[sdiy] Southworth Music Systems/ Jambox 4+ info

[Adam Inglis]

I was wondering if any of the old guard here had any inside info on Southworth Music Systems, from the 1980’s?

I recently needed to gain more flexibility from my studio’s midi control area, so I pulled out of storage a Jambox 4+ midi/SMPTE interface, made by the company in 1986. It had been left to me 20 years ago by someone I had worked with. No mac had been able to talk to it since OS System 6 or 7 (via its RS422 port), however, the operators manual lists  a bunch of midi sysex codes for configuring its various ports that work fine. Even now it is is still a very useful box without a computer - it merges all four inputs to all four outputs, great for a master controller set-up - but for its day it must have been incredible. Apart from its SMPTE in and out, it can read and generate sync from an audio click, midi clock, and din-sync at 24, 48, 96, 192 and 386 ppqn! 

There was a software midi sequencer for the mac they made called Total Music which, again, sounds amazing for its time. I get the impression from reading a 1986 review of it here
http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/totally-musical/1615
that their implementation of the piano roll display, which is now ubiquitous in modern DAWs, was their invention.

There’s not much info on the net about the company.
The founder, Bill Southworth, has the following CV on his LinkedIn

President <https://www.linkedin.com/title/president?trk=pprofile_title>
Southworth Music Systems
1984 –  1992 (8 years)
Developed one of the first MIDI sequencers and one of the first SMPTE timecode synchronizers for flexibly linking electronic music to film and video production. SMS produced some of the first MIDI sequencer software, digital audio workstation software for NeXT computers. Total Music, MidiPaint, and OneStep were used in the production of a wide variety of pioneering TV programs including Miami Vice, and were used widely by many recording artists including Billy Joel, Pat Metheny, Philip Glass, Twisted Sister, Pink Floyd, Todd Rungren, Herbie Hancock, Jan Hammer, Laurie Anderson, and many others.
Executive Board Member <https://www.linkedin.com/title/executive-board-member?trk=pprofile_title>
MIDI Manufacturers Association
1983 –  1985 (2 years)
Contributed to the early specification of MIDI, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface protocol. Credited for the development of some of the features that provided extensibility to the standard.
Consultant <https://www.linkedin.com/title/consultant?trk=pprofile_title>
Cayman Systems <https://www.linkedin.com/company/cayman-systems?trk=ppro_cprof>
1991 –  1991 (less than a year)
Southworth Music met an untimely demise because the manufacturer of our hardware (a well known guitar company) failed to deliver our products. We were small and undercapitized so we couldn't last long with all our sales stopped. 

I spent some time consulting at Cayman on user interface design and developed some object oriented network management software. I credit Cayman most as a place where I met many friiends that I've known ever since. It was a strange company but had a lot of great people.





I figured someone here might have a story or insight

AI
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