MIDI is one of the single most important standards in modern music production, without it, whole genres of music would not have been created. Even now, 30 years on, MIDI still provides the building blocks for the entire music industry.
Sound On Sound was founded in 1985 on the premise that MIDI would completely change the landscape of music production over the next few years. It did, of course, and part of Sound On Sound’s success was founded upon being there to help people understand the technology and make the transition into new ways of working. MIDI remains a vital part of contemporary music production as it adapts to the opportunities provided by new technologies, but above all, it stands as a testament to what can be achieved when competing businesses are willing to cooperate on systems inter-operability for the benefit of end-users — an all too rare occurence in today’s commercial world.
Creativity First
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH is a German musical software and hardware company based in Hamburg with satellite offices in Siegburg and London. It develops music recording, arranging and editing software, notably Cubase and Nuendo. It also designs audio recording and MIDI hardware interfaces and controllers and iOS music apps including Cubasis.Synthtopia is a portal devoted to electronic music. There are lots of electronica sites, but they all seem to cover one tiny aspect of electronica: trance, classical electronic music, dance, or synthesizers. Synthtopia covers it all.