Ultralite mk3 Hybrid dropouts. Macbook 2.16GHz too slow ?

[youme]

hi,
I have quite annoying problems with audio dropouts on my new Ultralite Hybrid MK3, which makes the interface quite useless for the moment.

My setup:

Macbook late 2007 Core 2 Duo 2.16 GHz, OSX 10.5.8, 2 GB RAM, 320GB HD (160 GB free), MOTU Driver 1.5.38352

- the dropouts are just "no sound", silence, for about 100 - 300 msec, which repeats every 3 - 8 minutes approx.
- the played back files are stereo files (same dropouts with multi-track)
- the dropouts occur with either FireWire or USB connection to the Ultralite Hybrid.
- the dropouts occur with every software playing the audio file, Quicktime player, Audacity, AudioDesk, Garageband, Logic, Cog Player etc. in the same way.
- sometimes I have 2 - 3 hours with no dropouts. Hope arises, then the dropouts come back again.
- when I have external input to UL MK3 Hybrid and the signal passes right thru, I don't have dropouts.

- I do NOT have any audio dropout problems with the inherent Apple CoreAudio drivers in either software or on the optical out / analog headphone output.

What I did to find out any reason:
- changed connection cables
- changed the running order of powering up devices
- tried with aiff, wav and mp3 files
- played back with internal and external harddisk
- repair disk, repair permissions
- Combo-update 10.5.8
- changed the running order of Combo-Update, repair permissions and MOTU Driver installation
- purchased new harddisk
- tried MOTU driver 1.4.23 (which doesn't recognize the UL Hybrid at all)

All these tests lead me to the conclusion, that the drivers simply do not work with my specified Macbook or with 10.5.8.

If anyone has any hint what I could test or try additionally, I would be very grateful for any advice.

Maybe the MOTU drivers work without dropouts only in 10.6? Or Tiger 10.4 ?
Maybe the MOTU drivers work better with Windows ?
Maybe I need a much faster processor speed ?
Any information on a working Macbook's processor speed would be very much appreciated as well.

Thank you in advance
greets
youme

[si.]

I'm having a similar problem...

I am running osx 10.6.2. When using my motu ultralite hybrid with live 8, streaming video/audio online, watching movies offline, the motu cuts out pretty regularly, emitting a high-pitched noise. Most of the time, this lasts a few seconds and then the audio comes back but sometimes, it doesnt stop and I have to force restart the computer.

In the event of this happening whilst using live, the cpu meter jumps up without warning to 300%+ (even though it may have been cruising along at 20% beforehand) and if the high-pitched sound gets "stuck", live freezes and I loose my work (when attempting to recover, live says "a serious program error has occurred").

I have also experimented switching off wireless and it doesn't solve the issue.

Audio works ok out of the headphone jack on my laptop.

[youme]

things I forgot to mention:
- all test were made with de-activated Bluetooth and airport stuff
- a hardware reset on the UL did not give positive results

[si.]

I'm using a late 2007 Macbook too.

2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM

driver version 1.5.38352

It has passed all the apple diagnostics tests and I also performed disk maintenance with Applejack.

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 6 things it does are:

Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.
Trash old Log files.

Problem still persists...

Forgot to say this is using USB, firewire is even worse

[arvidtp]

Do you guys get these dropouts when recording too?

I have a test rig that maybe I will try out on my UL hybrid now - a battery powered analog sin wave oscillator as input (so it can NEVER make a digital glitch), logic to record for a few hours, then a Max/MSP patch that loads the audio in and analyzes it at ~40x realtime for any digital glitches. It finds these by checking for abrupt changes in the signal level between samples outside of the range of the normal sample-to-sample change of the sine wave, then logs each one to a list of times you can step through to see each waveform aberration.

If it would help at all to figure out this problem, I could compile the Max patch as a standalone and send it to you guys.

I was using it to test combining audio interfaces with soundflower and ganging the UL hybrid with the original UL (using aggregate devices) and if that caused clocking problems or not. My UL Hybrid was one of the test devices clocked together for this and it seemed to have no glitches, but I actually have not tested it on its own this way. But I think I was using the UL Hybrid as the master clock in these experiments, so I would not expect problems when things are made simpler by just using it alone.

That said, I have run into a few times in Max/MSP when using the UL hybrid I record an audio sample in realtime and for some reason it is twice as fast/an octave higher, as if only 1/2 the samples were recorded. This is intermittent, but never has happened in this max patch (been using it for 2+ years) with my original ultralite. Dunno if this is related at all.

I have heard that MOTU has been working on new windows drivers, so I hope they are working on problems on the mac side too.

best of luck

[Prince]

Were you guys able to resolve this issue?
I have serious audio dropout trouble running Ableton Live. My setup is a new Macbook Pro 2.8 Ghz Intel i7 / 500 Gb 7200 Rpm HDD / 4 Gb RAM with Novation Launchpad and UltraLite Hybrid Mk3 (via firewire).
Help please?

[youme]

unfortunately issue not resolved.

But I have turned back to my Macbook headphone output as audio output, so I don't have these annoying dropouts anymore.

The Ultralite mk3 rests calmly in the corner with other computer waste. Maybe there is a working driver in the next 22 years or so, I will check occasionally from year to year.

No answers from MOTU support ever.

As long as I stay with Mac computers, I will stay away from MOTU.

Best regards
youme

[arvidtp]

That's unfortunate. My UL mk3 hybrid has been rock solid the last year and a half, as long as I'm not bus powering it the macbook pro when on battery power only.

[MacKitten]

ARRG!!! Seriously? No one has encountered a solution to this problem? BOO! =(

I've been using my Ultralite mk3 Hybrid for a while, but ever since I got this new Macbook Air (purchased a few weeks ago), I've been experiencing many of the same audio drop-out problems as you guys. The actual audio coming from my floor standing speakers is fantastic . . .but that's only if anything comes out of them. I know it's not the speakers themselves. I've already hooked them up to other TV's/Computers. It's really, really frustrating because my Ultralite has always served me quite well. I'm not sure if it's the Ultralite system itself or if it's my Macbook -- in which case, I may very well take it back.

Anyway, if someone, ANYONE can PM with a possible solution, that would be terrific! Thanks, folks! =D

[foser]

Hi guys. I had similar problems & posted something for it in the wrong place, but i'll share it with you..

It's the 06/07/2011 post on this inactive ableton thread:

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 4&start=30" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


...hope this helps some of you.


Good luck

[mikehalloran]

It's the CPU at 100% that leads me to believe this might not be a hardware issue.

Look at this thread and see if it applies:

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... =4&t=46650" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;