Techno-classical music

For the Indian classical musicians it is manna from the heavens. Bangalore-based Radel Electronics has designed a digital veena, which uses sampler techniques to play sounds ranging from the veena to the sitar.

"It's a stringed synthesiser," says G Raj Narayan, who set up the 25-year-old company. "It's the first of its kind in India, and we hope at Rs 25,000 it will find the desired interest level."

Says, co-director and veena exponent, Radhika Raj Narayan: "Not only does the electronic veena have a built-in amplifier and speaker for better sound at concerts, there is also no maintenance requirement." They hope to find a market for their musical gadgets overseas too.

When G Raj Narayan, an electronic engineer, quit working as a designer of aerospace systems at Hindustan Aeronautics, he decided to use his knowledge and skills to design and manufacture electronic music instruments.

Raj, an A grade Carnatic flautist with All India Radio, often found during live concerts, musicians would stop the recital and tune their instruments. "Also carrying the tambura, to maintain the pitch, was cumbersome," he says.

And it is then that he manufactured the first surpeti, which enabled him to maintain pitch during recitals. Other artists saw him perform with the gadget and were impressed.

Thereafter Raj started work on the taal-o-meter, which was devised to help instrumental musicians practise without a rhythm accompanist. "Earlier, it was mandatory for musicians to rely on a tabaliya or a mrindangam player to constantly be with him, while he practised. The taal-o-meter was devised to give the musician more independence," he says.

Artistes ranging from Balamurali Krishnan to Pandit Jasraj, have patronised his instruments and his Rs 850 chip-based tambura became very popular. In 1987, Raj unveiled the electronic tabla, which has a built-in programmed combinations of as many as 35 taals and 100 thekas.

Radel, which was set up on a budget of Rs 17,000 is now a Rs 4-crore company, set to hit double digit turnover in another three years. It has branches in Bangalore, Pune, Kolkata and Delhi, apart from partnering with 250 dealers across the country.