Sequential went on to become one of the most successful music synthesizer manufacturers of the time. By 1977 he was working at Sequential full-time, and later that year he designed the Prophet 5, the world's first microprocessor-based musical instrument and also the first programmable polyphonic synth, an innovation that marked a crucial step forward in synthesizer design and functionality. He purchased a Minimoog in 1972 and later built his own analog sequencer, founding Sequential Circuits in 1974 and advertising his product for sale in Rolling Stone.
He had degrees in both Computer Science and Electronic Engineering from UC Berkeley. In 2013, he and the Japanese businessman Ikutaro Kakehashi received a Technical Grammy Award for their contributions to the development of MIDI. In 2005, Smith was inducted into the Mix Foundation TECnology (Technical Excellence and Creativity) Hall of Fame for the MIDI specification. He also led the development of MIDI, a standard interface protocol for synchronizing electronic instruments and audio equipment. Smith created the first polyphonic synthesizer with fully programmable memory, the Prophet-5, which had a major impact on the music industry. UC Berkeley, Computer Science, Electrical Engineeringĭavid Joseph Smith (Ap– May 31, 2022) was an American engineer and founder of the synthesizer company Sequential.
