History: the MX-5050 line

Otari introduced the MX-5050 in the autumn of 1974 as a compact, affordable professional recorder — a studio-grade quarter-inch machine priced within reach of small studios, broadcasters, and serious home recordists. The first generation, with its brushed-metal preamp face, sold in the US as the Mini Pro — Otari's own sales name for the machine, not collector slang: it is in the US trade press from September 1974 and in Otari's own full-page advertising the same month. On some first-generation units the name is even on the machine itself, silk-screened beneath the MX5050 badge — see the face badge for what that mark does and doesn't prove.

The company behind it↑ TOP

Otari Electric Co., Ltd. was founded in April 1965, in Mitaka, Tokyo. That is the company's own account of itself, given by its CEO in the message Otari published for its fiftieth anniversary:

It has been fifty years since we started our company as Otari Electric Co., Ltd. in Mitaka, Tokyo in April, 1965.

— Masayuki Hosoda, CEO, Otari, Inc., April 2015

Hosoda founded it after ten years as a Teac engineer, and the company carries the name of Otari, a village in the Nagano prefecture mountains.

The secondary accounts don't quite agree, and this page won't pretend they do. The Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording gives 1964 in one line and 1965 in another; Encyclopedia.com says 1965. They differ on the name, too: Encyclopedia.com says Otari is the village where Hosoda was born, the museum says it is where his father lived. Where the retellings disagree with the company about the company's own birthday, this page takes Otari's word — April 1965.

Each generation's own story↑ TOP

The first generation's launch, prices, period press and parts story are on its hub. The MX-5050B's launch in 1978, its prices and its long afterlife in studio directories and used lists are on the B's hub. The later lines have theirs too: the Mark II, the B-II, the MARK III, the B-III and the MARK IV. The wider family and the eight-track chapters cover the line: The wider family, The 8-track.

Sources↑ TOP

The company's own account, and where the secondary sources differ:

• Company history: Encyclopedia.com and the Museum of Magnetic Sound Recording

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