Here’s what he had to say about Dave’s impact on decades of popular music:ĭave Smith’s contributions, in more than one singular way, completely altered the sound of records, and his impact continues to this day. Mario J McNulty is a Grammy Award-winning producer and engineer who was worked with the likes of David Bowie and Lou Reed. Every radio smash that uses sounds from virtual instruments, any tracks programmed via Apple Logic or Ableton Live, the biggest dance floor mega-hits sequenced for propulsive impact - all are fundamentally built on the technology Smith helped to create. It’s hard to overstate how profoundly MIDI shapes the creation of popular music. Perhaps even more importantly, Dave worked with fellow music technology engineer Ikutaro Kakehashi to launch Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) - which, if you’re not familiar, is the bedrock digital protocol that allows electronic instruments and software programs to communicate with each other in smooth and powerful ways. The groundbreaking Prophet-5 was used on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, Peter Gabriel’s So, soundtracks for films including The Terminator and Blade Runner, and so many other iconic projects. It’s safe to say that rock, pop, electronic music, hip hop, R&B, and so many other current genres would not exist as we know them without his contributions.ĭave was a genial genius who developed the Prophet family of synthesizers in the late 1970s they were the first fully-programmable synths that allowed keyboardists to play multiple notes at the same time. You may not know the name Dave Smith, but you’ve certainly heard echoes of his work.
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