Electronic Dance Music Origin 2/14

1982 was when it all began. Yes, 1982 was the pivotal year that
electronic music crashed into prominence.
Nothing happened earlier than that. And it was all due to the
creation of a single, ingenius invention,
one of the most celebrated collaberations of collaberaters in
the standards-fractured world of electronic equipment: MIDI.

It stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
It's pronounced "middy". At least, that's what I've always called it.
It is both a language and an operating system, a protocol and
a standard all in one.
It could even feed the dog and put the kids to bed.
What it is NOT, as dumb computer users have come to
think of thanks to stupid Geocities pages, is an audio format.
It is not a cheap, tinny, low size form of audio like MP3 or WAV,
you idiots. Those .mids you see aren't actual music.

They just contain instructions of what kind of notes a
MIDI-enabled device (like most computer soundcards
have a crude version of--yes,
that 8-bit noise you hear) should play and how to play them.
I'm going to say this again: MIDI IS NOT AUDIO, dummies.
It is like sheet music.
For computers. It tells computers how to play music.
And it was around long before annoying famewhores ever
thought of embedding it in their obnoxious,

head-decapitating webpages.

MIDI was a revolution in electronics manufacturing.
It was a landmark idea during an age where standards were
fragmenting and computer companies were coming out with
different languages, protocols, applications and operating
systems every day. All the electronic music equipment
manufacturers--or at least all the important ones,
anyway--decided to put an end to all the compatibility issues
by coming together and hammering out a single, solid,
ever-dependable universal standard protocol.

Once and for all. Under this standard, it didn't matter if
your drum machine was from Roland and your keyboard
was from Yamaha and your effects processor was from Akai.
MIDI made them work together, talk to one another, get the
band back together and not be so pissed off that the lead
singer ran off with their girlfriend.


MIDI ushered in an age of uber compatibility across the
board. Everything, from samplers, sequencers, software,
synths and effects processors could simply be hooked
up to one another via two simple to attach cables
(one to send data, one to receive it),
and work together flawlessly, with little to no hassle,
turning the electronic musician into an orchestra.
But the best part was what they did next:
they released the MIDI spec into the public domain,
liberated it from proprietorship, thereby allowing every
piece of equipment made afterward to adhere to its standard.

This would be like if Microsoft made Windows free and public,
and EVERY PROGRAM EVER MADE, past, present and future,
for Mac, Unix, or even Amiga,
Wang or Commodore 64, would work under it. Without fail.
Damn. That would make computers so much more awesomer.

MIDI also allowed one other important thing to happen:
continuous music in video games. Before MIDI, injecting
sounds into video games was often difficult and expensive.
Audio was notoriously large to inscribe digitally, and early
cartridge systems like Atari and Intellivision barely had the
room to squeeze much more than a few blips and
bleeps into their games. With MIDI came a much more
compact way to shove sound effects and music onto the games.
Because remember:
MIDI is not audio. It is simply a series of text instructions.
And text, as we all know, is far smaller than media.
So when the new generation of Nintendos and Genesis'
came around, they had MIDI soundbanks hard-coded
into their consoles, all the carts had to carry were
instructions of what music to play and how to play it.
And there you go--streaming Super Mario Bros.
music for a fraction of the size. What a brilliant idea, eh?

So now you understand why the electronic music industry
will always triumph over the computer industry,
because the computer industry is dumb.
And it all started in 1982, with the creation of MIDI,
that allowed electronic instruments to hook up with one
another, and finally free themselves from
the bonds of you filthy humans.

Fuente: Ishkur's Guide