MOTU MTP AV with Pro Tools - some hopefully simple questions

[UstadKhanAli]

I have a bunch of old MIDI keyboards and modules that I still use.  And I just got a MOTU MTP AV for free.  I downloaded the manual but there's scant discussion of just simply hooking up the MIDI in the most simplistic manner possible, and it just seems a bit confusing to me.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/jan97/motumtpav.html

1.) would this be useful for lessening the rat's nest of cables?  I have everything working with Pro Tools, but you know, if I can control the rat's nest, this might be worthwhile.

2.) what's the best way of connecting this?  

3.) can I output to USB without any drivers or do I need those?  Or can I interface the "traditional" MIDI way through the MIDI I/O on the MOTU?  And if so, how?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[RockViolin]

I don't use Pro Tools, but I spent a rather long while some years back trying to get that unit to sync Adats with hardware sequencers with Windows XP. I installed software and drivers for XP with the cd that came with.

 No cigar. 

I wound up just using it as a midi hub with a JLCooper Datasync2. And that is still how I'm using it, though I now record to an HD24XR.

 I have Roland and Yamaha boxes all happily playing together in sync with the HD24, and an SR16 is the master, usually. Sometimes I have to shift the clock back on the Roland to get things to line up better. Works quite well though compared to hooking each box up to another. 

No help at all I suspect, but that's all I've got.

 

[MikeRivers]

Assuming that you have the USB version, plug it in and see what you get. If it's going into a Mac, unless its old enough to be forgotten about, it should appear as 8 MIDI in and out ports. If it's going into a PC, you'll need a driver in order for the computer to see the MIDI ports.

The idea behind a MIDI patchbay (or router) is that you can send any MIDI IN to any MIDI OUT. You could connect one keyboard to an input and 8 synths to the outputs, and play any synth with the keyboard. It will also "mult" so you can play more than one synth from that keyboard. Or you can plug a few keyboards into the inputs and control any synth or synths from any keyboard (this is MIDI merging), depending on how the routing is set up. If it's talking to the computer correctly, you can route the computer's MIDI outputs to the synths connected to the physical outputs.

Hopefully you found a manual for it. You can do a certain amount of setup from the front panel, but using the control panel software will help you to see what you're doing, or what you've done.

It's a cool piece. I lusted after one when I was playing around with MIDI, but ended up with a Digital Music MX-8 MIDI patchbay, which is pretty much the same thing without the computer MIDI interface and software control panel. It has a two-line LCD panel that shows the routing for each input and output, one row at a time.

[UstadKhanAli]

I found a PDF manual, although a lot of it didn't seem to pertain to simply setting up a few MIDI keyboards, but seemed to dive in to the more complicated stuff of generating SMPTE, etc.

I do not have the software for this at all, but am hoping that it is available on MOTU's site.  Thanks.