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PianoDisc’s 10 Years of Growth Nineteen ninety-eight marks the 10th anniversary of the introduction of the very first PianoDisc computer-driven player piano system. The PDS 1000, shown at the NAMM show in 1988, may have been only a partially functioning prototype, but it struck a chord with keyboard dealers attending the trade show. In fact, 100 units were ordered based on the prototype and 80 dealerships signed up as charter retailers of the new reproducing system. A decade has passed, and today PianoDisc founders Gary and Kirk Burgett can look back on a remarkable growth curve for their company, which has grown from a promising start-up to a $20 million corporation manufacturing the world’s best-selling computer-controlled pre-recorded music system for acoustic pianos. Growth has not subsided over the 10-year span--in fact, quite the contrary. For the first 10 months of 1997, net income rose 25.3 percent, while sales climbed 11 percent for PianoDisc. According to executive vice president Tom Lagomarsino, these impressive figures were led by an extremely strong period from August to October, in which sales rose more than 18 percent over the same period in 1996, and net income surged a whopping 173.9 percent. The Sacramento, Calif.-based company attributes the increased sales activity largely to the success of the new PianoDisc SilentDrive system introduced at the 1997 NAMM International Music Market in Anaheim. The latest incarnation of PianoDisc, the PDS128 Plus SilentDrive system uses 127 levels of musical expression per piano key to reproduce recorded music with the same tone and projection for each key played by the original concert artist. At the same time, SilentDrive facilitates remarkably quiet playback with dynamic musical expression. While the PianoDisc system continues to evolve and win customers (the company supplies 600 distributors in 45 countries), it is by no means the whole story for the Burgetts’ business. Also based in Sacramento is the PianoDigital branch, which produces the GT-360 and GT-90 systems. These systems add electronic functions to an acoustic piano, letting pianists experiment with modern piano technology while still retaining the sound of a classical acoustic piano. The GT-360 offers 128 musical selections, and the ability to layer up to 16 sounds to produce 1,815 sound combinations. The GT-90 has 16 instrument selections, 32-note polyphony, and 40 sound combinations. PianoDisc today has nearly 30,000 PianoDisc units installed in pianos. The systems are installed on an OEM basis by a dozen piano manufacturers, including Kawai, Young Chang, Charles Walter, Steinway, Baldwin, Fazioli, and Bosendorfer, among others. Keyboard Carriage also performs factory installations of the system. PianoDisc does its own factory installations on its Knabe pianos at its Sacramento headquarters, but the majority (80 percent) are installed in the field by trained technicians worldwide, according to Lagomarsino. On the institutional side, the systems can be found in pianos used at more than 100 Marriott hotels as well as in a sizable number of Hyatt Regency hotels in the United States. PianoDisc also continues to build its music library, which at nearly 4,000 recordings stands as the largest in the computerized piano music reproduction field. Under the direction of artistic director Jan Kiser, the Artist Series runs the gamut from country, jazz, and pop to classical, blues and ragtime. Among world-class performers are the late Floyd Cramer, Peter Nero, Chick Corea, Philip Entremont, Lorin Hollander, and Steve Allen. Many of the Artist Series recordings are produced at PianoDisc’s own Sacramento studio.
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