[sdiy] Southworth Music Systems/ Jambox 4+ info

[rsdio at audiobanshee.com]

Somewhere in my library, I have a brochure from Southworth dated around 1984 which describes a 24-bit digital audio interface for the Macintosh NuBus. It was the first I'd ever heard of delta-sigma conversion. It may have used 56000 DSP chips, but that last factoid may be imagined.

I recall that the demise of Southworth was due to warranty returns on their MIDI interfaces. There wasn't anything drastically wrong with the hardware, but some small manufacturing mistake led to everyone returning the product. The way I heard it, the Southworth company was simply too small to absorb the negative cash flow from all of those money-back guarantees. It seemed like they could have fixed the issue and had a fine product, if only the money were available. I suppose the brand might have been ruined by that point.

Interesting to see the Cayman Systems paragraph which implies that the product was never delivered, rather than the story about massive warranty returns due to manufacturing defects that I heard.

The way I recall it, a cheap MIDI interface ended up bringing down a company that had (one of?) the first 24-bit audio converters for a personal computer. I really wanted that card, but couldn't afford it when I got the brochure, and fairly soon they were history. Whenever I see a small company making a cheap product, I always advice them to think of the worst that could happen and make contingency plans, because Southworth seemed to have experienced the worst possible outcome.

What's interesting (to me) is that I bought a NeXT Computer in 1992, so I'm surprised that I don't remember the Southworth Music Systems products, and that I didn't realize the company had come back. Maybe I didn't actually hear any of the stories until 1992, even though I'd had the brochure since the beginning. My NeXT third-party catalogs are in storage, because I don't have quite enough shelves in my apartment for everything in the archives.

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting


On Apr 29, 2017, at 9:15 PM, Adam Inglis <21pointy at tpg.com.au> wrote:
> 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
> 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
> 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
> Cayman Systems
> 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
>