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One for All: MIDI Brings Compatibility

Seiko DS-250 keyboard connected to an Amiga 1000

MIDI-enabled instruments such as this keyboard, combined with a home computer serving as the music sequencer and synthesizer, served as an inexpensive music studio.

One for All: MIDI Brings Compatibility

Digital synthesizers took off in the late 1970s. But as the number of companies producing them grew, so too did the number of incompatible interfaces.

Dave Smith and Chet Wood at Sequential Circuits proposed establishing a single standard, presenting their Universal Synthesizer Interface to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981. The concept evolved over the next two years, and in 1983, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface—MIDI—took a bow.

MIDI standardized communications between computers and electronic instruments. It opened the door to computer-based sequencers, and music recording, editing, and playback on computers.

Roy “Futureman” Wooten with Synthaxe Drumitar

Wooten plays his one-of-a-kind SynthAxe Drumitar percussion instrument for Bela Fleck & The Flecktones. The Drumitar (“drum guitar”) is a modified Synthaxe MIDI guitar-like controller.

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Apple MIDI interface

The Macintosh’s audio capabilities allowed it to become popular with musicians in the late 1980s. This device allowed a single MIDI controller, such as a synthesizer, to be connected to a Mac.

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