Who are MSS Studios/ORGAN1st?:

MSS Studios is a small father and son home-based business established in 1969 by Gerry King for the purpose of Music Engraving (MSS stands for Music Setting Service). Some of our engraved publications include 76 books for Yamaha, over 120 books for Music Sales Ltd., (including many Kenneth Baker organ and keyboard books), PVG books from Paul McCartney, Eddi Reader, Robert Plant, The Bee Gees, Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Complete Beatles and many 'busker' books. We are still producing books including Cambridge University Opera Journal as well as various examination papers, although mail-order side has all but taken over now. We started publishing our own series of books called "Key Expressions for Organ" in 1996 and later that year expanded into selling organ recordings under the name ORGAN1st (Organ-First) and we now stock around 1300 organ recordings from electronic and theatre to Hammond jazz (probably the biggest selection in Europe). Our customer base is now around 6,500 customers in 47 countries. In 1999 our small catalogue was expanded into a quarterly magazine, with music, features and profiles from the organ world and this is was available to subscribers (most back issues also are now available as free PDF downloads for everyone). The last issue of our magazine was published in November 2006 (after eight years and 32 issues), but we are continuing with a smaller A5 full-colour catalogue which we send to all our UK customers free of charge. In November 2003, MSS Studios/ORGAN1st bought the stock of the "Piping Hot Recording Company" from Stephen Ashley. This included the remaining stock of self-produced CDs on the "Piping Hot" label, plus their stock of imported theatre organ recordings. In September 2005 we took over the organ side of the Audicord label, founded in 1963 by Ken Mellor. Early releases of steam trains were later expanded to include organ recordings (with 24 cassettes produced in a two year period at its peak). Audicord also took over Amberlee Records in the 1980s and in 1993 Audicord (and Amberlee) were taken over by John Greenwood who ran the business until 2005 and its hand-over to us. John recorded new CDs for Doreen Chadwick, Arnold Loxam, Peter Jebson, Peter Lish, Paul Greenwood and Kevin Morgan, as well as re-released some of the older Audicord/Amberlee material on CD. He also expanded the mail-order side to include other labels including Grosvenor, Grasmere and OS Digital. MSS Studios intend to keep the current range of Audicord CDs available as well as re-releasing some of the older material from the archive of 70+ original master tapes. Also in 2005 we took the remaining stock of Accordion CDs from UK dealer TREVANI. He specialised in stocking accordion CDs from all around the world and we now have approximately 100 of his titles on our accordion section.

Profile of Ian King (Son): See This Page

Profile: Gerry King (Father):

I started piano lessons in the early 1940's when life was very much based around a Salvation Army upbringing. In my early teens I played brass instruments from cornet down to euphonium in the band and my main interests were accompanying both instrumentalists and singers on piano and I was the pianist and organist for both the senior and junior choirs. In 1951 I enlisted in the Buffs regimental band for three years based in Kent, one year of which was in Kenya. I played B flat bass and was the dance band pianist giving concerts to the troops and playing for dances as well as the concert and parade aspects. I gained good all round musical experience covering everything from classical through to jazz, but during all my earlier years I had a facination for drums and the first thing I did on demob was to buy my first of many drum kits and watch and listen to the best drummers around. Over the years I have played in London and the South East with groups from jazz trio and dixiland groups to middle-of-the-road groups and large dance bands. I have played with many fine pianists on a regular basis and freelancing generally, this gave me a good understanding of what piano playing was all about. This experience transfered into the organ field with my assesment of organists, their repertoire, recordings and ability, based on their recordings, be it classical, easy listening or jazz and still hold very strong views about the organ scene in general. I ceased all semi-pro music activities in the early 80's to concentrate on a self-employed music engraving business (pre computers) which I have been doing part time since 1969 and 12 years ago I went into computer engraving with my son Ian as a partner. Since then we have engraved well over 500 publications from many leading publishers as well as producing our own series of publications of organ music called Key Expressions for Organ. Where Are We?: 

We are in Dolgellau at the bottom of Snowdonia National Park in Wales (in the UK). Please don't be put off by our location, we have an excellent local postal service and send most orders out the same day (on weekdays). Please take a look at this map to see where we are situated. You can see some photos of Dolgellau at www.dolgellau.com Please note we are mail-order ONLY and are not open to visitors