Medeli profile - Sand, software and soundSand, software and sound

Medeli Electronics Co. Ltd. is one of the largest developers and manufacturers of electronic musical instruments, but you might not know much about them.

I investigated a few of Medeli’s low-cost arranger instruments while searching for inexpensive gear to mod. For example, Medeli offers the new entry-level Nebula series instruments: MK37, MK49 and MK61. Medeli had a large booth at NAMM 2025 and is trying to establish the Medeli brand in the USA.

Medeli chose a tough time to enter the USA market. The headwinds are strong thanks to the (illegal) tariffs. Free the markets.

Medeli already have one foot in the door: ASM (Ashun Sound Machines). You know the ASM Hydrasynth. ASM is a subsidiary of the parent Medeli and is the portal through which more Medeli-branded gear will flow.

Medeli manufactures components and OEM keyboards which are sold under independent brands. You might have seen products from POGOLAB, LEKATO, VISIONKEY and STARTONE and noted their similarities. Medeli components have appeared in products from M-Audio.

I decided to get a little smarter about Medeli and drew up this profile:

Company founded in 1983
Hong Kong manufacturer of digital musical instruments
Over 1,000 employees across Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Zhuhai
Team of over 80 engineers in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Zhuhai
    2009 Medeli Zhuhai established
    2006 Moved mfg from Shenzhen to industrial park Zhuhai
Plastic injection, metal shop, paint and silkscreen printing, wood 
    processing, PCB assembly, and final assembly
In-house SMT line, automatic insertion line, and bonding equipment
Annual production capacity of 1.5 million units
Expertise: IC design, DSP Algorithms, Sound Generation, 
           Drum Pad Design and Keybed Design
Proprietary multi-core digital audio processors
    32 to 256 tone polyphony
    Special purpose instruction set (AMP, LOOP, FIR)
A5 integrated circuit (2013)
    256 polyphony
    11 cores
    1500 MIPS
    ARM9 CPU (32-bit RISC)
    Products: ASM Hydrasynth, AKX10, M-Audio Accent
Synthesis engine
    FM, PCM, ubtractive synthesis
    Adjustable hardware-level multiple filters for each voice
    Anti-aliasing filter
    Physical modeling (drums and pianos)

Clearly, Medeli is a major player in electronic instruments. Zhuhai, by the way, is a major industrial center across from Hong Kong. It will be the new “Shenzhen” for electronics.

Please note the range of Medeli’s industrial expertise and equipment. Manufacturing is capital-intensive and electronic musical instruments are not free as many people might think or wish.

Medeli AKX10 main board

Like Yamaha, Korg and Roland, Medeli have developed their own line of synthesis and audio processors. The latest processor, A5, is a multi-core integrated circuit appearing in the ASM Hydrasynth, the AKX10 arranger, Medeli digital pianos, and the M-Audio Accent piano module. Usually, the A5 is paired with a separate ARM host processor (e.g., STM32F103VE) to handle operating system duties, user interface and so forth.

Here is a Medeli timeline taken from their corporate web site:

Timeline
    1983      Company founded
    1993      MEDELI brand established
    2003      First integrated circuit IC0105 enters mass production
    2003      MD2032 (32 polyphony)
              A2 (64 polyphony)
    2007      MD2032 enters mass production
    2008      A2 enters mass production
    2010      MD2032A (32 polyphony) enters mass production
    2013      A5 (256 polyphony)
    2015      A2S (128 polyphony) enters mass production
              A5 enters mass production
    2019      Founded the ASM brand

As to on-line demos, the MK37 ($75 USD) sounds decent for the price. It goes head to head with the now discontinued Yamaha PSS and Dream SAM 2000 series components. The MK49 ($100 USD) has touch response and sounds even better. The MK49 acoustic piano tone is quite decent. The MK61 ($140) adds more voices and supports two-voice splits and layers.

Medeli MK49 Nebula series keyboard

You don’t see very many 49 key instruments like the MK49. Sure, it has mini-keys, but you can almost stuff it into a backpack. Medeli sound design is getting better. I would say that the electric pianos and organs are probably the weakest bread and butter voices. The EPs don’t sound like a Rhodes — more like a sampled EP synthesizer patch. Some of the styles remind me of the now-dated Yamaha QY70. If the MK49 had better EPs and organs and did split/layer, it would absolutely kill at $100.