8 November, 2013 2:03PM AEDT

Note on, note off: How MIDI changed music

In the early 1980s five synthesizer manufacturers agree on a common standard for sharing musical information digitally. That standard, known as Musical Instrument Digital Interface, changes music forever.

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Musical Instrument Digital Interface: you may never have heard of it, but you've definitely heard it in action.

Just as word processing on computers changed the way we write, MIDI has changed the way musicians and engineers make and record music.

MIDI works like digital sheet music, recording a musical performance rather than musical sound.

Nicole Skeltys, who was one half of electronic act b(if)tek, says the emergence of technologies such as MIDI gave individual musician's 'god-like power'.

"You didn't need a whole band," says Nicole.

"You could just be one geek... and you could have a whole army of instruments at your disposal who would just do what you told them to do."

More akin to a pianola than a gramophone, MIDI is an incredibly efficient way of representing music.

USA synthesizer maker Dave Smith, the man often called the 'godfather of MIDI', says it's this efficiency that has seen MIDI used to play music on everything from early computers to mobile phones.

The 8-bit protocol, which is used in both professional and home studios around the world, has barely changed in more than three decades.

"I could plug in an instrument I designed over 30 years ago into an instrument I'm designing now and it'll work just fine, it'll work perfectly," says Dave.

Note on, note off: How MIDI changed music explains this technology in simple terms and explores the impact MIDI has had on music over the last thirty years.

Producer Simon Leo Brown takes you on a tour through the history of MIDI, from its troubled beginnings to its near ubiquity in recording studios around the world.

Along with an in-depth interview with Dave Smith, Simon also talks to musicians and engineers who work in Australia - thousands of kilometres away from the companies who produced the standard, underscoring the global nature of MIDI's impact on the music and recording industries.

Tom Ellard from Severed Heads and Nicole Skeltys from BifTek talk about the impact MIDI had on their musical careers in the 1980s and 90s, while engineer Adam Calaitzis and composer/programmer Chris Vik explore the near-limitless possibilities this humble standard allows.