Tetsuo Nishimoto (西元 哲夫) – Rivals & Friends, Connected By MIDI
It seems fitting that when we asked Nishimoto-san for some pictures of him for use in this article that he included a photo of him with 2025 MLTA recipient Tadao […]
Tadao Kikumoto (菊本忠男) and Happy Accidents
Before we go into the details of Kikumoto-san’s career and his personal description of how both the TR-808 (the drum machine that has defined the sound of HipHop) and MIDI […]
Chris Meyer-New Vectors In Sound
Chris Meyer -2025 MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient At the 2025 NAMM show, Chris Meyer will be receiving a MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement Award for his work with Sequential […]
MIDI From The Inside
This post was contributed by the well known film composer and the first president of the MIDI Manufacturers Association Jeff Rona who ran the MMA from 1983 until 1992 . Jeff […]
John Bowen-The father of factory presets
It is somehow fitting that in one of the most famous pictures about MIDI (the photo from the 1983 NAMM show where MIDI connected a Sequential Circuits Prophet 600 to […]
MIDI History Chapter 7- MIDI Associations (1983-1985)
MIDI in 1983 – It seems to work, but what’s next? In Chapter 6 of the History of MIDI, we started in 1981 when Kakehashi-san first went to Tom Oberheim with […]
MIDI History Chapter 6-MIDI Begins 1981-1983
In researching this article, we relied on many first person resources and accounts. We have spent a lot of time unpacking these stories from decades ago because we feel that […]
The History of MIDI -Chapter 5-Precursors to MIDI
Analog Synths, Drum Machines, and Sequencers In the last chapter of the history of MIDI, we covered the early history of electronic musical instruments, the period from 1900 to 1963. By the […]
MIDI@40 Concert World Premiere
May 6 at 10 am Pacific on Youtube The world broadcast premiere is scheduled for Saturday. May 6 at 10 am Pacific. Click on the Youtube link below to watch the […]
MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement Awards at April NAMM 2023
At the 2023 April NAMM show, The MIDI Association honored the people who created the modern music production environment of synths, drum machines, and sequencers, including Bob Moog, Don Buchla, […]
Tsutomu Katoh and Korg
Early History KORG’s founder, Tsutomu Katoh was born in Nagoya on August 28, 1926 (Taisho 15) to a merchant family that ran a livestock feed wholesale business along the Iida […]
2023 marks the 40th anniversary of MIDI
The April 2023 NAMM show is going to be a very special event for the MIDI Association.2023 marks the 40th anniversary of MIDI and we have been working closely with […]
Dave Smith and Sequential Circuits
Dave Smith, Bob Moog, Karl Hirano and John Bowen In 2023 at the 4Oth anniversary of MIDI, we gave MIDI Association Lifetime Achievement Awards to Bob Moog and Dave Smith […]
Roger Linn and Roger Linn Design
Roger Linn was born in Whittier, California in 1955. Roger learn to play guitar growing up in the 1960s and when he was in high school, he started messing around with electronics. Songwriter and Guitarist Roger went out […]
Tom Oberheim and Oberheim Electronics
Tom Oberheim was born in Manhattan, Kansas in 1936. In junior high school, he started building HiFi amplifiers for friends probably based on the same articles in Popular Mechanics that his contemporaries Bob Moog (1934) […]
Dave Rossum, EMU, and Rossum Electro
Dave Rossum is another one of the founders of the modern music production ecosystem and had a unique relationship with several other key synth figures including Dave Smith and Tom […]
Alan R Pearlman and ARP Synthesizers
Alan Robert Pearlman was born in 1925 (9 years before Bob Moog and 12 years before Don Buchla although he would outlive them both) and grew up in New York City. Like many […]
Don Buchla-a different approach to sound and life
At almost the exact same time that Bob Moog was starting to make modular synths on the East Coast, Don Buchla was starting to make modular synths on the West Coast […]
Bob Moog- The Father of Modern Synthesis
If you were forced to pick one single person who is responsible for the creation of the modern music production environment, Bob Moog would be a good choice. He spans the […]
In praise of MIDI, tech’s hidden gift to humanity
The Register posted an article today about Firefox supporting Web MIDI. MIDI was created by a small group of American and Japanese synthesiser makers. Before it, you could hook synths, drum […]
Don Lewis: A Remembrance
Some of you may be aware that Don Lewis passed away the week of Nov 7, 2022. Don was a synthesis pioneer who created a hardware platform for controlling […]
Hans Zimmer says ““MIDI saved my life”
Hans Zimmer is one of the most famous and prolific film composer in the world. He has composed music for over 150 films including blockbusters like The Lion King, Gladiator, The Last Samurai, the Pirates […]
MIDI Makes The Mainstream on Jeopardy
In April 2020, the United States Library of Congress selected MIDI.org for inclusion in the historic collection of Internet materials related to the Professional Organizations for Performing Arts Web Archive. […]
Sequential Circuits Founder Dave Smith has passed away
It’s with great sadness that we announce that Dave Smith has passed away The MIDI Association wouldn’t exist without Dave’s contributions to MIDI, but having known Dave for over 30 […]
Alan Parsons pioneers MIDI recording back in 1985
There’s a lot of excitement in the air – MIDI 2.0, VR/AR, spatial audio, flying taxis and Facebook’s own flight of fancy, Metaspace (it took me three goes to stop this being called Meatspace; perhaps […]
Pentagram Designs the New MIDI Logo
From Master Card to Mister Mayor all the Waze to MIDI Pentagram , the global multi-disciplinary, independently-owned design studio with offices in Austin, Berlin, New York and London has done some of the most […]
The People Who Created the DIY MIDI Revolution
Do It Yourself MIDI With the boom in open-source electronics platform like Arduino and the growth of 3-D printers, it’s become easier and easier to create your own MIDI controller. We […]
Ikutaro Kakehashi, the driving force behind MIDI
Ikutaro Kakehashi was certainly one of the most influential figures in electronic music in the 20th century. He influenced music and technology throughout his lifetime. He overcame many challenges in his […]
The History Of MIDI We put together a series of articles about the history of electronic music and MIDI. Here are links to the series. The History of MIDI from 850 AD […]
MIDI 30th Anniversary Articles from around the world
How MIDI changed music In 2013, MIDI turned 30 and the whole world turned out to celebrate. In 2023, MIDI will turn 40 and MIDI 2.0 will be three years […]
MMA @ The 2013 NAMM Show
MIDI Creators and Innovators Panel Featuring: Dave Smith, George Duke, Tom Oberheim, Alan Parsons, Jordan Rudess, Craig Anderton. For 30 years, MIDI has been at the forefront of music technology […]
NAMM Museum Of Making Music Celebrates 30th Anniversary of MIDI
MIDI 30th Anniversary Exhibit Display highlights historical significance of the communication interface in music making Carlsbad, CA (December 3, 2013) — Commemorating 30 years of facilitating the creation of music, […]
55th GRAMMY® Award for MIDI
Ikutaro Kakehashi and Dave Smith receive Technical GRAMMY Award from the Recording Academy® In 1983, Ikutaro Kakehashi, founder of Roland Corporation, and Dave Smith, president of Sequential Circuits, unveiled MIDI […]
The Computer Chronicles: MIDI Music (1986)
This 30 minute TV show from 1986 is a window into the state of the art in MIDI music technology back then. Guests: Chris French, Music Software; Bob Moore, Hybrid Arts; David Schwartz, […]
The Open Door: Macintosh, Midi, and Music (1988)
Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Tony Williams, Carlos Santana, Chester Thompson, Bryan Bell, Laurie Anderson, David Mash, David Rosenthal, Tom coster and more talk about Macintosh, MIDI and music in 1988.
Craig Anderton’s Brief History Of MIDI
The MIDI specification first saw the light of day at the 1981 AES, when Dave Smith of Sequential Circuits presented a paper on the “Universal Synthesizer Interface.” It was co-developed […]
MIDI History: Chapter 4-Synths Come of Age 1900-1963
The first electronic musical instruments As electricity became more widely available, the early 20th century saw the invention of electronic musical instruments including the Telharmonium, Trautonium, Ondes Martenot, the Theremin and […]
MIDI History:Chapter 3-Orchestrions
From mechanical to digital to virtual….and back! The relationship between mechanical musical machines and MIDI gets even more intriguing with orchestrions and “fairground organs”. Orchestrions have multiple mechanical instruments in them and are designed […]
MIDI History: Chapter 2-Player Pianos 1850-1930
The golden age of mechanical music machines really came in the late 19th century and early 20th century with player pianos and orchestrions. A player piano is defined as any actual acoustic […]
MIDI History:Chapter 1- 850 AD to 1850 AD
To really understand the origins of MIDI, you need to go all the way back to before there were digitally controlled synthesizers and computers, In fact you need to go […]