Peter Schwartz

Video

Oral History Information

Interview Date
Job Title
Sound Programmer/Synth Design Consultant
Company Name
KORG

Peter Schwartz is a pianist, composer, and synthesist who has worked for KORG on such projects as the M1, Wavestation, Prophecy and OASYS. After a wonderful experience with his classical music education and growing up alongside the explosion of synthesizer technology, Peter landed his first job in the music industry at Sam Ash in New York. While working for the retail store as a salesman he met Jack Hotop of KORG USA. Jack became a mentor to Peter (and several other key contributors to the industry) and encouraged him to consult for KORG. Peter’s first project was to program sounds for the DS-8 synthesizer and in fact he created 64 sounds for the instrument. His depth of knowledge and his passion for each project propelled Peter into one product after another. For the popular M1 Peter helped engineer several advanced features, and for the Wavestation he created two of the instrument's famous sounds - “Ski Jam” and “Will I Dream.” Enjoying the collaborations with the KORG team, Peter also contributed to the T1, Prophecy, 01W, Kronos, wavestate, and modwave. He was asked to assist in the very early stages of the creative process for OASYS, which he enjoyed very much.