The problems that electronic musicians faced https://unlimitedbacklinks.com/ with playing their structures on equipment made by different manufacturers was a major one in the 1980s. Connect a MIDI Controller made by one producer to a sound module made by another manufacturer, and your flute solo might come out as a drum solo. You might attempt changing the volume and end up altering the pitch instead. This is because MIDI commands, which are used to manage every element of the structure from notes played, instrument used, volume, pitch, and many other parameters, are mathematical, and when upon a time (suggesting the 1980s) various manufacturers used different functions to refer different MIDI Command numbers. For example, the number representing a trumpet sound on one brand of equipment may correspond to a harmonica noise on another brand of equipment.
There were numerous other problems as well, the majority of them developing from a lack of standardization of the correspondence in between MIDI Command numbers and the real parameters that they changed. For this factor, the General MID (GM) standard was developed so that all (or most of) the numbers used to produce any specific MIDI command would do the exact same thing on any brand of equipment that included the General MIDI standard for example, the number 12 placed at a certain point in the string of digits that represents any MIDI command now sets off any GM basic sound module to play a Vibraphone noise, and absolutely nothing else. This sound might vary rather on various sound modules (sound quality will differ depending upon how expensive the sound module is and what kind of innovation it utilizes), however at least you wont wind up playing a flute rather of a vibraphone.
The GM standard included a range of standardizations aside from MIDI commands for instance, it required all GM certified sound modules to be completely multi-timbral that is, each sound module had to be able to get MIDI messages on 16 different channels, so that the sound module can play 16 different spots (equivalent to 16 different instruments) simultaneously, corresponding to the 16 offered MIDI channels.