February 7, 2013

Join Us in Honoring Mr. Kakehashi’s GRAMMY® Presentation During the Live Special Merit Awards Webcast

OV Valle [Roland US] Industry Grammy Awards, Ikutaro Kakehashi, MIDI 1 Comment

Roland’s founder, Mr. Ikutaro Kakehashi, will be honored with a Technical GRAMMY® Award along with Dave Smith, president of Sequential Circuits, for their role in developing MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) technology. The GRAMMY® will be presented during the Special Merit Awards on Saturday, February 9, from 3 p.m. – 5 p.m. PST. Please join us at www.grammy.com/live for the live webcast. This award is presented to those who have made contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field and is part of the world famous ceremony celebrating the music industry. More

January 10, 2013

MIDI: The Essential Standard Turns 30

Joe Sparacio [Roland U.S.] Industry Dave Smith, Ikutaro Kakehashi, MIDI, namm, Sequential Circuits 6 Comments

In the early 1980s, Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi and Sequential Circuits founder Dave Smith had a dream—a simple interface that would allow all electronic musical instruments to communicate with each other and with computers. To make this dream a reality, these pioneers brought together an unprecedented coalition of manufacturers from the United States and Japan, and soon the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or “MIDI,” was born. 30 years ago, the 1983 Winter NAMM Show hosted its landmark public unveiling, where Roland and Sequential Circuits demonstrated the first two MIDI-equipped synthesizers “talking” to each other via this new universal communication standard. More