MOTU MIDI timePOS AV - Worthless WORD CLOCK OUT

[dwire]

OK, so maybe I am missing something here, but my MTP has a lot more expensive frequency counter hooked up to it and terminated at 75ohms (BTW, it makes no difference either way...) and with clockworks and or the unit set for word clock out at 48k x1 or "NO DIGI SUPERCLOCK" option selected in Clockworks, I am getting the following:

A RAPID FLUCTUATION AT 98.2XXXX-98.6XXXXKHz Not only is this not 48k, nor even close to stable, it is not even a rational derivative of it!

Now this is really cute, if I enable the DIGI SUPERCLOCK function on the Word Clock out BNC, either in Clockworks or on the front panel I receive this:

12.2880XMHz THAT IS PRETTY STABLE FOR ABOUT OH, BETWEEN 10 AND 30 SECONDS, AND THEN IT TAKE A QUICK NOSE DIVE AND RESUMES BEING STABLE UNTIL THE NEXT DROP OUT.

Now, what in the heck is going on here? It says all over its documentation, website, manual Clockworks, rear panel and LCD that it is quite capable of outputting Word Clock out on that BNC at 48KHz, and or 1x, I.E. meaning NO 256x which = DIGI SUPERCLOCK! I care not to even know if the physical frequency in MHz listed above is really indicative of SUPERCLOCK, or a derivative of 48KHz * 256 because even it takes a nose dive erradically, so I cannot even feel OK about trying to adopt that for my purposes.

Is there something wrong with my particular unit, or is it the typical MOTU syndrome, where in fact not a darn thing works or does as advertised. And as far as support, you might as well ask your neighbor, or preacher, because that does not seem to be a thing that MOTU belives is part of their charter as a corporation in the global market place. When and if you ever do hear from them, after 1001 emails and calls, they 1) DO NOT KNOW WTF they are talking about, and always have less knowledge about both their products, and in particular PC's than I do. 2) If you are using a PC platform, that is the problem, in their opinion...

I spent over a month and a half just teaching the tech support staff what PCI latency is, as there was not a single tech there that had a clue what I was talking about, they kept talking sample rates, and buffer sizes, and audio latency in milliseconds! NO NO!!!

Anyway, this is an older machine, but according to their own data, which could be and quite often is in error, but, my unit is the USB flavor, an even though we have had USB 2.0 for what 12 years now??? Their new units are exactly the same as mine, right down to using USB 1.1 for communication back to the computer. Geez, one would think that kind of hardware would be getting scarce to obtain by now...

At any rate, this as many of you may no from your own experiences with MOTU, is my only hope for data, advice and possibly a solution. Though I doubt it on the last one, as I suspect the solution to this problem would be just as M$ handles all of their support calls with "Please reformat and reinstall the OS...", my solution would be similar, in that I need to just buy another unit FROM A REAL VENDOR THIS TIME, that does what it is published and designed to do. Please tell me this is not the answer. As well if anyone out there can hook a frequency counter, or oscilloscope up to their unit and confirm or dny this condition, that would be of the greatest of help, as it would point to the idea that in fact it is not unique to my unit, and is in fact just typical behavior of the MTP, and of course fits the MOTU model!

Thank you in advance!
Best regards,
Douglas Wire
PUPCo Studios

[BradLyons]

I have a pair of MIDI Express 128's, an older MTPAV and a Digital Timepiece....no issues, perfect sync. Now, I don't use either of those as masters, my SyncI/O is my master timecode and my BigBen is my master wordclock. The clocking of a MTPAV isn't anything special, it's really more for slave.