MOTU MIDI Time Piece

This is an article culled from archive material, circa 1997.

The MIDI Time Piece was the first true multi-port MIDI interface, and impressive it was too in 1990, providing 8x8 patching and SMPTE timecode facilities. It also has two RS-422 computer ports, and so two units can be chained together to provide a 16x16 patcher, and two computers can be used in parallel. The MTP was based on the old Southworth Jam-Box, a piece of gear which never ever worked properly, but MOTU (or rather, S&S Research) made a more reliable version and brought it to a mass market.

Unfortunately, the MTP came to market at the start of the Mac MIDI Operating System Wars, which was unfortunate since the MTP used its own transmission protocol, and needed a software editor to configure it. It was years before MOTU shipped FreeMIDI, by which time Opcode were up and running with their own system, OMS, and I had moved to Opcode hardware.

My MTP worked passably. Complex internal MIDI routing would cause confusion and hung notes. Any attempt to link two MTP's together would often end in tears. For some reason, it was impossible to pass Roland system exclusive between MTP's; I never found out why. But for simple applications it was fine.

The later MTP II provides more power, some front-panel editing, and a better software package, but it is gloriously overpriced in the UK (coming in at around $1000) and still has problems if networked. Eventually, frustration with the software package led me to sell my MTP and swap my MTP II for an Opcode Studio 4 (which is actually a less powerful box), for tighter OMS integration.