1
00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:23,039
Speaker: Imagine the year 1722.

2
00:00:23,039 --> 00:00:29,359
In a room in Köthen, lit by the
yellow glow of a candle, Johann

3
00:00:29,359 --> 00:00:32,159
Sebastian Bach is writing
music.

4
00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:36,399
His hand moves fast despite the
shadows.

5
00:00:36,399 --> 00:00:39,359
A goose quill dipped in ink.

6
00:00:39,359 --> 00:00:43,439
A black dot resting on a
hand-drawn line.

7
00:00:43,439 --> 00:00:46,079
He is pinning down something
ethereal.

8
00:00:46,079 --> 00:00:51,439
He is writing down music that,
at this exact moment, exists

9
00:00:51,439 --> 00:00:52,960
only in his head.

10
00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:58,159
When the page is full, he sets
down the pen.

11
00:00:58,159 --> 00:01:05,120
Three hundred years go by, and
you are sitting in an airport

12
00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:10,079
terminal in Chicago, or Denver,
or Atlanta.

13
00:01:10,079 --> 00:01:14,239
Your flight has been delayed
for three hours.

14
00:01:14,239 --> 00:01:18,640
The air feels thin and
recycled.

15
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:24,159
Your phone battery is at 4% and
you can't find an open outlet.

16
00:01:24,159 --> 00:01:28,799
Near your gate, there is a
public piano.

17
00:01:28,799 --> 00:01:35,040
It is scuffed, missing a piece
of veneer on the side with the

18
00:01:35,040 --> 00:01:40,799
words PLAY ME printed in chipped
block letters across the music

19
00:01:40,799 --> 00:01:41,439
rack.

20
00:01:41,439 --> 00:01:46,079
You don't notice the stranger
who sits down on the bench.

21
00:01:46,079 --> 00:01:49,599
You only look up when her
fingers hit the keys.

22
00:01:49,599 --> 00:01:55,840
Notes written by candlelight
fill a sterile terminal full of

23
00:01:55,840 --> 00:01:58,079
tired people wearing earbuds.

24
00:01:58,079 --> 00:02:02,799
Across three centuries, a dead
man's intentions live in the

25
00:02:02,799 --> 00:02:04,640
hands of a complete stranger.

26
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:07,040
She has never met him.

27
00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:12,560
She cannot speak his language,
but she knows what he meant.

28
00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:16,240
Memorized from marks printed on
a page.

29
00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:47,520
But 50 years ago, as musicians
began shaping music out of raw

30
00:02:47,520 --> 00:02:52,159
electricity, that treaty fell
apart.

31
00:02:52,159 --> 00:02:58,719
I'm Daina Bouquin, and this
is Found in the Machine.

32
00:02:58,719 --> 00:03:10,879
In the late 1970s, a black
teenager named Juan Atkins is

33
00:03:10,879 --> 00:03:13,759
killing time in a Detroit music
store.

34
00:03:13,759 --> 00:03:19,039
His grandmother is there too,
slowly browsing through books of

35
00:03:19,039 --> 00:03:20,639
sheet music for her organ.

36
00:03:20,639 --> 00:03:24,560
Juan drifts.

37
00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:29,360
He wanders past the acoustic
pianos into a small room in the

38
00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:33,520
back of the shop that is crammed
with early synthesizers.

39
00:03:33,520 --> 00:03:36,319
He starts messing around with
the dials.

40
00:03:36,319 --> 00:03:40,719
He is creating weird metallic
sweeping frequencies.

41
00:03:40,719 --> 00:03:43,759
And he is completely
captivated.

42
00:03:43,759 --> 00:03:50,960
Eventually, Juan talks his
grandmother into buying him his

43
00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:52,960
very first synthesizer.

44
00:03:52,960 --> 00:03:55,439
A Korg MS-10.

45
00:03:55,439 --> 00:03:58,240
Picture this machine.

46
00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:04,800
It is a relatively small, heavy
box, about a foot wide and a

47
00:04:04,800 --> 00:04:06,159
foot and a half long.

48
00:04:06,159 --> 00:04:12,960
It has a short, toy-like
keyboard, a vertical bank of

49
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:18,240
knobs, and on the right side a
patch panel. A  grid of tiny

50
00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:22,240
holes where you run short,
colorful cables from one jack to

51
00:04:22,240 --> 00:04:22,959
another.

52
00:04:22,959 --> 00:04:26,160
To change the sound, you have
to physically wire the

53
00:04:26,160 --> 00:04:28,160
electricity to a new path.

54
00:04:28,160 --> 00:04:31,519
It could only play one note at
a time.

55
00:04:31,519 --> 00:04:36,800
But inside that limitation,
Juan Atkins found an entire

56
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:37,600
universe.

57
00:04:37,600 --> 00:04:42,959
He coaxed whole songs out of
this one little box.

58
00:04:42,959 --> 00:04:47,279
But there was a fundamental
flaw with that whole generation

59
00:04:47,279 --> 00:04:49,199
of electronic instruments.

60
00:04:49,199 --> 00:04:53,839
Broadly speaking, machines
built by different manufacturers

61
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:56,079
could not talk to each other.

62
00:04:56,079 --> 00:05:00,000
You could run a wire between a
Korg and a Moog, and the

63
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,959
electricity would cross between
them perfectly.

64
00:05:02,959 --> 00:05:09,600
One machine would send a signal
down the wire: "Play middle C!"

65
00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:14,240
But the machine on the other
end would take that voltage and

66
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:16,319
answer with a horrific shriek.

67
00:05:16,319 --> 00:05:19,519
Or just dead silence.

68
00:05:19,519 --> 00:05:23,920
The problem was a lack of
common language.

69
00:05:23,920 --> 00:05:27,680
Some companies built their gear
so that adding one volt of

70
00:05:27,680 --> 00:05:30,800
electricity moved your sound up
an octave.

71
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:34,720
Others decided the voltage
should double every octave.

72
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:37,920
The higher you reached on the
keyboard, the further the two

73
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:39,839
sounds drifted apart.

74
00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:44,079
Same wire, same electricity.

75
00:05:44,079 --> 00:05:48,319
Absolutely no agreement about
what any of it meant.

76
00:05:48,319 --> 00:05:51,120
In those days your options were
bleak.

77
00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:55,600
You either stuck exclusively to
one expensive brand, or you

78
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:59,040
took a screwdriver, pried the
plastic cases off your

79
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:01,839
equipment, pulled out a
soldering iron, and tried to

80
00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:03,920
force the machines to
collaborate.

81
00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:09,279
Juan Atkins started making
music under these constraints,

82
00:06:09,279 --> 00:06:14,079
with no way of knowing that two
strangers on opposite sides of

83
00:06:14,079 --> 00:06:16,959
the planet were already working
on a fix.

84
00:06:16,959 --> 00:06:24,800
Dave Smith ran a synthesizer
company out of San Jose called

85
00:06:24,800 --> 00:06:26,480
Sequential Circuits.

86
00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:30,240
That meant he spent his days
building the machines people

87
00:06:30,240 --> 00:06:32,480
were prying open with
screwdrivers.

88
00:06:32,480 --> 00:06:36,079
He looked at the chaos and
decided that these instruments

89
00:06:36,079 --> 00:06:37,680
should just work together.

90
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:40,720
But he wasn't the only one
looking for a way out of the

91
00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:41,120
mess.

92
00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:45,279
In the summer of 1981, an
unexpected message crossed the

93
00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:46,079
Pacific.

94
00:06:46,079 --> 00:06:50,800
It came from Ikutaro Kakahashi,
the visionary founder of a

95
00:06:50,800 --> 00:06:53,120
competing Japanese brand called
Roland.

96
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:59,360
In the cutthroat tech world of
the 1980s, Kakahashi was calling

97
00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:01,600
for an unprecedented truce.

98
00:07:01,600 --> 00:07:05,839
He reached out to Smith with a
radical premise.

99
00:07:05,839 --> 00:07:10,959
If they kept locking musicians
into proprietary closed

100
00:07:10,959 --> 00:07:15,360
ecosystems, the entire
electronic music revolution

101
00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:16,319
would stall.

102
00:07:16,319 --> 00:07:20,319
They needed a universal
standard.

103
00:07:20,319 --> 00:07:22,800
So an alliance was born.

104
00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:26,160
Fueled by Kakahashi's
challenge, Dave Smith went to

105
00:07:26,160 --> 00:07:28,399
work mapping out a baseline
protocol.

106
00:07:28,399 --> 00:07:33,439
By November of 1981, Smith was
standing on a stage at an audio

107
00:07:33,439 --> 00:07:37,360
convention in New York City,
presenting a technical paper for

108
00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:41,759
a prototype he called the
Universal Synthesizer Interface.

109
00:07:41,759 --> 00:07:47,600
For the most part, the American
industry met him with total

110
00:07:47,600 --> 00:07:48,879
indifference.

111
00:07:48,879 --> 00:07:53,199
But over in Japan, Kakahashi
was waiting.

112
00:07:53,199 --> 00:07:58,319
He rallied engineers from
Yamaha, Korg, Kauai.

113
00:07:58,319 --> 00:08:05,600
The goal was this: create a
digital language so simple and

114
00:08:05,600 --> 00:08:09,920
so incredibly cheap to implement
that no manufacturer on Earth

115
00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:11,680
could afford to refuse it.

116
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:16,399
But the technical limitations
of 1981 were brutal.

117
00:08:16,399 --> 00:08:20,800
The computing power inside a
synthesizer microprocessor back

118
00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:22,480
then was microscopic.

119
00:08:22,480 --> 00:08:26,800
If you tried to send too much
data down a wire, the machine's

120
00:08:26,800 --> 00:08:29,040
brain would choke and freeze.

121
00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:32,320
So they didn't try to send
sound.

122
00:08:32,320 --> 00:08:35,840
They tried something much
smaller.

123
00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:41,600
They shrank the entire musical
universe into short, lean

124
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:46,159
sentences that could travel down
a cheap five-pin cable.

125
00:08:46,159 --> 00:08:51,039
When you pressed a key, a tiny
digital sentence shot down the

126
00:08:51,039 --> 00:08:51,679
wire.

127
00:08:51,679 --> 00:08:54,879
Each sentence began with two
words: Note on.

128
00:08:54,879 --> 00:09:01,200
That was followed by a number
for the pitch.

129
00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,879
60, for instance, meant middle
C.

130
00:09:04,879 --> 00:09:09,120
Then came a number for
velocity, which was a measure of

131
00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:11,679
how hard your finger hit the
plastic.

132
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:16,240
And that number could only be
one of 128 steps.

133
00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:20,960
A ceiling baked into how small
the message had to be.

134
00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:25,919
The note rang out until you
lifted your finger, and that's

135
00:09:25,919 --> 00:09:30,960
when a second message chased the
first down the wire: Note off.

136
00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:36,639
They called it the musical
instrument digital interface.

137
00:09:36,639 --> 00:09:38,240
MIDI.

138
00:09:38,240 --> 00:09:43,600
MIDI makes absolutely no sound
on its own.

139
00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:48,559
It doesn't know what a piano
is, or a guitar, or a drum.

140
00:09:48,559 --> 00:09:51,039
It is instructions.

141
00:09:51,039 --> 00:09:54,879
Sheet music written in
electricity.

142
00:09:54,879 --> 00:10:00,960
In 1983, MIDI made its debut at
a trade show floor in Anaheim,

143
00:10:00,960 --> 00:10:01,840
California.

144
00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:06,240
Dave Smith and Ikutara
Kakahashi set two instruments on

145
00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:08,159
a cloth-covered table.

146
00:10:08,159 --> 00:10:13,200
Smith's Prophet 600 and a
Roland Jupiter 6.

147
00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:18,080
These were two fierce rivals
built on opposite sides of an

148
00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:18,879
ocean.

149
00:10:18,879 --> 00:10:22,480
Machines that had never
understood a single word from

150
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:23,279
one another.

151
00:10:23,279 --> 00:10:26,960
Smith plugged that cheap
five-pin cable into the back of

152
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:28,320
both boxes.

153
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:34,240
Then he sat down at his Prophet
600, stretched out his hand,

154
00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:36,720
and pressed a single key.

155
00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:41,279
Across the table, the Roland
Jupiter 6 answered.

156
00:10:41,279 --> 00:10:43,600
The exact same note.

157
00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,000
The exact same force.

158
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,039
Note on. Note off.

159
00:10:49,039 --> 00:10:53,519
The engineers watching from the
crowd didn't cheer.

160
00:10:53,519 --> 00:10:56,000
Some were stunned into silence.

161
00:10:56,000 --> 00:10:58,879
Many were deeply skeptical.

162
00:10:58,879 --> 00:11:04,320
But then Smith and Kakahashi
did the thing that almost nobody

163
00:11:04,320 --> 00:11:07,679
in the history of consumer
electronics had ever done.

164
00:11:07,679 --> 00:11:11,919
They published the entire MIDI
specification in the open.

165
00:11:11,919 --> 00:11:15,279
For anyone, completely free.

166
00:11:15,279 --> 00:11:20,879
Over the next few years, MIDI
exploded.

167
00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:26,000
And back in Detroit, by 1985,
Juan Atkins had built himself a

168
00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:28,639
makeshift studio in his
grandmother's basement.

169
00:11:28,639 --> 00:11:33,759
He chained two drum machines
straight to each other, a MIDI

170
00:11:33,759 --> 00:11:37,200
cable out of his Sequential
Circuits drum tracks, and into

171
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:39,600
his Roland TR-909.

172
00:11:39,600 --> 00:11:43,840
Two instruments made by rivals
were suddenly sitting in a

173
00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:47,039
wood-paneled basement in
Michigan, talking to each other

174
00:11:47,039 --> 00:11:48,639
in perfect harmony.

175
00:11:48,639 --> 00:11:52,720
Juan Atkins layered those
synchronized machines together

176
00:11:52,720 --> 00:11:56,960
with more sounds and recorded a
song called "No UFOs".

177
00:11:56,960 --> 00:12:02,639
It is widely considered to be
the first true techno track.

178
00:12:02,639 --> 00:12:09,279
Techno left that Detroit
basement and swept across the

179
00:12:09,279 --> 00:12:14,399
globe, filling warehouses in
Chicago, clubs in New York, and

180
00:12:14,399 --> 00:12:17,279
massive open-air raves across
Europe.

181
00:12:17,279 --> 00:12:22,399
The sounds mutated as computers
grew more powerful, but for

182
00:12:22,399 --> 00:12:26,000
decades the underlying language
of MIDI never changed.

183
00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:29,840
But it took 30 years for the
music industry to fully

184
00:12:29,840 --> 00:12:33,919
recognize what Dave Smith and
Ikutaro Kakahashi had given

185
00:12:33,919 --> 00:12:34,559
away.

186
00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:39,440
In 2013, the Recording Academy
awarded them a technical Grammy.

187
00:12:39,440 --> 00:12:42,960
Kakahashi was in his 80s by
then.

188
00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:46,799
His son stood on the stage and
accepted the tiny golden

189
00:12:46,799 --> 00:12:49,120
gramophone on his behalf.

190
00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:54,720
For nearly 40 years, that
original treaty held the digital

191
00:12:54,720 --> 00:12:56,559
music world together.

192
00:12:56,559 --> 00:13:00,639
It wasn't until around 2020
that the new version of MIDI

193
00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:01,440
arrived.

194
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:06,240
You were no longer locked into
one of 128 possible velocity

195
00:13:06,240 --> 00:13:07,039
measures.

196
00:13:07,039 --> 00:13:10,480
And the messages could now move
bidirectionally.

197
00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:14,399
And it is completely backward
compatible.

198
00:13:14,399 --> 00:13:20,159
The new MIDI still understands
every word the old MIDI ever

199
00:13:20,159 --> 00:13:21,120
spoke.

200
00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:28,799
Somewhere, right now, there is
a young girl sitting at a

201
00:13:28,799 --> 00:13:29,919
keyboard.

202
00:13:29,919 --> 00:13:35,919
Not a grand piano, a $120
plastic keyboard with a black

203
00:13:35,919 --> 00:13:38,320
power cord running to a wall
outlet.

204
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:43,200
She is learning her very first
classical piece.

205
00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:46,240
It is almost always this one.

206
00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:49,039
Because it's all in the same
key.

207
00:13:49,039 --> 00:13:51,759
And the pattern repeats over
and over.

208
00:13:51,759 --> 00:13:56,320
But she is 10 years old and she
is getting bored.

209
00:13:56,320 --> 00:14:01,039
She has already been practicing
for 15 whole minutes.

210
00:14:01,039 --> 00:14:05,919
So she stops playing and
reaches her hand up to a small

211
00:14:05,919 --> 00:14:07,759
rubber button on the console.

212
00:14:07,759 --> 00:14:10,399
She presses it.

213
00:14:10,399 --> 00:14:14,240
She plays the keys again, and
this time the notes come out

214
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:16,159
sounding like a heavy pipe
organ.

215
00:14:16,159 --> 00:14:20,240
She presses the button again,
and now it's a barque

216
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:21,600
harpsichord.

217
00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:26,480
One more press, and the notes
sound like they're coming from a

218
00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:28,240
spaceship or something.

219
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:33,360
No strings are vibrating inside
that plastic box.

220
00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:36,879
No air is moving through a
pipe.

221
00:14:36,879 --> 00:14:41,759
The keys are sending numbers
down a wire, and a tiny silicon

222
00:14:41,759 --> 00:14:45,440
chip is translating them
perfectly into sound.

223
00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:49,919
She doesn't know that when Bach
was writing those notes by

224
00:14:49,919 --> 00:14:54,799
candlelight, that he was
actually thinking of an organ or

225
00:14:54,799 --> 00:14:56,320
a harpsichord.

226
00:14:56,320 --> 00:15:02,240
She doesn't know that the
piano, as she knows it, didn't

227
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:03,519
exist yet.

228
00:15:03,519 --> 00:15:10,000
And the man who wrote those
notes had absolutely no idea

229
00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:14,480
that an instrument like hers
could ever exist in the physical

230
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:15,120
world.

231
00:15:15,120 --> 00:15:19,919
But the notes land precisely
where he put them.

232
00:15:19,919 --> 00:15:23,600
Note on. Note off.

233
00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:31,120
I'm Daina Bouquin, and this is
Found in the Machine.

234
00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:38,720
If you enjoyed this story,
please rate and review this show

235
00:15:38,720 --> 00:15:40,000
wherever you listen.

236
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:43,039
And if you'd like to dive
deeper into any of these

237
00:15:43,039 --> 00:15:46,720
stories, you can sign up for my
newsletter at

238
00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:47,279
notes.foundinthemachine.com. Thanks for listening.