Dave Smith (engineer)

David Joseph Smith (April 2, 1950 – May 31, 2022) was an American engineer and founder of the synthesizer company Sequential. Smith created the first polyphonic synthesizer with fully programmable memory, the Prophet-5, which had a major impact on the music industry. He also led the development of MIDI, a standard interface protocol for synchronizing electronic instruments and audio equipment.

In 2005, Smith was inducted into the Mix Foundation TECnology (Technical Excellence and Creativity) Hall of Fame for the MIDI specification. In 2013, he and the Japanese engineer Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of the Roland Corporation, received a Technical Grammy Award for their contributions to the development of MIDI.