I've been using MOTU audio interfaces for a decade (multiple MOTU 828 MK2 Firewire in ADAT, a MOTU 828 MK2 USB, etc.) on many different PCs.
I now use a MOTU 828 MK3 Hybrid in USB, with a Windows 7 x64 PC.
I have spent lots of hours of test before calling this a "driver bug", but here is my report (also sent to MOTU tech support).
Bug Report: I have noticed that clicking many times in the user interface of Ableton Live (for example to play a clip), or changing the focus to another windows while playing causes many dropouts / glitch / crackles.
Of course I already use the ASIO driver, with buffer size 256 (increasing to 512 or 1024 didn't change anything about the problem I described here).
Fortunately, the solution: if we use the MOTU 828 MK3 Hybrid with "ASIO4ALL", then ... all these problems disappear!
We can do ALT+TAB and go to other software, click everywhere in the Ableton Live user interface, do CPU-mediumly-intensive things on the PC: not a single crackle!
This confirms that the issue is not a hardware issue (good news: the MOTU 828 MK3 hardware is ok!), but it's an issue coming from the software.
How to reproduce the bug yourself:
- 1) Take a mid-range PC (I have a Lenovo Thinkpad), with Windows 7 x64, a MOTU 828 MK3 Hybrid, connected via USB. Install driver 4.0.6.6814 driver
- 2) Start Ableton Live 10, device: ASIO Motu Audio ASIO, buffer: 256 or 512
- 3) Add a clip in the session view with a continuous sound in loop (e.g. a sine wave or a string chord or anything else), so that you will easily hear if there are dropouts or not in the sound
- 4) Play this clip in loop forever
- 5) Now randomly click in other places of the Ableton user interface, launch or record other audio clips in other tracks, go into menu: you will hear glitches
- 5bis) Maybe also do ALT+TAB to go in another software, ALT+TAB to switch to Chrome while playing. Scroll in a web page: you will hear glitches
- 6) Now use Asio4All instead and redo the previous steps: not a single glitch
NB:
- I already use the latest 4.0.6.6814 driver, it's similar with the previous version (I tested it), and probably the same with other previous versions
- I have already tried all the usual solutions to debug dropouts / glitch / crackles for Windows : I have extensively tried everything in the doc GlitchFree.pdf (https://www.cantabilesoftware.com/glitchfree/), disabled all power management things, etc.
- My computer is safe, I have tried it on another computer, with Windows freshly installed with Ableton + MOTU drivers
- Many other people have the same problem, specifically with Ultralite and 828 MK3 Hybrid :
https://community.cantabilesoftware.com ... rid/1116/1
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=59467
https://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=195277
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