Motu Audio Hardware Advantages for DP

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JSmith1234567
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Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2007 1:48 pm
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Motu Audio Hardware Advantages for DP

Post by JSmith1234567 »

I"m wondering what advantages there are in using MOTU audio hardware for DP versus using other manufacturer's audio hardware?

Thanks!
OSX Big Sur (latest). Mac Pro Late 2013 ("trash-can"), 3.5 Ghz 6-Core Intel XeonE5, 64GB RAM. Motu DP 11.03, Vienna Pro Server, Presonus Notion, Osculator, Keyboard Maestro
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Shooshie
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Re: Motu Audio Hardware Advantages for DP

Post by Shooshie »

Certain things are just designed to work together. Not being one of the designers, it's hard to say with authority what is made specifically to work with DP and vice versa, but harder still is knowing what other interfaces WON'T do. I can't claim to have such knowledge, and few here probably do, if anyone really does. So, what I'm going to attempt is to point you in the direction of certain features which you can research as well as any of us, to see if all boxes are equal or if MOTU's are genuinely differently endowed. I know positively that there are differences; I just can't claim to know them all; I do my research when I buy an interface, then I forget about it until it goes out 10 or 15 years later.

First, there's this dialog in the Setup menu.
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This allows you to either monitor through the effects of your mixing board, or to use CueMix to monitor your inputs with near-zero latency. With CueMix, you can set up a separate mix for each output, so if you are running four sets of stereo headphones out to four players or four groups of players, each of the four can have a separate mix that best enables them to hear what they are doing without clouding the precision of the beat. Do these settings work similarly in all audio interfaces? I can't say they don't, but I know that SOME don't, because I've seen questions here in the forum in which owners of certain other devices were not able to use the direct hardware monitor setting.

Next, take a look at the driver configuration dialog:
  • Image
See the Work Priority setting? MOTU instructs us on page 23 of the DP8 "Getting Started" manual that this can be set to HIGH for all MOTU audio interfaces. MOTU also claims that some manufacturers' hardware will require a Medium or Low setting. You have to experiment.

You can change the names of inputs and outputs on MOTU devices, and you can change their names within a project locally, rather than at the hardware level. When you use multiple interfaces, all the available inputs are represented linearly, so that if you have 4 stereo inputs on each of 2 devices, they are known internally to DP as 1 - 8. (8 mono inputs on each device would be known as 1 - 16) You can option-click the input field of an audio track and type in that number, and its local or hardware name will appear in the field. Will that work on all devices? I don't know. But all the channel naming and configuring seem intricately interwoven among DP, MOTU hardware, MOTU hardware drivers, and CueMix. I can't promise that other devices will work that way.

There is much interaction between software and hardware when it comes to syncing and mastering SMPTE or other time code, as well as clocks between devices. MOTU devices are made to lock to sync with minimal intervention from the user. I'd like to think all interfaces do the same, but again, I do not know that.

One thing I can say with confidence is that MOTU is very reliable about getting the latest drivers out in time for Apple OS updates and for DP updates. It's not unusual for people to have to wait a while before getting bug fixes and general updates from other audio hardware manufacturers, whose market doesn't necessarily hover around DP users. MOTU boxes appear everywhere, but they pay very special attention to their own software updates.

Then there is durability. My PCI-424 card connects with two interfaces. The 2408mkII is still going after about 15 years, my 1296 is still amazing after 12, and my Firewire 896 died last spring, having been hauled around for location recording for all of its 12 years. I replaced it with the 896mk3.

Again, these are just points to consider when doing your research. Maybe all boxes are designed with universal hardware/software interoperability these days, but I know that was not always the case, and I doubt that it is now beyond a basic set of rules set by Apple and Microsoft, rather than MOTU or Apogee.

I hope that someone with complete knowledge of these differences and similarities will drop in and explain it in detail. Meanwhile, this will at least point you in some directions. MOTU's website may have some answers, too. Perhaps a phone call to tech support would provide you with more specific answers.

Shooshie
|l| OS X 10.12.6 |l| DP 10.0 |l| 2.4 GHz 12-Core MacPro Mid-2012 |l| 40GB RAM |l| Mach5.3 |l| Waves 9.x |l| Altiverb |l| Ivory 2 New York Steinway |l| Wallander WIVI 2.30 Winds, Brass, Saxes |l| Garritan Aria |l| VSL 5.3.1 and VSL Pro 2.3.1 |l| Yamaha WX-5 MIDI Wind Controller |l| Roland FC-300 |l|
dewdman42
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Re: Motu Audio Hardware Advantages for DP

Post by dewdman42 »

MOTU makes great audio hardware and I've been using it for a long time. Back in the day, DAW's were a lot less reliable then they are today. I chose to run MOTU hardware with MOTU software for one reason only, so that nobody could point the finger at another company and blame them for my system not working. I am confident that MOTU software gets a lot more testing on MOTU hardware/drivers then other hardware. That's reason enough for me.

That being said, these days almost everything out there is pretty reliable and DP works with a lot of stuff just great. Some of the unique advantages pointed out by others here are interesting also if you have use for them, but for me it just comes down to the fact that I'm committed to using DP and I feel MOTU probably is testing DP on MOTU hardware a lot more than other hardware, and that's good enough for me.
5,1 MacPro 3.46ghz x 12 cores,96gb, Monterey (OpenCore), Lynx AES16e-50+X32
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