The Future of Microsound?

[admin]

Originally Posted by geezer

The original rackmount I/O would actually varispeed the analogue output (by varying the clock) from MTU to match up with incoming SMPTE, but the Krystal card could not do this. The original system would really "chase", which was the initial reason I bought the system.

Well almost... The MicroSync card did the sync-lock resolving to TimeCode, and it could lock to a +/-50% varispeeding TC... best that I found of any product that sync-locked.

ALL our I/O Modules could sync-lock resolve to TC, not just the Rack Mount. In fact, if you look inside the Rack, you'll see the stack of cards (Clock Board on the bottom) that also would slide into the smaller "blue box" case. Same cards, different cables for the Rack to go to XLRs.

Congratulations Gary! It does my heart good to hear of Microsounds still running. We designed them like a Sherman Tank to last forever.

If Mototola hadn't lied to us or we had used a different AES/SPDIF digital chip, we'd still be shipping Krystals and Medit. Took the wind out of our sails forever. Alas, Microsound was our Crown Jewel development of my now 41 years doing developments. I'm glad some of you are still making profits with your investment!

[geezer]

Well, admin (Dave, I assume), I understood the sync locking trick....wasn't sure the "tabletop" I/O did it, because I got the rackmount first and never tried chasing TC with the tabletop I eventually got at the end of the system's usefulness to me.

But, for all out there, it is important to note that that chase lock was varispeeding the wordclock to a potentially incredible amount, if needed, just as Dave says....and this tends to be pretty unusuable in many situations if one is utilizing the digital out instead of the analogue.....It worked so well, though, that I really did not have to think about the whole issue until I started trying to use Krystal locked to TC and started looking at other systems.

The good news ended up being that there are some very functional ways to achieve good synclock with native setups.....While there are some WC generators that will actually push the wordclock around according to incoming TC, the most stable systems will simply pass TC through to your computer, but lock the WC to incoming video signal or blackburst.......The computer DAW software will usually just look for the first good incoming TC address and start playback from there, but won't look at TC again....It will, however, play according to the incoming WC. So, if your video deck has good TC locked to picture and you feed the video output to your wordclock converter, then the deck and software should stay locked.

I had very good luck doing this with an early version of Nuendo using Steinberg's Timelock Pro (a repackaged Rosendahl box) to generate the WC straight from a normal video output.....even when chasing a VHS HiFi work tape (TC embedded on one channel of the HiFi audio), it would stay solidly locked for 90 minutes.....once you were sure that the program made a good decision about the first incoming TC it saw.

...And, while I was still using Medit to lock to TC, it seemed to work fine in more or less the same way as long as I had it clocking to a digital input that was releated well to whatever it was chasing.......This no longer worked for the VHS HiFi deck, but did work with a lot of other digital devices.....And when I had a pro video deck that could be synced to blackburst, I could use the blackburst to generate an AES output from my wordclock generator that would sync up Krystal.....only did this once or twice.

The ease of Medit chasing with the RevJ and I/O boxes, however, is a goner. DA88s would also chase this well and perform just fine, as long as you were using analogue I/O or dealing with a digital transfer where the varispeed was okay.

[geggyboy]

Good morning campers.

Can I have a gold watch someone?

Hammering into 2013 and time rolls on, as does the Krystal. I do believe I am up to the MTU quarter century mark now. (I imagine there are a few of us still out there deserving of an MTU birthday award).

I do believe my first contact with Dave was in 1988 or not far off that. As with the Yamaha DM2000, I was among the first in the world to go digital with their 8 channel DMP7 (circa 1987). I scanned pages of music mags to see if anyone was using computers to edit and contacted all I found - from Sonic Solutions to 'River' something or other. With my 286 desk top up and running Wordstar, I typed a fax,. (no internet then) Mr. David Cox was the 'ONLY' one to reply from a company called Micro Technology Unlimited. I duly bought the system including a massive 500 MB SCSI drive (if I remember right or maybe it was 650 MB, some odd number. It was the biggest available and I still have it somewhere for sure - I upgraded to 1 gig and the drive was bigger and heavier than my Jeep ).

Relative to my status then, it cost and arm and a leg, that with a desire to re-quip using a 386 mother board and the glorious Hollywood extra at great expense; The 'maths co-processor', running Windows 3.1. All up $30,000. (One could buy a card farm and a half Pro-Tools system for near half that now - not that I ever would).

Windows 95 came and died as did 98 and the ISA slot with it and indeed the REV J, WHICH STILL WORKS on an old Pent 4 I have stuffed under some table, running Win 98. I bought the Krystal soon after they appeared (delayed at that) and among to the world's first 24 bit ability. Mr. Cox eventually had it ported to Windows XP and no more floppy swapping and mayhem installing. A new world order had descended. Happy as pigs in.... I bought 3 or 4 Krystals over time, still have 2 - 2 found their way back to the States and colleagues and to my knowledge (touch wood, pray whatever) none of them have EVER gone wrong .................yet.

I wish this bulletin board allowed Jpeg attachments rather than silly motocons and I would post you a pic or two of either the set up or indeed me, still sitting here in March 2013, using my MTU krystal EVERY SINGLE DAY - often as much as 18 hours a day. It has been said so many times' "Nothing has ever come close - for practicality, ease of use and reliability'. Oh yes, I have Pro Toys, I have Logic, I have Cubase, I have computers coming out the ying yang, I use up-to-date plug-ins for processing and sometimes even recording, but all goes 'back to the MTU' at some stage. Should I see a doctor???????

I've just moved office (times are tough, smaller much cheaper unit) On the shelf, I see my old AKAI DR16s, gathering dust - again they still work perfectly I guess although I never upgraded them to 24 bit. I was thinking of poshing out the facility with racks and showing off, but decided nah!!! Just going to stick the two MTU editors there and a sound booth and keep going until I or it dies...... Really.. should I now see a doctor??

I bet my old buddy Jack Parnell is still doing the same in Memphis.

If only MTU editor was ported to VST - ASIO - USB or Firewire dah dah dah.... and an emulator to run in Mac or Windows 8, every You-Tube junky out there would be using it for quick clips to upload, far easier than all the Adobe, Logic or Cubase stuff and far far more flexible than say Sound Forge or similar.

Oh look, there are daisies growing above me. xx

[Roy Dennis]

To anyone on this Microsound thread who received notiifications recently. Yesterday the forum had a cyber attack from a porn site it was posting messages in all threads which automatically sends notifications to people who subscribed to threads in the past. The problem was resolved last night.
So now you know the reason for your notifications.

[geggyboy]

Ha ha funny, but not logistically funny.. But hey.. So it took a bit of porn to raise this old boy. Glad you are on the ball so to speak.

[Roy Dennis]

Mmm, very witty

[geezer]

Happy to see you are still doing well out there, Geg.

Although my MTU systems sit unused on the shelf, my initial experience was much the same as yours, though about 6 years later:

I had just completed the SFX track for the 1994 Discovery Channel DDay special, "Normandy: The Great Crusade" using a Turtle Beach (!) "56k" DAW. It worked, but I knew I needed something much better if I was going to be doing any more TV work......and, as with you, Dave called me back and talked for a long time on his dime! I arranged in in-person demo at his office shortly thereafter, was duly impressed, then borrowed the $12,500 I needed to buy that first system.

I did spend more over the ensuing years, but it is interesting that the system price had dropped as much over those first 6 years (after your purchase) as it did over the following years.

Drop me a line whenever you want, Geg. Good to "hear" your voice.

Jim