General Information

Serial #

N/A

Part Number

1

Total Parts

2

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

metal casing, controls and parts/ synthetic front panel, controls and parts

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

32.0 cm

Width

27.5 cm

Height

4.3 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Communications

Category

Music

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Marquis

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Unknown

Period

early 1990s +

Canada

Part of a collection of electronic equipment for musical composition, performance and recording owned and used by Canadian Paul Hoffert, composer, musician, author, researcher, entrepreneur and arts administrator. American born, he came to Canada as a child and his career has encompassed many areas of the Canadian music business, including working as a jazz pianist, CBC music director and performer, educator, manufacturer of stereo equipment, music producer, and film composer. In the late 1960s he worked for a short time as a researcher in Hugh LeCaine's electronic music lab at NRC, where he wrote a computer program for music analysis and developed a solid-body electric violin. In 1968 Hoffert and rock drummer Skip Prokop, formed the very successful jazz-rock band Lighthouse (1969-1974, 1982, 1993-present), which earned one platinum record and four gold records and received three Juno awards between 1971 and 1973 In 1977 Hoffert received a Canadian Film Award (later known as a Genie) for best original musical score for the movie "Outrageous!". He also headed the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, the Guild of Canadian Film and Television Composers,and the Ontario Council for the Art. In 1995 he was inducted into the Canadian Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2009 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

Function

A device used to generate sounds by means of digital synthesis.

Technical

The Hoffert collection consists of approximately 25 pieces of electronic equipment for musical composition, performance and recording. These range from iconic keyboard instruments of the 1970s, to a variety of digital devices from the 1980s, to computer software from the early 1990s. These were used either for stage performances, especially during his years in the jazz rock band Lighthouse, or for work in his home studio. This is a digital music synthesizer developed by DHJ Research, where as vice-president Mr. Hoffert directed research and technology transfer, and manufactured by Marquis Music, Inc. in which Mr. Hoffert was a partner with Earl Rosen. Designed to be mounted in a 19-inch electronics rack, the MIDIA MusicBox employed 12-bit processing to generate a variety of voices using subtractive synthesis, FM synthesis or sampling of drum sounds. It could be used in conjunction with editing software running on a Macintosh computer. MIDIA MusicBoxes were sold around the world. From Paul Hoffert's web site: Musicbox, 1988-1989 - Hoffert was Principal Researcher and Designer for a hardware music synthesizer with distributed microchip intelligence producing analog, frequency modulated, and digitally sampled music within the same unit.

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

black and red lettering on front reads 'Midia/ MUSIC BOX'/ white lettering on back reads 'MODEL NO. MQ 100', MADE IN U.S.A.' and 'MARQUIS MUSIC INC.'/ black lettering for control functions on front, black on back/ handwritten yellow paper labels on top and underside read 'YES USE THIS ONE' and 'TESTED/ APR 25, 89' with notations

Missing

appears complete

Finish

glossy ivory painted casing/ light grey synthetic front panel/ black painted back panel/ ivory, black and red synthetic parts/ plated parts/ yellow paper

Decoration

raised grey stripes on front panel