ultralite mk3 mac M1 and big Sur

[grrrz]

Hello; so I have an ultralite mk3 original (firewire only); it works fine with Mojave; and looking through the forum I found out that it isn't really supposed to. I think I just made a migration from a high sierra laptop and it just imported the driver and it just works with cuemix and all (I just get a warning sometimes that the driver is old but I'm leaving it like that).
So I'm considering one of the new M1 laptop; in the near future anyway when compatibility with sound softs and drivers gets a little better; but I didn't consider that my trusty mk3 could be a problem; and apparently it is; so what are the chances that this will work; using a workaround or not?
I get that the last kext working with this interface is in the high sierra installer? I suppose the M1 will require a completely new driver; so is there any hope to have a firewire driver on M1 machines? I know that one the hardware side it's totally possible with a few dongles; but it would really suck to have to throw away a perfectly functionning piece of hardware because of drivers. I already have an edirol MIDI interface that's no good since they decided not to update drivers anymore (and it's not class compliant). Plus nobody would want to buy it used if it has no drivers anyway.
I know RME already have firewire drivers for M1 machines. so what would be my options here?

[mikehalloran]

No one will know for certain till MOTU releases compatible drivers.

MOTU FireWire devices still work because Thunderbolt supports much of the FW spec. Many of us are using ours over Catalina into TB3 ports through the two adapters. There is no reason to believe that this will change once Apple releases updated drivers. Since the 828mkIII Hybrid and 828x use the same drivers and are current production units, the odds are very good.

That said, No one will know for certain till MOTU releases compatible drivers.

[grrrz]

Thank you for your answer;
so you're saying the 828 mk3 hybrid driver is essentially the same as the mk3 FW; so if the first is supported; the latter should be?
From what I read here it doesn't work straight away on catalina so I'm not sure what to expect.and cuemix wouldn't work either. Or did you have a different experience?

[mikehalloran]

Thank you for your answer;
so you're saying the 828 mk3 hybrid driver is essentially the same as the mk3 FW; so if the first is supported; the latter should be?
From what I read here it doesn't work straight away on catalina so I'm not sure what to expect.and cuemix wouldn't work either. Or did you have a different experience?

It’s not “essentially” the same. It’s the same.

It does work “straightaway” if the directions are followed re adding them under Security and there are no 3rd party conflicts.

[grrrz]

It’s not “essentially” the same. It’s the same.

It does work “straightaway” if the directions are followed re adding them under Security and there are no 3rd party conflicts.

oh ok this whole thread about importing kext to get it to work got me confused; guess it's just that people forgot to enable the security check (or a new version fixed the problem somehow that's not clear).
so if MOTU is reporting the ultralite mk3 hybrid to work on big sur; we can expect M1 compatibility as well; so it should work as well for the ultralite mk3 original. that's good news.
Does it also go for the 828 mk3 FW only? we have one running an art installation

[mikehalloran]

It’s not “essentially” the same. It’s the same.

It does work “straightaway” if the directions are followed re adding them under Security and there are no 3rd party conflicts.

oh ok this whole thread about importing kext to get it to work got me confused; guess it's just that people forgot to enable the security check (or a new version fixed the problem somehow that's not clear).
so if MOTU is reporting the ultralite mk3 hybrid to work on big sur; we can expect M1 compatibility as well;

Maybe. MOTU hasn't cleared anything for the M1. There are two issues: Works over Rosetta; works natively. Until MOTU makes an announcement or someone here reports success, no one knows about either.

so it should work as well for the ultralite mk3 original. that's good news.
Does it also go for the 828 mk3 FW only? we have one running an art installation

They use the same drivers. Only MOTU devices currently in production show up on the list.
https://motu.com/en-us/news/motu-and-macos-big-sur/

Many devices no longer in production use the same drivers including my 828mkII FW (working fine over Catalina). They will never be on that list. Will there be a future firmware incompatibility? Who the hell knows but when it happens, someone will figure that out and it will be widely reported.

https://motu.com/techsupport/technotes/ ... echangelog

[mothra]

You gotta hand it to them too.. That single driver has kept my 828MK2 in business for 16 years now and still works heh. The mk3 is what 10-11 years old or so? I 'upgraded' to the 828x, which is still being sold (no clue if its actually still in production or not), so as long that is still on their radar, the mk3, mk2, probably even the old mk1 should still work. I get the impression MOTU will keep it up as long as they possibly can. If they run into an issue where it takes something like a complete rewrite, they may decide to not focus on it anymore, but so far its been a great run for this whole family of interfaces.

[mikehalloran]

You gotta hand it to them too.. That single driver has kept my 828MK2 in business for 16 years now and still works heh. The mk3 is what 10-11 years old or so? I 'upgraded' to the 828x, which is still being sold (no clue if its actually still in production or not), so as long that is still on their radar, the mk3, mk2, probably even the old mk1 should still work. I get the impression MOTU will keep it up as long as they possibly can. If they run into an issue where it takes something like a complete rewrite, they may decide to not focus on it anymore, but so far its been a great run for this whole family of interfaces.

Yep. I bought my 828mkII at a clearance about a week before the mkIII was announced at NAMM. This means I got one of the last ones made over 14 years ago. Still works as new.

When these hit EOL (end of life), I expect it to be due to incompatible firmware. The 828mkIII and later have updatable firmware but there are limits to what can be done. The USB & FW were last updated in 2008, the Hybrid was in 2012 and the 828x was in 2017.

[grrrz]

I really like the ultralite format/function ratio; tons of I/O in a really small package; which means it's a real swiss army knife for anything from mobile recording (with a fw port on your computer anyway); live; sound art installations (I have a project where I used every single I/O on the board). The only thing it misses is an ADAT I/o; which seems to be corrected in mk4 (which I can't see anywhere btw). Too bad there's no bus-powered option anymore though; I'd thought thunderbolt would have been able to provide that. Anyway I've browsed what's on the market today and there's nothing that small with the kind of I/O; even the RME has fewer.

[patthedog]

You gotta hand it to them too.. That single driver has kept my 828MK2 in business for 16 years now and still works heh. The mk3 is what 10-11 years old or so? I 'upgraded' to the 828x, which is still being sold (no clue if its actually still in production or not), so as long that is still on their radar, the mk3, mk2, probably even the old mk1 should still work. I get the impression MOTU will keep it up as long as they possibly can. If they run into an issue where it takes something like a complete rewrite, they may decide to not focus on it anymore, but so far its been a great run for this whole family of interfaces.

As a mk1 owner, M1 support would make be extremely happy! This could persuade me to finally retire my 2008 Mac Pro.

[mikehalloran]

I really like the ultralite format/function ratio; tons of I/O in a really small package; which means it's a real swiss army knife for anything from mobile recording (with a fw port on your computer anyway); live; sound art installations (I have a project where I used every single I/O on the board). The only thing it misses is an ADAT I/o; which seems to be corrected in mk4 (which I can't see anywhere btw). Too bad there's no bus-powered option anymore though; I'd thought thunderbolt would have been able to provide that. Anyway I've browsed what's on the market today and there's nothing that small with the kind of I/O; even the RME has fewer.

TB1 provides 7.7 Volts bus power only, far less than many FW devices require. The Apple TB2–TB3 adapter passes no bus power at all. So, while MOTU FW units work with TB3, no getting round the external power requirement.

TB4 in the new Apple Silicon is an enhancement of TB3. Most of the benefits are for Windows where TB3 barely worked. For Mac users, it means that actual TB hubs that can handle multiple TB3 devices are now possible.TB3 hubs pass only one TB3 port—the rest are USB 3.1 and 3.0.

[thebiggoon]

"Enable Core Audio volume controls" in my Motu Audio Setup is not working on my new MBP running Big Sur. I am using usb and a power cable instead of firewire (because as you know apple switches the cords on us) but I switched back to my old laptop (older MBP Catalina) using USB/power instead of firewire (I've used firewire exclusively before today) and it works. Is anyone else having this problem or know of a solution? I can't seem to find anything on the subject online. SOS

[mikehalloran]

"Enable Core Audio volume controls" in my Motu Audio Setup is not working on my new MBP running Big Sur. I am using usb and a power cable instead of firewire (because as you know apple switches the cords on us) but I switched back to my old laptop (older MBP Catalina) using USB/power instead of firewire (I've used firewire exclusively before today) and it works. Is anyone else having this problem or know of a solution? I can't seem to find anything on the subject online. SOS

According to MOTU, the M2 & M4 are compatible with Core Audio over Big Sure — except for fold back and Core Audio volume control which is waiting for Big Sur compatible drivers.

You don’t say what interface you have but it would surprise my if this isn’t related.

[thebiggoon]

"Enable Core Audio volume controls" in my Motu Audio Setup is not working on my new MBP running Big Sur. I am using usb and a power cable instead of firewire (because as you know apple switches the cords on us) but I switched back to my old laptop (older MBP Catalina) using USB/power instead of firewire (I've used firewire exclusively before today) and it works. Is anyone else having this problem or know of a solution? I can't seem to find anything on the subject online. SOS

According to MOTU, the M2 & M4 are compatible with Core Audio over Big Sure — except for fold back and Core Audio volume control which is waiting for Big Sur compatible drivers.

You don’t say what interface you have but it would surprise my if this isn’t related.

Oh my bad! I thought this was the ultralite mk3 thread, that is what I have. If this isn't the right place for this please excuse me and kindly point me in the right direction

[mikehalloran]

"Enable Core Audio volume controls" in my Motu Audio Setup is not working on my new MBP running Big Sur. I am using usb and a power cable instead of firewire (because as you know apple switches the cords on us) but I switched back to my old laptop (older MBP Catalina) using USB/power instead of firewire (I've used firewire exclusively before today) and it works. Is anyone else having this problem or know of a solution? I can't seem to find anything on the subject online. SOS

According to MOTU, the M2 & M4 are compatible with Core Audio over Big Sure — except for fold back and Core Audio volume control which is waiting for Big Sur compatible drivers.

You don’t say what interface you have but it would surprise my if this isn’t related.

Oh my bad! I thought this was the ultralite mk3 thread, that is what I have. If this isn't the right place for this please excuse me and kindly point me in the right direction

MOTU has only mentioned this issue re the M2 and M4. Once again:

It would surprise me if this isn’t related.

I will guess—and it's only a guess—that when MOTU releases Big Sur drivers (which they haven't) this issue should go away.