David Joseph Smith (April 2, 1950 – May 31, 2022) was an American engineer and founder of the

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis ...

company Sequential. Smith created the first polyphonic synthesizer with fully programmable memory, the

Prophet-5 The Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the American company Sequential. It was designed by Dave Smith and John Bowen in 1977, who used microprocessors, then a new technology, to create the first polyphonic synthesizer with full ...

, which had a major impact on the music industry. He also led the development of

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, an ...

, a standard interface protocol for synchronizing electronic instruments and audio equipment. In 2005, Smith was inducted into the Mix Foundation TECnology (Technical Excellence and Creativity) Hall of Fame for the MIDI specification. In 2013, he and the Japanese businessman Ikutaro Kakehashi received a Technical Grammy Award for their contributions to the development of MIDI.

Career

Smith was born on April 2, 1950 in San Francisco. He had degrees in both Computer Science and Electronic Engineering from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

Sequential Circuits and Prophet-5

He purchased a

Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...

in 1972 and later built his own analog sequencer, founding

Sequential Circuits Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer; it became a market leader and industry standard, use ...

in 1974 and advertising his product for sale in ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its co ...

''. By 1977 he was working at Sequential full-time, and later that year he designed the Prophet 5, the world's first microprocessor-based musical instrument and also the first programmable polyphonic synth, an innovation that marked a crucial step forward in synthesizer design and functionality. Sequential went on to become one of the most successful music synthesizer manufacturers of the time.

MIDI

In 1981 Smith set out to create a standard protocol for communication between electronic musical instruments from different manufacturers worldwide. He presented a paper outlining the idea of a Universal Synthesizer Interface (USI) to the

Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...

(AES) in 1981 after meetings with Tom Oberheim and Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi. After some enhancements and revisions, the new standard was introduced as " Musical Instrument Digital Interface" (MIDI) at the Winter

NAMM Show The NAMM Show is an annual event in the United States that is organized by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM), who describe it as "the industry’s largest stage, uniting the global music, sound and entertainment technology commun ...

in 1983, when a Sequential Circuits Prophet-600 was successfully connected to a Roland Jupiter-6. In 1987 he was named a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the AES for his continuing work in the area of music synthesis. In 2005, Smith was inducted into the Mix Foundation TECnology (Technical Excellence and Creativity) Hall of Fame for the MIDI specification. In 2013, he and the Japanese businessman Ikutaro Kakehashi, the president of Roland Corporation, received a Technical Grammy Award for their contributions to the development of MIDI. In 2022, the ''

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...

'' wrote that MIDI remained as important to music as USB was to computing, and represented "a crucial value system of cooperation and mutual benefit, one all but thrown out by today’s major tech companies in favour of captive markets". As of 2022, Smith's original MIDI design was still in use.

Yamaha, Korg and Seer

After Sequential, Smith was President of DSD, Inc, a Research and Development Division of Yamaha, where he worked on physical modeling synthesis and software

concepts. In May 1989 he started the Korg R&D group in California, which went on to produce the innovative and commercially successful

Wavestation The Korg Wavestation is a vector synthesis synthesizer first produced in the early 1990s and later re-released as a software synthesizer in 2004. Its primary innovation was Wave Sequencing, a method of multi-timbral sound generation in which di ...

synthesizer and other technology. Smith went on to serve as president at Seer Systems and developed the world's first software based synthesizer running on a PC. This synth, commissioned by

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

, was demonstrated by Andy Grove in a Comdex keynote speech in 1994. The second generation of this software synthesizer sold over 10 million copies, as a result of being licensed to Creative Labs in 1996; it was responsible for 32 of the 64 voices in Creative Labs' AWE 64 line of soundcards. The third generation of Smith's software synthesizer, renamed Reality, was released in 1997. Smith was both the lead engineer on Reality, and wrote all the low-level optimized floating point synthesis code. Reality was the recipient of a 1998 Editors' Choice Award, and earned '' Electronic Musician Magazines highest possible rating.

Dave Smith Instruments and return to Sequential

In 2002, Smith launched Dave Smith Instruments, a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments. In 2015, Smith regained the rights to the Sequential name from Yamaha, and released the Prophet-6 under that name. Dave Smith Instruments rebranded as Sequential in 2018.

Personal life

Smith was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for "Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, to Peter B. Smith and Lucretia Papagni Smith. His father was also a San Francisco native. His mother's family came from Italian grape growers and winemakers who had immigrated to Fresno. He had five siblings. Smith's father died in 1972, and his mother died in 2021. After college studies in Berkeley, Smith lived and worked in San Jose in the 1970s. He was physically active, competing in the Ironman World Championship in Hawaii, and hiking tall mountains with his friend

Roger Linn Roger Curtis Linn is an American designer of electronic musical instruments and equipment. He is the designer of the LM-1, the first drum machine to use samples, and the MPC sampler, which had a major influence on the development of hip ho ...

—another synth pioneer. Smith married Denise White, and in 1988 they moved to St. Helena, California. They had two children, Haley and Campbell. Smith died of a heart attack on May 31, 2022, at the age of 72, in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

, where he was attending the Movement electronic festival.

Awards

* 2015: SEAMUS Award * January 2013: Technical Grammy (along with Ikutaro Kakehashi) for the creation of

. * September 2012: Keyboard Magazine Hall of Fame * September 2005: Induction into the TECnology (Technical Excellence and Creativity) Hall of Fame at the AES show by Mix Foundation. * October 1987: Received Audio Engineering Society (AES) Fellowship Award, for having made a valuable contribution to the advancement in or dissemination of knowledge of audio engineering or in the promotion of its application in practice.AES Awards: Past Awards Recipients
/ref>

References

Interviews

"Oral History: Dave Smith explains pieces of his life story and career"
NAMM Oral History Library, Jan 2005
"Dave Smith In His Own Words"
Francis Preve, Keyboard Magazine, Jul 2012

Gearwire.com, 2006 * ttp://www.macmusic.org/articles/view.php/lang/en/id/76/Dave-Smith-The-father-of-MIDI. Dave Smith: The father of MIDI''Mac Music'', Oct 2003
Interview With Dave Smith
''KVR''
Episode 20 : Music Tech Pioneers III : Sequential Circuits : Rise, Fall, Return!
DAWbench Radioshow, May 2022

External links

Sequential
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Dave 1950 births 2022 deaths Computer hardware engineers American inventors American audio engineers Analog electronics engineers People from St. Helena, California Engineers from California UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni Inventors of musical instruments