MIDI

Marco Alpert has had a fascinating career in the music industry and lucky for the NAMM Oral History collection he shared many of his stories with us. Marco was an electronic music composer in Los Angeles when he happened to meet the two founders of E-mu. Marco was hired to promote the innovative synthesizers that Dave Rossum and Scott Wedge were creating for E-mu. Marco was later involved with other amazing products and companies working on several of the most influential musical products during the last 30 years.

Craig Anderton was among a very small group of engineers at the dawn of the synthesizer revolution during the 1970s that was in the position to report, educate and compose music based on this new technology as it was being created. His monthly articles for Keyboard magazine have become a historic chronicle of the evolution of the new electronic music age. Craig’s compositions continue to establish new forms of musical expression and have long since been the source of inspiration for up and coming composers around the world.
 

Bryan Bell was given the task of engineering a working synthesizer using all of Herbie Hancock’s favorite keyboards back in the early 1970s, well before MIDI. Herbie’s single instruction to Bryan was that he wanted all of the sounds of his 20 plus instruments powered and fully controlled by one unit to allow Herbie to make all of the musical changes on the entire bank of synthesizers. Bryan succeeded and went on to play a vital role as one of the music industry’s most innovative sound engineers. Bryan’s NAMM Oral History interview was completed on January 21, 2005 

John Bowen was an engineer at Sequential Circuits during the early days of the synthesizer boom of the late 1970s. John worked with founder Dave Smith, who later went on to develop the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) specifications. John helped write the MIDI code and went on to design electronic music products and to program music-related software. With longtime friend Brian Vincik on hand.

Evan Brooks became interested in electronic musical instruments during the early days of synthesizer development. He worked on MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) controllers for E-MU and other San Francisco Bay Area companies. Soon thereafter, Evan started designing his own technologies and products. He co-founded Digidesign and developed ProTools and other innovative products.

Don Buchla grew up with a passion for music and a passion for engineering. When he combined the two loves, he created electronic musical instruments the world had never dreamed of before. His early synthesizer pre-dates the work Robert Moog was doing on the East Coast while Don was working in Berkeley, California. Composer Morton Subotnick commissioned Don to build an electronic musical instrument for live performances and recording. As a result Don introduced the Buchla Series 100 in 1963 and began selling them three years later. Over the years he has introduced the first digitally controlled analog synthesizer, the Buchla Series 500 in 1971 and the portable Music Easel a year later. 

Avery Burdette, the product manager for Yamaha Corporation of America, began his long love of music pushing down the pedals of his mother's organ as a small child while his mother played. Avery played trombone in school bands before forming a Southern-Rock style group in high school. He also worked in music retail before joining Yamaha in 1987. During his years with Yamaha he took part in the launching of several innovative products and witnessed first hand the company’s growth and development into newer product fields. Avery was able to provide our collection with first hand insight into the product development of Yamaha in the post-DX7 era. 

Paul J. de Benedictis recalls the day he was working along side software designer Dave Oppenheim when a series of commands were created to allow a drum machine to sync to Dave's MIDIMAC Sequencer through MIDI. In the early MIDI days of the synthesizer and computers this was an exciting moment and one of many that Paul experienced while working in the field of electronic musical instruments and sequencing in the early 1980s.

Pat Downes combined his engineering background with his passion for music to create the electronic air drums.  Forming the company Palm Tree Instruments, Pat became an inventor in the world of electronic mechanical devices that produce sounds.  The air drums are among his most noted products, which relied on computerized sensors that detect the motion of hands and arms to create music.  In the early innovative years of synthesizers and MIDI, Pat helped shape the thinking that little was impossible when it came to electronic music making.

Barb Fairhurst was hired by Dave Smith to manage the business elements of his newly-formed company he called Sequential Circuits, back in 1977. The following year, the company released its first product, the Prophet-5 synthesizer, which helped revolutionize the electronic keyboard and synthesizer market. Barb worked her way to Vice President of the company in an era when few women in the music industry had such positions. She enjoyed her work and took pride in the products and programs the company provided its customers. Her background in business served the company well when it grew beyond Dave’s original vision, as production lines and bigger operational space were required.