I'm sad today! My Ultralite MK3 is going back for refund.

[DKeeler]

Yes musicians friends 45 day trial comes to the rescue. I have spent hundreds of hours and tried all sorts of things to fix the problems with this thing but can't overcome it's shortfalls. Motu support is nonexistant. Please read my post here and if you have any thoughts on these issues let me know. I can't believe I am the only one out here that thinks the CueMix based products suck. If I am wrong tell me why!

I bought my ultralite to use as a live performance mixer, hoping to use my mackie baby hui surface to control it. Should have been easy! But the ultralite is not actually a mixer. Moto claims the ultralite is a 10 input 14 bus mixer, but is in reality 7 separate stereo bus, 10 input mixers with some strange global features. Why they designed it this way instead of basing in on a Master fader, aux bus architecture with Pre/post fader mixing options is puzzeling at best. The Cuemix Fx interface is totally useless for live mixing. Too complex. Most of the complexity is due to the multi mixer design. To mute a mic you have to access each mix it is used in and turn off each one, then you have to set the VRB send to off. This takes to much time. (Should be one mute button!) Since the mackie control surface only provides control of Cuemix it overcomes few of the problems. I also have to go into windows control panel and reset my wave output to the motu everytime I boot up? (This could be a windows thing but is annoying.) Since installing the drivers my computer randomly reboots. Only happens when the ultralite is connected and on. The tech support at motu pretty much sucks. It takes a week or more before they even read your techlink and then the responses are generic cut and paste from the user manual. Oh yes about the user manual, why is it not avalable online? It should be in the Help system so we don't have to carry the book everywhere we go. There are some language versions on the CD that comes with it but not the English version. The ultralite has excellent sound, so long as you trim to no more than -6db max. It does not deal with overdriving so clipping must be avoided. (Can't use the compressor or limiter as the clipping has already happened before these processors.) But the sound is very clean and noise levels are excellent. The latency is unnoticable. The reverbs are pure but again are prefader so maintaining the level is difficult live. Since the compressor / limiter is prefader their use is difficult to control in real time.

The only way to kind of use this is to use the input trims as your master fader, but then you run the risk of overdriving the A/D's and very ugly clipping, and you cannot totally mute an input with the trim. And by the way how do you control those trim pots with your mouse? Sometimes it seems moving the mouse up and down works but then sometimes you have to move it left and right! I think it expects us to move the mouse in a circle? (Why not UP makes it go up and Down makes it go down?) Is it just me or what?

So why am I so sad? Because this could be the most significant audio interface ever if a few simple changes were made. 1. Putting a Master fader and mute on the input and make the bus mixes selectable as pre or post Master fader. 2. Get rid of mackie and provide a conventional MIDI control interface. One that works on a hardware level so it could be used as a true stand alone mixer. (Why not MIDI controllers to simulate turning the front panel knobs?) I know if I had a simple low level MIDI interface I could overcome about 90% of these design shortfalls. Give me this simple thing and I could sell a hundred of these.

I don't know if these changes can be accomplished by software or if they are a product of the hardware design. I have asked this question of motu support but have not gotten an answer. If new firmware or a redesigned Cuemix interface could fix this thing it should be considered. If not then maybe future products should consider these issues.

I have be engineering sound for over 40 years. I have designed and installed hundreds of sound systems for churches and auditoriums. I cannot think of any situation where I would prefer the current functional design of the ultralite mixer over the master fader design described. Did motu do ANY research prior to designing this thing?

But the saddest thing? This letter is actually being sent to motu as a TECH Link. I don't expect a prompt response or for that matter any response as I have asked these questions in previous techlinks and have had little or no response to date. I will of course post any followup that may come from motu.

[Mark S]

Yes musicians friends 45 day trial comes to the rescue. I have spent hundreds of hours and tried all sorts of things to fix the problems with this thing but can't overcome it's shortfalls. Motu support is nonexistant. Please read my post here and if you have any thoughts on these issues let me know. I can't believe I am the only one out here that thinks the CueMix based products suck. If I am wrong tell me why! ,...


I don't know if these changes can be accomplished by software or if they are a product of the hardware design. I have asked this question of motu support but have not gotten an answer., ...

Did motu do ANY research prior to designing this thing?,...

But the saddest thing? This letter is actually being sent to motu as a TECH Link. I don't expect a prompt response or for that matter any response as I have asked these questions in previous techlinks and have had little or no response to date. I will of course post any followup that may come from motu.

MOTU support is non-existent. Unfortunately one cannot expect to buy any product for professional use without support

You'll be lucky if MOTU doesn't delete your technote. I found the only way to get a response was to call customer support (they answer that phone because they're expecting a sale) and have them transfer you to tech support. They wont do it but they will make note of your technote and you'll get a go f*** yourself reply within the next day.

Motu isn't in the habit of listening to it's users so I'm sure no research was done before designing the cuemix console.

Sorry to hear of your frustration but you're probably making the right decision.

[casedawg]

Nice write up.

I was surprised when I found out I couldn't control CueMix parameters with my MIDI controller. Its whack. I doubt there's some hardware limitation that forced them to only allow Mackie control rather than MIDI. I was looking forward to being able to control its EQs while performing, but oh well.

Fortunately my use doesn't revolve too much around CueMix or using the Ultralite as a mixer. Support is non existent and its very picky about what its running on, but there aren't really any better options for the price. Its a step above interfaces like the Firebox and Saffire and a whole lot cheaper than RME stuff.

I have one question:

The ultralite has excellent sound, so long as you trim to no more than -6db max. It does not deal with overdriving so clipping must be avoided. (Can't use the compressor or limiter as the clipping has already happened before these processors.)

Are you talking about the inputs or outputs here?