Ongoing Ultralite mk 5 issues digital noise on M1max

[chrisdm1978]

While I have commented on some other threads here where users were having similar issues, I figured I'd make my own thread with my experience.

Motu have shipped me 2 replacement units (so 3 units in total). I'm still getting random bit crushed sounding digital noise from all 3 of these units. It happens with a passive guitar plugged straight into a mic line input, or even via an external pre on a line in. Usually within the first 5 minutes of turning the unit on.I'm on an M1max, 16 inch MacBook Pro, 64GB ram, 4tb SSD. I have gotten this noise on power, on battery, plugged in via my dock, plugged directly with no dock, all assortment of USB2 over USB-C cables. All firmware, all drivers up to date, most Current DP. I get none of these issues from my Focsurite clarett plus 8pre, my old lynx Aurora 8 which I since sold, and even my Zoom H6. But every ultralite mk5 I've tried suffers this issue. I have tried all USB ports, (again none of my other interfaces suffer this issue) computer and ports behave normally with all my other gear. While MOTU have been trying to help...they can't figure it out either. I have seen others with same model of computer on this forum with this exact issue. I have never had so many problems with an interface before, and I used to manage a multi room facility and computer labs with 20 audio workstations at a post secondary institution. I have worked with a lot of gear over the years and never run into this issue...Not sure where to go from here other than move on to a different product. I can't trust this unit on a live recording, or live gig as a small mixer, or for a livestream using loopback... Anyway here is a Soundcloud link to the noise if anyone else is encountering this same issue with their unit.

https://soundcloud.com/chrismcintyre/ra ... al_sharing

[Airbusjoerg]

Unfortunately, I have to confirm that.

I use an Ultralite MK5 on a Macbook M1 Pro and have exactly the same problem. I cannot use the device because it destroys my recording at irregular intervals with exactly this noise.
I installed OSX Ventura - that has brought no improvement.
I have spent days troubleshooting (cables, connectors, adapters, settings) - nothing helps. Maybe I should hire an exorcist, I don't know.

I signed up here specifically because I want to say that I find it very shady that MOTU sells hardware as "M1 compatible", which definitely does not work properly on this devices and massively limits the functionality. I am disappointed.

[jfmusic]

I have a similar experience where I thought My speaker had a bad capacitor. And it was the connection through the portable hub creating the noise.Moved the usbc to the body of the MacBook 2017 i7 and the noise went away.

[Airbusjoerg]

I have a similar experience where I thought My speaker had a bad capacitor. And it was the connection through the portable hub creating the noise.Moved the usbc to the body of the MacBook 2017 i7 and the noise went away.

The Intel Macs are not affected by the problem, according to my information. I even think the "normal" Mac Minis with M1 CPU work (used by many). Probably it really only affects the M1 Pro and M1 Ultra.

I actually tried everything you can think of for days. Of course, I also connected the device directly to my Mac and not via a hub.

I've also tried it through dozens of different hubs (from USB1 to USB-C) or Thunderbolt docking stations, dozens of different cables, with external clock, all sample rates, all timings, all firmwares, and so on.

I've also tortured the Mac and tried everything imaginable, even deleted the audio-device-settings-plists, etc.

[chrisdm1978]

Very disheartened to hear that Ventura did not solve the problem for one of the above users. I still can't update as too many 3rd party plugs I use regularly are not ready for Ventura yet. My ultralite mk5 sits here collecting dust depreciating while my Focusrite Clarett plus 8pre does all the heavy lifting flawlessly. I recently picked up an m2 iPad Pro which I have numerous uses for, I'm debating using it as a multitrack playback device for some stems for live shows with Cubasis 3. Cue mix 5 app does indeed control the ultralite 5 via the iPad plugged in over USBC which is cool, Cubasis can access multi outs for clicks and stems. I have run my guitar through Cubasis on a limited basis just to see if the audio messes up like it continues to do on my M1 max laptop even with the most recent firmware updates, with driver or without driver installed. In my very quick testing it worked without issues on the m2 iPad Pro, , but haven't tried it long enough yet to say for sure. MOTU told me Ventura will fix it...sadly from what I've read here, it won't. These units are ••••. Us users who are having these issues should band together like the guys who took Wondershare Filmora to task. I've been a long time MOTU user of many products, taught in a post secondary institution installing many motu projects there during my time (think like 15 teaching stations with Mac minis, plus a large multi room facility). This is unacceptable. Because I had bought my unit used due to chip shortage and no stock ( a couple months old at the time), motu has loophole and won't refund me. Sweetwater where the unit was purchased also won't help me. It's not even the same unit anymore, I'm on the 3rd one lol. Sweetwater took down my negative review of the unit warning people about this issue. Time to make a detailed YouTube video review and take MOTU to task with this. Pisses me off they slap M1 and apple silicon compatible just to make a quick sale meanwhile it's full of bugs and doesn't work reliably even in the most basic setup. Shame Motu.

[chrisdm1978]

Unfortunately, I have to confirm that.

I use an Ultralite MK5 on a Macbook M1 Pro and have exactly the same problem. I cannot use the device because it destroys my recording at irregular intervals with exactly this noise.
I installed OSX Ventura - that has brought no improvement.
I have spent days troubleshooting (cables, connectors, adapters, settings) - nothing helps. Maybe I should hire an exorcist, I don't know.

I signed up here specifically because I want to say that I find it very shady that MOTU sells hardware as "M1 compatible", which definitely does not work properly on this devices and massively limits the functionality. I am disappointed.

Very disheartened to hear that Ventura did not solve the problem for one of the above users. I still can't update as too many 3rd party plugs I use regularly are not ready for Ventura yet. My ultralite mk5 sits here collecting dust depreciating while my Focusrite Clarett plus 8pre does all the heavy lifting flawlessly. I recently picked up an m2 iPad Pro which I have numerous uses for, I'm debating using it as a multitrack playback device for some stems for live shows with Cubasis 3. Cue mix 5 app does indeed control the ultralite 5 via the iPad plugged in over USBC which is cool, Cubasis can access multi outs for clicks and stems. I have run my guitar through Cubasis on a limited basis just to see if the audio messes up like it continues to do on my M1 max laptop even with the most recent firmware updates, with driver or without driver installed. In my very quick testing it worked without issues on the m2 iPad Pro, , but haven't tried it long enough yet to say for sure. MOTU told me Ventura will fix it...sadly from what I've read here, it won't. These units are ••••. Us users who are having these issues should band together like the guys who took Wondershare Filmora to task. I've been a long time MOTU user of many products, taught in a post secondary institution installing many motu products there during my time (think like 15 teaching stations with Mac minis, plus a large multi room facility). This is unacceptable. Because I had bought my unit used due to chip shortage and no stock ( a couple months old at the time), motu has loophole and won't refund me. Sweetwater where the unit was purchased also won't help me. It's not even the same unit anymore, I'm on the 3rd one lol. Sweetwater took down my negative review of the unit warning people about this issue. Time to make a detailed YouTube video review and take MOTU to task with this. Pisses me off they slap M1 and apple silicon compatible just to make a quick sale meanwhile it's full of bugs and doesn't work reliably even in the most basic setup. Shame Motu.

[chrisdm1978]

Oh and I forgot to mention, it was MOTU themselves that told me it was "an issue with the USB controllers on the new apple silicon computers...Ventura will address it"

[Airbusjoerg]

Oh and I forgot to mention, it was MOTU themselves that told me it was "an issue with the USB controllers on the new apple silicon computers...Ventura will address it"

There may be hope...

I have been running the Ultralite MK5 on my Macbook M1 Pro with Ventura 13.1 for several days now without any problems - but I had to remove the MOTU-driver (the kernel extension). As "class compliant device" it seems to work stable.
I say that with caution because the problem sometimes occurs in longer intervals and I want to test a while longer until I am sure.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to remove the kernel extension. See this post:

viewtopic.php?p=598648#p598648

[Obermotu]

Hello,

I am also experiencing this issue on a M1 MacBook Pro 32GB 2TB SSD Ventura 13.1

I have had two interfaces (the first was returned because it developed a fault with the display) and both had this issue.

-It only occurs when using the MOTU driver. It does not occur when the MOTU driver is removed and used as class compliant device.
-The noise is only heard on the input channels.
-It occurs randomly at all latency settings and all sample rates in multiple DAWS.

I strongly believe that this is a MOTU driver problem as removing the MOTU driver stops the noise from occurring, however there is nearly a doubling of the latency when using the interface as class compliant device.

[chrisdm1978]

Oh and I forgot to mention, it was MOTU themselves that told me it was "an issue with the USB controllers on the new apple silicon computers...Ventura will address it"

There may be hope...

I have been running the Ultralite MK5 on my Macbook M1 Pro with Ventura 13.1 for several days now without any problems - but I had to remove the MOTU-driver (the kernel extension). As "class compliant device" it seems to work stable.
I say that with caution because the problem sometimes occurs in longer intervals and I want to test a while longer until I am sure.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to remove the kernel extension. See this post:

viewtopic.php?p=598648#p598648

Interesting, I did testing by removing their driver as per MOTU directions on Monterey, and still had the same issue which I reported to them. Their instruction for removing the extension were quite a bit different, simply by removing the driver extension from the applications folder:

“Can you try removing the MOTU Gen 5 System Extension from the Applications folder, then restart the computer. This will put the device into "Class Compliant" mode. We'd like to see if there is any change in these problems. ”

Not sure if things have changed in Ventura. Perhaps I will try testing with this method you mention above, in Monterey. But from what MOTU indicated to me, Monterey there is no fix…..I can’t go to Ventura yet. Either way even if it is their driver, it is sad they can’t write one for their own hardware that works. I need the loop back function for certain workflows, which requires the driver. Keep us posted with your testing in Ventura. I should note I had the issue where it loses connection and everything becomes delayed like you suddenly switched to a very large buffer setting even on my old Mac Pro 5,1 intel machine on Mojave. So I have had issues on multiple units across different computers. Their final words to me were:

“Chris,

I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, but we are not able to transfer the warranty to used units either. I understand the frustration. I have some reason to believe we'll see some improvement with the Apple USB controllers in macOS Ventura which is likely due for release soon. “

“Some Improvement” ??? that doesn’t sound too promising lol.

[chrisdm1978]

Oh and I forgot to mention, it was MOTU themselves that told me it was "an issue with the USB controllers on the new apple silicon computers...Ventura will address it"

There may be hope...

I have been running the Ultralite MK5 on my Macbook M1 Pro with Ventura 13.1 for several days now without any problems - but I had to remove the MOTU-driver (the kernel extension). As "class compliant device" it seems to work stable.
I say that with caution because the problem sometimes occurs in longer intervals and I want to test a while longer until I am sure.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to remove the kernel extension. See this post:

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewto ... 48#p598648

You know what you may be on to something here....I had tested my unit without the driver extension back in late August of 2022. It was on an older firmware at that time. I did do the Nov 15 firmware update, tried it with driver extension installed and still had the problem, passed it off as issue not resolved, I was so sick of testing the damn thing. I didn't try this new (Nov 15 2022) firmware without the extension on Monterey. Your post got me thinking to try again. I played guitar through the unit through an amp sim for about 1.5 hours today...no issue. Now I have been fooled before, where the next day issue comes back. I will test it some more without the extension on this latest firmware in Monterey as I have some rehearsing to do, nothing mission critical. By the way if you just remove the extension from applications folder and restart the Mac, this kills the extension while still leaving Cuemix in tact. At least in Monterey which I am still running. Probably similar in Ventura. I will report back with any results....

[chrisdm1978]

One more thing I recall, MOTU had given me some unreleased firmware to try Sept 13, which they released like a day later or so in September. I recall I tested that firmware...still had issue at that time. By Nov 15 I had pretty much given up when that firmware still had an issue and figured wait til I can try Ventura..... Sorry for the multiple posts, but want to put all the info out there. Let's see if this Nov firmware minus extension shows the problem...

[chrisdm1978]

Done some more testing with Nov 15 firmware in Monterey, minus the driver extension. Been rehearsing the last few days....no issues! So it really does look like driver issue. I had given up back in late August/September as with driver or without I still had the issue. But the latest firmware with no driver appears to be usable.....about time. Now hopefully they can actually get the driver working so we can use loopback feature. Thanks to those who reached out to me personally and posted their recent experiences with the Ultralite mk5.

Best,
Chris.

[chrisdm1978]

*UPDATE*
So MOTU gave me some beta firmware and driver to test. Unit behaved for quite a while, didn't get the bit crushed distorted sound. But after longer testing unit dropped out momentarily and then everything was way delayed like the before. Plus once I had the display not register any changes I was making on the front panel controls, though they were controlling cue mix. I guess I'll try this beta firmware without extension and see what happens....back to the drawing board. Still on Monterey by the way, not Ventura.

[chrisdm1978]

Oh yeah, MOTU also said it only seems to be some models of Macs affected by these CPU issues....(I suspect M1max and pro at the very least)