MOTU MIDI interface...Update from thread in the old CW forum

[Teds_Studio]

Some of you may have read the thread I started a couple of weeks ago about having problems getting my old MOTU MTP AV MIDI interface to work with my newer DAW.  I had narrowed it down to being something to do with the USB ports on the 2 year old ASRock Extreme X99 motherboard.  The MB has several USB ports...both 2.0 and 3.0.  Some of you suggested making sure it was plugged into a 2.0 port....which after checking, it was.   I could get my MIDI stuff to play thru the MOTU...but it would play for a little bit then lock up for 2-3 seconds.  It would then play several notes really fast as if it was catching up from buffering.  This would happen about every 15-30 seconds.

So out of curiosity...I plugged a USB 2.0  4 port hub into the same USB 2.0 port on the computer and plugged my MOTU into the hub.  And to my surprise...the MIDI plays back perfectly without any hick-ups.  I then removed the hub and plugged the MOTU into the same port and it started locking up again.  

So...just for future reference...if anyone ever runs into this problem with their older MIDI interfaces.....try running it thru a 2.0 hub.   

Edited January 13, 2019 by Teds_Studio
Typo

[William W. Saunders, Jr.]

weird.

[JoseC]

8 hours ago, BRainbow said:

weird.

Certainly.

[Starship Krupa]

It kinda makes sense to me. I'm not entirely sure how USB hubs work, but back at TOP I suggested that if there were a way to add more hardware buffering at the computer end that would be a good thing to try.

Since Ted has this rocket sled DAW and a steampunk MIDI interface, I had the idea that the rig was "tripping over its own feet," and float the theory that the USB 2.0 hub adds enough buffering so that the way-quick mobo isn't winding up starved.

[Teds_Studio]

5 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It kinda makes sense to me. I'm not entirely sure how USB hubs work, but back at TOP I suggested that if there were a way to add more hardware buffering at the computer end that would be a good thing to try.

Since Ted has this rocket sled DAW and a steampunk MIDI interface, I had the idea that the rig was "tripping over its own feet," and float the theory that the USB 2.0 hub adds enough buffering so that the way-quick mobo isn't winding up starved.

Thanks SK.  I had recently bought the USB 2.0  4 port hub to use with a Windows Surface Pro tablet to add some ports.  While I was sitting at home the other night...I thought...why not just give it a try and see if it makes any difference with the problem I was having with the USB ports on the DAW.  And even though the MOTU was plugged into a 2.0 port on the PC....it just will not run right unless it's running thru the hub.  But at least I have my dinosaur MIDI gear up and running again  .

[balinas]

I can confirm that the MOTU MTP AV MIDITimepiece I have still works great on Win10. There was a short period a while back when I could not get it to work on a Win 8 machine. I had almost given up on it, but decided to redownload the latest drivers from MOTU, and hooked it back up when Win10 came out.  To my surprise, it was back in business again!  

[David Baay]

Another data point: I have a MOTU MIDI Express XT interface that's so old (early '90s) I had to physically swap out a chip to convert it from Apple to Windows USB standard (1.0 at that time). It still runs fine on a USB 2.0 port on a relatively new PC that was delivered with Win10 installed. So any issues are probably due to interoperability with the particular USB hardware and port drivers on a given PC.