Multiple MOTUs :: ASIO

[pagauthier]

Hello!

I have have a 828mkii, work perfectly on a cheap but clean PC with XP.

I plan to get a new 828mkii, or a traveler, and I have some questions ...

[1] If I get two 828mkii on a FW daisy chain, the ASIO driver will fuses the 22+22=48 outs so that my soft just see one bigger ASIO driver?

[2] If I get a traveller, does the same thing happen?

Many thanks! Bye!

[jsr]

ASIO can only use one interface at a time. I'd suggest you get an 8pre and connect it to the 828mkII via ADAT instead.

[Hard2Hear]

Not true.

ASIO can only use one DRIVER at a time. If you have multiple devices using the same driver it will show up as a second device. I build systems with 3 RME HDSP MADI cards for 192i/o.

Your 828's would show up something like MOTU ASIO (1) 1L, 3L, 5L... then MOTU ASIO (2) 1L, 3L, 5L. Or something similar to that.

[pagauthier]

Oh, I love the second comment, very positive!

Here is my experience with two softwares that I use to code my own DSP project: Matlab and Pure-Data ... Using one card, all my ASIO IO are just identified by numbers, 1, 2, 3, etc. With two cards, my hope is that they will fuse in a single device ... from the soft view point.

When I tested those softwares with three M-Audio Delta 1010, they fused in a single 30 outputs ASIO driver ... without effort, that was perfect, except for sync which was a real joke! I have also seen on this forum that somebody was using 4x24IO cards with a PCI-424 and, with Matlab, the four cards fused in a 96IO system accesible in a single ASIO driver. This is my dream.

According to what you have said, and my experience, I think that this should work well ...

In the worst case, which is not that bad, I use the second 828mkii in standalone and convert ADAT->analog outs ...

Many thanks for the comments! You make my day!

Bye!

[jsr]

ASIO can only use one DRIVER at a time. If you have multiple devices using the same driver it will show up as a second device.

Thanks for that clarification .... the MOTU documentation could perhaps be a bit clearer on this point. Another cheaper alternative if you don't mind sacrificing 96kHz operation is to get a Behringer ADA8000 and connect it the via ADAT ports; that way it will look like one big 828mkII with 8 additional mic/line ins and 8 additional line outs (the 8pre has less outputs and costs more). This works very well ... as vouched for by Paul White over at http://www.soundonsound.com in his reviews of both devices.

[jhaxton]

Hi folks. Similar question. After reading that up to 4 8pre units could be firewire daisy chained together, I bought 3 in order to put together a mobile 24-track recording studio on my laptop. I have them installed, but can only see one at a time. 8 channels does me no good at all. I need 24. Any ideas? Do I need to use a 828mkII or 896HD as the primary interface to my laptop instead of an 8pre to get this functionality?

Thanks.

Update: 8/27/2007 - I have 16 channels working using the optical cable, but am still looking for a 24 channel solution using all three 8pre units. I also have a tech link in with MOTU, but they are slow in getting to it. Any help would be appreciated.

[Liam Grant]

I have chained an 896 HD, and 896 and a Traveler and all three worked fine. As long as you are ok working at larger buffer sizes and don't need to worry about latency. The lock was only possible when the buffer was set to 1536 or 2048.
Smaller buffer sizes prevented the units from locking with the system.

[jhaxton]

Very cool. Did you get them to all appear as a single interface? I'm using Ableton Live and it seems I can only select 1 of the 3 at any one time, though I did get two to work together using fiber optics...

[Liam Grant]

I was using Cubase SX3 on a PC laptop to record a large jazz band. All analog inputs from all three units were available within SX. I have not tried multiple units with Live.

[jhaxton]

I was using Cubase SX3 on a PC laptop to record a large jazz band. All analog inputs from all three units were available within SX. I have not tried multiple units with Live.

Sweet!!!!!!!!

I have an ticket in to Ableton about their support of this config as well. I'll post their answers.

Thanks

[jhaxton]

Ableton said use ASIO4ALL. I did, and though I got all inputs to recognize and be selectable, the sample rate on the 2nd and 3rd units just jump back and forth between 44.1 and 48, so I guess it didn't really work after all. I'm having problems with Ableton 6 anyway... just tested recording 16 tracks at once and it just stopped recording a bunch of tracks in the middle of the test... looked to be recording... wasn't. Crazy. I'll look for other software, maybe try Cubase, though I would really like to demo it before buying.

[Liam Grant]

Ableton said use ASIO4ALL. I did, and though I got all inputs to recognize and be selectable, the sample rate on the 2nd and 3rd units just jump back and forth between 44.1 and 48

That's a surprise. Using three units together, I found the MOTU ASIO performed better than ASIO4ALL.
The jumping sample rates indicate failure to sync. Increasing the buffer size should have stabilised the lock.

As for Live dropping out, are you recording to an external hard disc?
Recording audio on the same disc that runs the op system and the app could cause all of the difficulties you have described, especially when working from a single 5400rpm drive.

Good luck with finding the right software. If you are checking out demos, have you tried Reaper?
http://www.cockos.com/reaper/

[jkmozart]

A little help here; I bought a 2nd 828 to use with Sonar and the WDM drivers and I have had no luck. I can see the two and I have tried linking them via fw which crashs Sonar. I also tried one as a stand alone via adat but could not get any sound. I set analog 1&2 to output ADAT1&2 but no luck.
Any ideas.....

[jsr]

Just a suggestion: assuming you all have Firewire (and not the newer USB 828Mkii's), try uninstalling all MOTU drivers, reboot, and install the older 3.5.3.2 version.

The newer drivers don't seem to offer any new features (as least, not that I know of, and not for FW users), but they crash my computer continually, such that the 828MkII is effectively unusable for the purpose for which it was bought. All I have to do is switch the 828MkII off, and the PC reboots within a few seconds, no warning, like as if you hit a reset button. That hasn't happened to me on XP SP2 *ever* with any other device.

I just hope MOTU don't take the current XP drivers as a base on which to build Vista drivers ....

[Liam Grant]

Just a quick note on uninstalling that arose when i installed new drivers for my traveler. I had been using a borrowed unit running 1.04 firmware and the older drivers. Uninstalling the old version and installing new version over it was unsuccesful until i did the following.
Its important to be aware that runnng the auto-uninstall routine will not remove the active start-up process MFWAKEYS.exe
CTRL+ALT+DELETE\TaskManager\Processes
Click the [image name] field to arrange processes alphabetically and you will find it more easily.
Because MFWAKEYS.exe is launched on start-up it is active before running the uninstall which means it remains untouched and will relaunch on restart.
click on MFWAKEYS.exe and click end process. Confirm and the process disappears from the list. Goto C:\Program Files\MOTU\Audio and delete the MFWAKEYS.exe file. Now run the uninstall.
On my system, the install of the newer firmweare and drivers then worked fine and the unit has been stable since.