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MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing, and recording music. The specification originates in the paper ''Universal Synthesizer Interface'' published by Dave Smith and Chet Wood of Sequential Circuits at the 1981 Audio Engineering Society conference in New York City.

A single MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of MIDI data, each of which can be routed to a separate device. Each interaction with a key, button, knob or slider is converted into a MIDI event, which specifies musical instructions, such as a note's pitch, timing and loudness. One common MIDI application is to play a MIDI keyboard or other controller and use it to trigger a digital sound module (which contains synthesized musical sounds) to generate sounds, which the audience hears produced by a keyboard amplifier. MIDI data can be transferred via MIDI or USB cable, or recorded to a sequencer or digital audio workstation to be edited or played back.

A file format that stores and exchanges the data is also defined. Advantages of MIDI include small file size, ease of modification and manipulation and a wide choice of electronic instruments and synthesizer or digitally sampled sounds. A MIDI recording of a performance on a keyboard could sound like a piano or other keyboard instrument; however, since MIDI records the messages and information about their notes and not the specific sounds, this recording could be changed to many other sounds, ranging from synthesized or sampled guitar or flute to full orchestra.

Before the development of MIDI, electronic musical instruments from different manufacturers could generally not communicate with each other. This meant that a musician could not, for example, plug a Roland keyboard into a Yamaha synthesizer module. With MIDI, any MIDI-compatible keyboard (or other controller device) can be connected to any other MIDI-compatible sequencer, sound module, drum machine, synthesizer, or computer, even if they are made by different manufacturers.

MIDI technology was standardized in 1983 by a panel of music industry representatives, and is maintained by the MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA). All official MIDI standards are jointly developed and published by the MMA in Los Angeles, and the MIDI Committee of the Association of Musical Electronics Industry (AMEI) in Tokyo. In 2016, the MMA established The MIDI Association (TMA) to support a global community of people who work, play, or create with MIDI.

History

In the early 1980s, there was no standardized means of synchronizing electronic musical instruments manufactured by different companies. Manufacturers had their own proprietary standards to synchronize instruments, such as CV/gate, DIN sync and Digital Control Bus (DCB). Ikutaro Kakehashi, the president of Roland, felt the lack of standardization was limiting the growth of the electronic music industry. In June 1981, he proposed developing a standard to the Oberheim Electronics founder Tom Oberheim, who had developed his own proprietary interface, the Oberheim System.

Kakehashi felt the Oberheim System was too cumbersome, and spoke to president Dave Smith, the president of Sequential Circuits, about creating a simpler, cheaper alternative. While Smith discussed the concept with American companies, Kakehashi discussed it with Japanese companies Yamaha, Korg and Kawai. Representatives from all companies met to discuss the idea in October. Initially, only Sequential Circuits and the Japanese companies were interested. Using Roland's DCB as a basis, Smith and Sequential Circuits engineer Chet Wood devised a universal interface to allow communication between equipment from different manufacturers. Smith and Wood proposed this standard in a paper, ''Universal Synthesizer Interface,'' at the Audio Engineering Society show in October 1981. The standard was discussed and modified by representatives of Roland, Yamaha, Korg, Kawai, and Sequential Circuits.Holmes, Thom. ''Electronic and Experimental Music: Pioneers in Technology and Composition''. New York: Routledge, 2003 Kakehashi favored the name Universal Musical Interface (UMI), pronounced ''you-me'', but Smith felt this was "a little corny". However, he liked the use of ''instrument'' instead of ''synthesizer'', and proposed ''Musical Instrument Digital Interface'' (MIDI). Robert Moog, the president of Moog Music, announced MIDI in the October 1982 issue of ''Keyboard''.Manning, Peter. ''Electronic and Computer Music''. 1985. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.

At the 1983 Winter NAMM Show, Smith demonstrated a MIDI connection between Prophet 600 and Roland JP-6 synthesizers. The MIDI specification was published in August 1983. The MIDI standard was unveiled by Kakehashi and Smith, who received Technical Grammy Awards in 2013 for their work. In 1983, the first instruments were released with MIDI, the Roland Jupiter-6 and the Prophet 600. In 1983, the first MIDI drum machine, the Roland TR-909, and the first MIDI sequencer, the Roland MSQ-700, were released.

The MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) was formed following a meeting of "all interested companies" at the 1984 Summer NAMM Show in Chicago. The MIDI 1.0 Detailed Specification was published at the MMA's second meeting at the 1985 Summer NAMM show. The standard continued to evolve, adding standardized song files in 1991 (General MIDI) and adapted to new connection standards such as USB and FireWire. In 2016, the MIDI Association was formed to continue overseeing the standard. An initiative to create a 2.0 standard was announced in January 2019. The MIDI 2.0 standard was introduced at the 2020 Winter NAMM show.

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