About Chase
Where it all started
Chase was founded in 1978 by musician Amrik Singh in London. The speciality was originally based on and around synthesisers and electric organs which dominated the music scene in the 1970’s and 80’s. Throughout the years, Chase was the biggest synthesiser retailer in the country and produced a number of award winning models that were favoured by the stars of the day, including Queen, Madness, Bad Company, and Kate Bush. There were Chase shops positioned across the country in large cities such as London, Manchester and Birmingham.
The 1980’s
In the 1980’s Chase even opened up the UK’s first Synthesiser school, the
London Synthesiser School…
… which featured lectures and programs by famous musical artists and celebrities of the time, and published a monthly publication, the London VCO, a supplement of International Musician and Recording World, which included exclusive interviews and deals involving popular synthesiser brands.
The years went on
The first Synthesisers
As well as selling top brand electric organs such as the Crumar 915, and the Crumar 920, Chase also sold a range of their top end own brand electric organs of outstanding quality and at amazingly competitive prices.
The Bit One
The legendary
breakthrough
Chase became prominent for the marketing of the Chase Bit One, manufactured by the Italian company Crumar – a vintage 6 voice analogue synth with MIDI, released in 1984, winning “best new product of the year” award in the United States.
TODAY
Chase now
In the turn of the millennium, Chase gradually focussed their interests more towards digital pianos and electric keyboards, and is now the biggest retailer of digital pianos in the United Kingdom. With the development of the web and the birth of the modern internet in 2005 they put their efforts into Ecommerce and moved their base from Central London to Manchester.
The Manchester base is the same to this day, and Chase still operate a music shop on site (58 Oldham Street in The Northern Quarter in Manchester), which also hosts a piano showroom where you can view and sample a wide range of pianos,
