Korg PE-1000

The PE-1000 is one of those odd transitional pieces that makes vintage gear collecting interesting. It's a percussion synthesizer — not a drum machine, not a conventional synth — built by Korg (then Keio Electronic Laboratories). The idea was that you'd run external drum sounds through it, and it would synthesize and reshape them into electronic percussive timbres, with the drummer triggering it via microphones on the acoustic kit. A retrospective in Sound on Sound (1998, p.271) noted that Korg produced two polyphonic instruments, the PE-1000 and the PE-2000, describing them as a matched pair: one for percussive duties, the other for sustained sounds.

The unit itself is fully analog and transistor-based, with no MIDI and no digital display — just knobs and switches on a compact, tabletop chassis. It offered six rhythm presets or drum sounds, with manual controls for shaping pitch, modulation, and decay on each voice. Some versions used germanium transistors, which can be a headache for modern repairs.

Documentation on the PE-1000 is thin. No original retail price, production years, or full electronic specs have surfaced in any indexed source. What the collector community has established:

- Fully analog, transistor-based circuitry

- Six rhythm presets/drum sounds

- Tabletop design, no keyboard

- Designed to process external drum sounds via triggers or microphones

- Pre-MIDI, no digital control

Enthusiasts describe it as rare, unusual, and "deeply weird" — capable of unique metallic and electronic drum sounds, but reportedly picky about trigger sensitivity and hard to control. Asking prices vary widely, from around $899 for an unrestored unit up to $1,495 for a mint example with original box. Power supply blocks are a common failure point, often requiring recapping, and the germanium transistors in some versions are difficult to source.