MOTU 828 cutting out . . .

otf · Post by **otf** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:20 am

It's a shame my first post is a negative one.
I wish I'd found this forum before buying my new 828mkII USB for Windows!!
I use cubase sx3 with a Toshiba U300 13V laptop, 2GB RAM, XPSP2.
I too get random glitches as described in this thread , I've had it for about 3 months. It mostly runs OK but occasionally has a complete freak out, LED's issue, pauses, and sync problems. Maybe that's why I got it at a good price!
I planned to use this device for gigs also but there's no chance on earth I'm relying on the 828 for a glitch free performance.
It's quite clearly a common and serious problem. Come on MOTU, get it sorted!!!

154 · Post by **154** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 9:57 am

i switched to Mac and guess what... not a single glitch or pause in sound... i can even hotplug it, and when i plug it back in its on again. Im finally happy and making music again instead of fearing " the glitch" ....

jsr · Post by **jsr** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 10:36 am

Further evidence perhaps that MOTU don't have the same interest in supporting their products under Windows as they do on the Mac?

Juancho · Post by **Juancho** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 3:38 pm

Further evidence perhaps that MOTU don't have the same interest in supporting their products under Windows as they do on the Mac?

God damm, that really pisses me off!
why would a company NOT support their customers equally?!

From what i can see on the forums are filled with reports on this matter, especially with windows users, its not like we're talking about budget hardware, this is hardware for Pro‘s and not cheap either!

I've tried all solutions, turned off all drivers on my laptop, tried older driver versions, tried 2 types of PCMCIA/Express FW cards in, without getting rid of the high squeaks and hickups in sync.

I cant use this crappy hardware, anyone has a suggestion on equivalent OTHER external soundcards out there for the same price?!

(Firewire, Adat, at least 2 Mic preamps and a working support from the creators?!)

/J

jsr · Post by **jsr** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 4:00 pm

Juancho wrote:anyone has a suggestion on equivalent OTHER external soundcards out there for the same price?!

(Firewire, Adat, at least 2 Mic preamps and a working support from the creators?!)

I'm saving up for an RME Fireface 800:
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_fireface_800.php
They even have Linux drivers! Last update was .... earlier today!

Juancho · Post by **Juancho** » Fri Jan 18, 2008 5:12 pm

aha, good choice...

how about Focusrite Saffire PRO 26 I/O?

I've read a lot of good reviews about it....anyone that has some experience in using those?

/J

CatfishRivers · Post by **CatfishRivers** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 2:50 am

I'm having the damn glitch dropout high pitched effing noise too. I've read every suggestion I can find for several months, and tried everything. I am stuck with vista on the laptop and i need to motu828mkii to run so i can play shows again. I've not been able to solve the issue. MOTU should be sued for this BS. How many months do we need to suffer?

Juancho · Post by **Juancho** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:56 am

after experimenting a bit i suspect it has todo with the graphics driver in windows, i have now almost managed to reproduce the squeal sound, it occurs every time i move a window or let cubase cursor track the recording so it scrolled through the song project. I doesnt happen 100% of the time but approximately 90%....

The bad thing is that i cant use other nvidia drivers since my laptop has a specific card.

Thats it for me, I'm going to the store and buy a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 I/O instead....

I hope it works better than this piece of crap....no more MOTU for me, thats for sure.

I'll let you guys know how the Saffire card runs on my system.

Cya,
Juan

jsr · Post by **jsr** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 11:54 am

In defence of MOTU .... I did have driver problems but all was solved by going back to an earlier version -- I'm running the Windows 2000 driver 3.5.3.2 for the 828MkII Firewire on XP Pro SP2 without any problems for about 8 months now. Unfortunately users of the newer USB version of the 828 don't have that option.

It would certainly be worth trying the unit on a totally different PC to determine whether it's the 828 or your particular laptop. There have been stories of problems with NVidia graphics in general on DAW systems, and certainly most budget laptops that use system RAM to increase the graphics RAM to something near what is considered Vista-compatible are from an audio perspective the devil's work.

At the moment I don't think anybody would recommend using Vista for professional audio purposes, and if you look around, a lot of pro audio people would not be comfortable with USB for audio interfaces either.

What MOTU definitely can be criticised for, however, is that they seem to have no interest in fixing the driver problems. It's as if they decided that life was just too short to figure out all the possible combinations of hardware and software that can occur on a PC, and don't feel it's a problem for them if their driver won't work in some setups.

.

Juancho · Post by **Juancho** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:18 pm

What MOTU definitely can be criticised for, however, is that they seem to have no interest in fixing the driver problems. It's as if they decided that....

I agree with you on the Motu criticism.
Howerver i did try the older drivers with no success, and my laptop is a highend machine (dual core 2ghz, 2 gigs of ram and a 7500 spin hd and a gfx card with its own ram memory (512mb).

Its definately a driver issue since the motu works on a mac, i tried it on a mac a couple of days ago with no errors at all.

Now i bought a Saffire Pro 26 I/O, and it runs flawlessly on the same laptop, no hickups, no bursts and i didnt even had to turn off anything...We'll see in a month from now.

/Juan

jsr · Post by **jsr** » Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:51 pm

Juancho wrote:Now i bought a Saffire Pro 26 I/O, and it runs flawlessly on the same laptop, no hickups, no bursts and i didnt even had to turn off anything...We'll see in a month from now.

/Juan

Nice! That would have been my second choice, given my budget.
Keep us posted!

.

timestretch · Post by **timestretch** » Tue May 06, 2008 10:32 pm

Path_Of_Sight wrote:I have the same problems. Using motu 828mk 2 firewire with XP on a Toshiba Satellite A100R notebook with cubase SX 3. I've tried all sorts of suggestions on other forums, such as buying a firewire card with a Texas Instruments chipset- no good.

I get audio cut-outs, high-pitched noises, and the motu also seems to crash my pc- when it's plugged in for five/ten mins or so, pc freezes.

I think its a compatability issue with my pc, as the motu itself works fine stand-alone, and it worked fine on my old system.

I'm just looking for confirmation of a compatibility issue or possibly a solution... but it seems my system and motu don't mix...

Hello,

What system do you refer to when you say "my old system"?

Sexor · Post by **Sexor** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:34 am

Hi, I just signed up to find answers to exactly the problems that are being talked about in this post. Glitches, pops and most annoyingly, complete system crashes that have never happened to me until I installed the 828 (mkII USB2).

Is there anyone on this board who actually has answers/solutions or is this just a place to vent some steam?

I refuse to do stuff like disable my graphics drivers just to make the goddam thing work.

And what's up with the whole clock thing? When I'm working in 48khz I cant listen to mp3's and wavs in winamp which are 44khz (they're pitched up because of the frequency difference). I mean, even a really basic cheapo soundcard can play two sample rates simultaneously!!

I'm not really expecting any answers here... I'm just really disappointed and need some cheering up

Sexor · Post by **Sexor** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:46 am

Oh yeah, another thing....

Is it normal that I can't open the ASIO settings or any of the MOTU applications when an audio program is running?

When I try to open the Audio console, I get this message:

"Cannot open while audio applications are running, close all audio applications and try again"

....which I do, but it still doesn't work unless I reboot the computer and open the Audio console before any other program. You can imagine I had a jolly good time finding the right buffer rate to fit my system. Had to reboot for every change

jsr · Post by **jsr** » Thu May 15, 2008 3:20 pm

Sexor wrote:Is there anyone on this board who actually has answers/solutions or is this just a place to vent some steam?

We're all just ordinary users here, just like you. Sure, you can let off some steam, but the only people with answers are MOTU ... so you need to log on to their website and raise these issues with their tech support as well.

I don't have the USB version so I'm afraid I can't be of any help beyond what I've already written earlier in this thread. You should probably at least tell people what OS you're using and what version drivers.