which cable for networking multiple MIDI Time Pieces

[boyfriendacademy]

Exactly what type of cable is needed to network together multiple MTP units? I have the newer MIDI Timepiece AV USB and the older original MIDI Time Piece I would like to use for the additional 9-16 MIDI ports but for the life of me I can't figure out what kind of cable I need.

I called MOTU Support and the guy said "standard AppleTalk cable, but they're hard to find now". I saw a few on eBay but they were all 3-pin mini-DIN cables and it looks like the network ports on the MTP are 8-pin mini-DIN.

I'm also confused by the different types of 8-pin mini-DIN cables out there on eBay. Some say they are "serial", some say they are "printer", some say they are "ImageWriter II only". I assume the pinout wirings are different.

One other clue: on the back of the MTP AV USB it says "RS-422" under the 8-pin mini-DIN network port.

Any help solving this mystery would be much appreciated.

-Tony

[miket]

Tony

You need the same cable you're using with your existing MTP II.

I had 2 MTP II networked together, actually replaced by 2 MIDI Express 128.

To be honest, I have some cables somewhere... but you're overseas...

[SmilesLots]

Any one of the "printer" "Imagewriter ii," "serial," or "mini din 8" cables will work. Different names for the same cable. I have the same setup, but was getting hanging notes on some sound modules on the serial MTP.

[boyfriendacademy]

Thanks. I think I got the right cable and I'm able to see all 16 ports in ClockWorks now. I have the MTP AV USB setup as ports 1-8 and the original MTP setup as ports 9-16.

However, I'm unable to route any of the 9-16 INPUTs to any of the 1-8 OUTPUTs. I am able to route any of the 1-8 INPUTs to any of the 9-16 OUTPUTs but when I draw the routing cable from say INPUT 9 to OUTPUT 1, the MIDI data doesn't flow through. I also noticed on the LCD display of the MTP AV USB under the ROUTE CABLES menu, it will only let me select INPUTS 1-8 but not 1-16.

Is this is a known limitation of networking the original MTP with the MTP AV USB, that you can't route INPUTs on the original MTP to the OUTPUTs on the MTP AV USB? If so that's a real bummer because I was really hoping to have full 16-port patchbay capability.

[miket]

Thanks. ...snip...
Is this is a known limitation of networking the original MTP with the MTP AV USB, that you can't route INPUTs on the original MTP to the OUTPUTs on the MTP AV USB? If so that's a real bummer because I was really hoping to have full 16-port patchbay capability.

Tony

I had two MTP II networked together but, as far as I can recall, it wasn't possibile to route cables from one to another interface.
I've always used those MTP II as MIDI interfaces within Performer and DP environment and I did cable routings inside sequencere, without using Clockworks.

I used Clockworks just to reconfigure MTP II because it happened quite often that large bulk dumps (Korg Wavestation A/D in primis) corrupted its internal settings.

[James Steele]

FWIW, wasn't this called a serial cable, sometimes referred to as an RS-422 for the connector designation? It's a cool trick to be able to use these old MTPs this way. A lot of folks don't know this is even possible hence you can pick up old MTPs for next to nothing.

Naturally there will be some limitations. Another one is that I've found that Sysex is unreliable (in Unisyn for example) over the ports of the serial MTP. Any device you anticipate needing solid Sysex communication with should be attached to the USB MTP. This is regardless of using the Fast or 1Mhz setting with the serial MTP.