980. So you can call this my business attempts. But at that time
my study (physics) was not yet finished and only a small fraction of my
income was covered by the modules.

Based on the experience with the FORMANT and my self-made modules I began to
develop a four-voice polyphonic synthesizer (called PMS = polyphonic modular
system). But it was not very successful and it was available only as a kit
(not ready built). A few years later I heard about the famous Curtis
circuits (CEM33..) and got in touch with Doug Curtis. He delegated to me the
represention of the CEM circuits for Europe and I began to develop my first
synthesizers with CEM circuits (e.g. the voice modular system VMS and the
sound sampler system). This was about 1985. In the meantime my study was
finished and the sales were sufficient to cover my living. So one could call
this the beginning of my business. I got to know Christian Assall (he was
studying electronics at this time) and we began our cooperation in which
Christian took over all software jobs.

In 1992 the legal company "Doepfer Musikelektronik GmbH" (the German version
of a Ltd.) was founded and the crew increased to eight persons. So you could
even call 1992 the starting point.

Best wishes
Dieter Doepfer