Dave Smith

Dave Smith is generally known as the driving force behind the generation of the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) specification. In fact, in 1981 he coined the acronym. Dave presented the idea of a USI (Universal Synthesizer Interface) after meetings with Tom Oberheim and Roland's Ikutaro Kakehashi. The plan was to create a common communications protocol between electronic instruments from different manufacturers around the world. The result was MIDI.