Tom Oberheim: “The history books say I was involved in creating MIDI – that’s such a joke”

By allowing computers, synthesizers, controllers and other instruments to speak to each other via a universal digital language, MIDI, introduced in 1983, has become one of the most pivotal inventions in the history of music technology and production.

While spearheaded primarily by Dave Smith of Sequential – alongside his contemporaries Dave Rossum, Bob Moog, Don Buchla, Roger Linn and Alan R. Pearlman – Tom Oberheim is often mentioned in the conversation surrounding MIDI’s widespread adoption, but in a new interview with MusicTech, the synth pioneer plays down his role.

“The history books say that I was involved in [creating] MIDI, and that’s such a joke,” Oberheim says. “When Dave [Smith] did his first paper about tying synthesizers together, it was a digital thing and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with it.

“I said, ‘Don’t talk to me about a digital interface hooking up machines. I don’t want to do that.”

But after Roland founder Ikutaro Kakehashi started collaborating with Dave Smith and Sequential – and subsequently incorporating MIDI technology into their instruments – Oberheim later ended up becoming the first president of the MIDI Manufacturers Association.

While a legendary name in synthesis, Oberheim’s career hasn’t always been in the music world. In fact, in the mid ’90s, he opted to work several non-music-related jobs in Silicon Valley, in an environment he calls a “high-tech rat race”.

“I decided in the mid ‘90s  that it was time for me to go to work and pay the mortgage on the house,” he tells MusicTech. “I just got a job off the internet, and then for the next five or six years I worked three different jobs in Silicon Valley, none having to do with music.”

These jobs included building microcontroller software for traffic light systems, high-level tech writing, and working at a think tank owned by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

“We thought that, ‘Well, if we’re careful, when we get older, we’ll probably be able to pay for the nursing home,’” Oberheim says.

Read our full interview with Tom Oberheim – as he celebrates his 90th birthday – at MusicTech.

Sam is the Associate News Editor for Guitar.com and MusicTech. Thoroughly immersed in music culture for the majority of his life, Sam has played guitar for 20 years, studied music technology and production at university, and also written for the likes of MusicRadar, Guitar World, Total Guitar and Metal Hammer.