Dave Smith passed away in Detroit on May 31st. He was old.
His wife said he had a heart attack. Mr. Smith died in a Detroit hospital after attending the Movement Festival of electronic music.
Smith was on the road doing what he loved best in the company of family, friends and artists, according to a statement from his company.
Mr. Smith introduced the first synthesizer in 1978. It was used on hits by Michael Jackson, the Cars, Madonna, Peter Gabriel, Talkingheads, a-ha, and a-ha. The instruments designed by Mr. Smith were adopted by a number of artists.
In the early 1980s, Mr. Smith and Ikutaro Kakehashi collaborated to create a specification that allowed computers and instruments from different manufacturers to communicate.
"Dave Smith made the best keyboards ever, that's saying it lightly."
He was fond of the people who used his instruments, according toDenise Smith. He wanted to know how they used his instruments.
David Joseph Smith was the son of Peter and Lucretia Papagni Smith. He earned a degree in computer science and electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, after playing in a rock band as a child. A college project he was working on was to create a program to compose music. The area of California that would become known as Silicon Valley was where he worked on a new technology called integrated circuits on a chip.
He told the Red Bull Music Academy that he was interested in the synthesizer sounds on Wendy Carlos's 1968 album. It had a life in it that was incredible to hear.
He became interested in music and electronics when he bought a Minimoog. He made a device to store and play notes on the Minimoog. He started the company in 1974 as a nights-and-weekends project, and later as a full-time job, with 180 employees.
The early synthesizer could only produce one note at a time. If you wanted to reproduce a particular tone after setting multiple knobs, switches or dials, you had to write down all the settings and hope for the best.
The Prophet-5 conquered both of the weaknesses. It was possible to play five notes at the same time. The company made a 10 note prophet. The Prophet used technology to store settings in memory and portable enough to be used on stage.
At times, Mr. Smith's company had a two-year wait for orders.
Mr. Smith's innovations went even further. Mr. Smith said that it was easy to communicate with another instrument with a chip in an instrument. Mr. Smith considered the situation to be "kind of dumb."
Mr. Smith and Mr. Wood presented a paper to the Audio Engineering Society in 1981 about a universal synthesizer interface. He told Waveshaper Media that the point was "Here's an interface". It doesn't have to be this, but we need to do something He said the market was going nowhere.
The four Japanese companies were willing to work with Sequential Circuits on a shared standard. Mr. Smith told Waveshaper that it would take years and years to get a standard made. Committees and documents are included. We just did it and threw it away.
It was easy for companies to integrate it into their products because it was low-cost. We wanted everyone to use it so we gave it away.
The Prophet-600 was made by Sequential Circuits in 1982. The Midi 1.0 standard is still used today and is available in everything from keyboard, wind and string instruments to cellphone applications.
30 years after the introduction of MIDI, Mr. Smith and Mr.
Mr. Smith and his wife were married in 1989. He is survived by their children, Haley, Campbell, and four siblings.
Mr. Smith was one of the designers of the Wavestation, which was used for hit songs by Genesis and Depeche Mode. He used to design software synthesizer programs that created sound from a computer. Reality was the first professional software synthesizer and was introduced by Seer Systems.
Mr. Smith decided to use and design hardware instead of making music. Dave Smith Instruments was founded in 2002 after the advent of analog synthesizer. He collaborated with Roger Linn on a new drum machine and with Tom Oberheim on a synthesizer.
When Mr. Smith turned 70, the company introduced a revived, updated prophet-5.
Mr. Smith told Waveshaper that he wants to be able to play when he's done. What is the point if there isn't anything else?
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