MOTU 828 Mk3: Considering to buy... is it stable?

[Muziker68]

Hello All,

I could use some expert advice from this forum. I'm considering to buy MOTU 828 Mk3. After reading many posts, it seems the results have been mixed on it's reliability depending on which platform it's used on. Maybe this is attributed to drivers are not mature yet or MOTU HW problems or compatibility problems using specific configurations.

A few questions:
1) Are there any success stories out there using a similar computer HW/SW setup (see below)?

2) I'm not looking for a highly sophisticated mixer.... though how well does the standalone mixer work?
What I esp like about MOTU 828 is that it can be used as a standalone mixer to practice without the computer on.

3) 828 onboard FX.... can I choose different FX on each input channel?
ie- reverb on ch1, compression on ch2, dry on ch3, etc....

Here's my setup:
HW:
Dell Dimension 4600
Pentium 4 2.8GHz HT
2GB RAM DDR-400
120GB SATA HDD - OS/App drive
500GB SATA HDD - projects drive
ATI Radeon 9800 AGP8X
TI 1394a PCI card

SW:
WinXP Home SP2 - not connected to network, no internet security/antivirus installed
Cakewalk Sonar 7PE
NI Komplete 4, Kore2

Also plan to connect MIDI keyboards and rackmount devices to 828:
Alesis QS8.1 (via litepipe)
Alesis DM Pro
Roland JV-1080
Oberheim Matrix-1000
Kawai K1R
Korg DS-8
Various Mics, guitars, basses....use up to 2 channels at once for these.

any feedback welcome....

thanks!

[CSprague]

Dude you gotta Dell! I have not had any problem with the 828 mk3 and I have an extreme system. When you get it read the manual, know what you want from it and just do it. If it doesn't say in the manual that it can walk on water, don't expect it to. Your hardware and software setup looks fine.

[Mark S]

do you have other MOTU units?

You DO know linking them via firewire is very problematic. If this is your first purchase, save yourself the headaches and get an RME.

I've two MOTU units and wish I'd followed that advice before I jumped. The lack of tech response and driver support from MOTU is astounding. And this is confusing since when it's working it's very nice hardware. Why they poison their consumers with inattention is beyond me.

[Muziker68]

Thanks Mark, CSprague for your responses. This sounds promising.

I don't plan to daisy chain MOTU devices together so should be ok. I've read a lot of horror stories about driver and setup problems.


I may buy a notebook down the road and connect 828 Mk3 to this. Most all new notebooks have Ricoh Firewire.

Was looking at Sony CS and Lenovo Thinkpad T400.

Any have success stories with Ricoh Firewire or is this begging for trouble?

The other alternative I was considering was USB audio such as M-Audio Fast Track Ultra. I previously owned Delta 1010LT (PCI card) and was extremely reliable. The downside, M-audio was very late delivering Vista drivers but now they seem to be catching up.

[timizere]

i use an 828mk3 on my dell e5500 notebook (ricoh fw chipset) and a homebuild desktop. besides occasional audio dropouts on my desktop (usually when networking is up to something) i have no issues at all.

[jian]

Hey. I've had the 828MK3 for a few months now and I must say I do like it alot. It has been pretty stable (with the exception of the new drivers/cuemixfx update) The comp and eq sound good, The leveler sounds even better. Reverb is ok. You can uses comp/leveler/eq on every channel and reverb on a bus only. As a stand alone mixer it is good, although the knobs used to control parmenters are rather small and there is no way to control it via MIDI (does not have satand alone MIDI ) But you can save user templates. When unit is connected to comp, MIDI contol is rather limited (no support for MIDI control over fx paramenters, can only be accesed manually or through cuemix fx gui. For me, the CueMix FX software has been the source of most of my greif. Running the gui is rather cpu intensive and it freezes for me at times at times which is a pain. Firewire is rather finicky as well until you get it working correctly (took me a few days to get 828MK3 to work properly with xp and fw.) Other than that , it sounds good and functions pretty good for me.

[Muziker68]

Timizere: good info about Ricoh thanks. What's your setup? ie- how many inputs have you recorded at once on E5500?

Jian: interesting about MIDI and FX. Are you able to configure custom FX independently on each channel or only across the bus?
I think you stated FX across bus though wasn't sure.

[jian]

Yes you can. You can save Fx settings in a user progroam for recall at a later time.

[timizere]

i'v used 10 in 8 out simultaneous with no issues. will be recording 18io via lightpipe on wed so i'll post back and let you know how that goes.

[Muziker68]

i'v used 10 in 8 out simultaneous with no issues. will be recording 18io via lightpipe on wed so i'll post back and let you know how that goes.

On your Dell notebook w/Ricoh FW?

That's impressive.