Invention of MIDI

MIDI means Musical Instrument Digital Interface. It’s a protocol that links two forms and
communicate which sound to use and for how much time. The history of MIDI It was first
introduced to solve the problem of the linkage between musical instruments. The goal was to link
two or more keyboards and get the sound from both of them while using only one. Since the first
electronic synthesizers generated poor and basic sounds, thew were trying to add up more sounds
to get a richer sound, with more complex harmonic contents. This issue was engaged in the ‘70s,
but the resulting methods weren’t versatile enough to form an universal standard. Originally, the
linkage was possible only between identical instruments or devices from the same manufacturer.
Oberheim and Roland, for example, implemented an interfacing system in their instruments. The
problem was that these interfaces were based on proprietary algorithms, so the system would be
able to link instruments only from the same manufacturer.

The history of MIDI standard began when the prototype of the MIDI interface was presented in
1981 from two Sequential Circuit (SCI) designers: Dave Smith and Chet Wood. They proposed
the first specifications of MIDI in a paper published with the name of “The complete SCI MIDI”.
They chose the right path to follow, in fact the worldwide resonance was immediate. This event
resulted in a quick and direct coalition between the most important companies of the music
sector. The first digital instruments producers to participate to the defining and the spreading of
the MIDI protocol were SCI, Roland, Korg, Yamaha and Kawaii.

The first synthesizer ever provided with MIDI ports was the Sequential “Prophet 600”, a 6 voice
61 key synthesizer produced in 1982. At the January, 1983 NAMM convention, this instrument
successfully communicated with a Roland Jupiter-6 synthesizer in the first public demonstration
of the MIDI protocol. From that day, every synthesizer (and all the electronic instruments)
incorporated the MIDI ports. The list of musical instruments manufacturers interested in MIDI
grew quickly, and two committees were created: the American MMA (Midi Manufacturer
Association) and the Japanese JMSC (Japanese MIDI Standard Committee). The purpose of
these two associations is to ensure compatibility between MIDI instruments and to improve their
potential. MIDI’s introduction coincided with the dawn of the personal computer era and the
introductions of samplers and digital synthesizers. The creative possibilities brought about by
MIDI technology have been credited as having helped to revive the music industry in the 1980s.
The introduction of MIDI also saw a shift from real time recording towards the integration of
pre-programmed MIDI-controlled parts as major components of many recordings. This meant
that there was a major shift in the ways in which many recordings were made. No longer were
multitrack recordings solely the fusion of individual performances of musicians mixed into a
coherent whole. The advent of sequencing and MIDI meant that significant parts of recordings
had never been played in a traditional sense by any one individual.