[ WM ] Your father, Roger, started Kraft Keyboards in 1984 in Wisconsin at the height of the synthesizer surge. That was the same time I was managing a music store in Los Angeles, CA. Your father was groundbreaking in carrying all kinds of synth brands back then. How did that all start with him?
[ Ben Kraft ] Like so many of us in the music industry, my Dad was first a professional musician. He was also extremely curious about the emerging technology and was one of the first in Wisconsin making music using an organ, synthesizers and bass pedals, along with trumpet and doing some singing. The 70’ s and early 80’ s were really happening with new tech, and a local music store owner, who would come out to see my Dad play, invited him to come to the store and to use his experience and knowledge to start a keyboard department. Always looking for a new opportunity( what musician isn’ t!), my Dad joined the store and began making the keyboard section his own.
He is quite entrepreneurial, so this was right up his alley and gave him an opportunity to help other musicians with all this brand-new tech.
Shortly after that, MIDI was invented, and the slew of products that came after that, like the Yamaha DX7, Kurzweil K250, Ensoniq Mirage and E-mu Emulator, all became product offerings at“ Kraft Keyboards.” Musicians who were looking for the latest and greatest hurried in to check it all out. It was a dawn of a new time for music making.
[ WM ] You grew up in the store with your father. Do you remember some of his favorite keyboards back then?
[ Ben ] Oh yeah … I remember that time vividly, and considered myself one of the luckiest kids to have access to all of these instruments! Who wouldn’ t want to emulate Van Halen’ s“ Jump” on a new Oberheim? I certainly did. Then, my Dad became one of the first Kurzweil dealers, and he promptly brought a K250 to the house to learn it inside and out, and I got to do that with him, experimenting with sequencing and sampling. I was 10, and was soaking all of this up like only a kid could!
After that, there were so many favorites. Ensoniq ESQ-1, followed by the Roland D-50, and Korg M1 … the list goes on and on. MIDI and digital synthesis brought new products and tools every 6 months in those days! Not to mention computer connectivity. Remember, the Apple Macintosh was released in precisely that era and it was dizzying to consider all of the possibilities of music making. It was a special time to be a musician.
[ WM ] Next you went off to college and a pivotal thing happened. The internet started. How did you respond to that new horizon of opportunity?
[ Ben ] While going to school to study business,
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