Ultralite audio popping

[mongosork]

I just bought a MOTU ultralite, but I have some problems


1. Every time I start Motu's Audio Setup - Cuemix console - and Cubase SX I get a loud audio popping and LED dance from the LCD for like 10-30 seconds.

2. When I record in Cubase SX I get very loud digital distortion

I use dell inspiron 6000 centrino laptop, Adaptec Firewire AFW-1430 PCMCIA card, and power the MOTU ultralite with a 9v 3a DC power supply. Windows XP SP2

Any ideas what it could be? PCMCIA card? a bad firewire cable or software problem?

[Farshad]

I exactly have the same problem at 48 Khz. I really hope it could be solved by some sort of driver update. I am not totally convinced it is caused by my firewire interface since at 96khz everything works just fine.

-Farshad

[mongosork]

Yeah, it works at 96khz! Thanks for telling me Farshad. I got the audio popping and distortion at 44.1 khz I did not try at 48 khz. Then it must be a driver problem

[Farshad]

No problem. I only have the problem at 44.1 and 48k . Everything works at 88.1 and 96k. I hope we can find a workaround.

[chorga1]

Audio works fine for me at 44.1 and 48. Using it on a PC laptop with built-in fw card...


Perhaps get a new fw-pcmcia card and see if that helps.


Sorry I can't be of more assistance

[scottfro]

i just tested this with mine as i hadn't thought of it before. when i'm in 44.1 and i click on something outside a save box or something and windows normall does that annoying beep saying don't do that its kinda crunchy sounding. switch to 48 and the crunch is gone. switch to 88.1 crunch is back, switch to 96 crunch is gone.

anyone make any sense of that?

[Farshad]

Another interesting fact is, when Itry to switch the sunc to SMPTE, the unit works at 48k! I am confused too but I have a strong feeling it has to do with the driver. I beleive it it were only the firewire chip incompatibility, it would affect the 96k performance as well.

-Farshad

[chorga1]

It is driver version 1.0 Considering that I'd say it's pretty damn good - but yes I too am awaiting an update.

I did a little more testing at 44.1, 48, 88.2, and 96. I had a weird Cubase crash when switching to 88.2, then I restarted Cubase and everything worked fine... Other than that all sample rates worked like a charm.





Now if I could get the MIDI to work reliably that'd be awesome...

[arno]

it is happening to me also , on a g5 the ultra lite is working fine BUT on a titanium g4 800 i got some strong noise clip distortion , only in 96 khz it is not hppening but my tracks are in 44100 ! and i will play live in 2 weeks ... i also sold today my 828 mk2 means that i dont know how i will manage to play with that sound card ... i dont know if it is because of the lap top or what , the ultra lite is plugged to a pcmcia card because the firewire port are broken and i use that card to have extra port . with the 828 mk2 it was working ok ...now not !
any help orr suggestion ?
thanks arno

i just did a test on a ibook , it is working fine with the firewire port so it seems that the pcmcia card is the reason on the titanium ..

[ben20uk]

Yes, I've got the same problem. My Ultralite only goes right at 96 kHz, on 48 or 41 causes in all aplications strong distortion and just after I switch to these frequencies display dance and loud popping or screaming eppears for about 10-30 sec (sometimes even forever, usually helps to just open MOTU Audio Setup utility and popping stops, but distortion and loud hiss in aplications remains). So its a big shame, because I can only use 96 kHz, which is in my Ableton really CPU hungry and needs at least 1024 Samples or more = big latency. For example at this setting just playing 1 FM7 in Ableton leads to 30% CPU on my Athlon XP 2800+ and 1 GB RAM and latency is 25 ms, if I add some reverb, Ableton starts to pop. So to sum it up its comletely unusable! I've got Edirol FA-66 before and it worked fine at all frequencies. At 96 it was also CPU hungrier but not so much... So I guess the problem is in bad PC drivers. Anyone has solved that problem yet?

[project]

I had this same problem but found out it was the firewire cards i was using that did it. I could not use 44.1 or 48khz. i could only use 88.2 and 96khz.

Get a belkin firewire card and your problems will be gone.

I tried an NEC card and an adaptec fireconnect 800 both did not work.

use the Belkin F5U503v F5U503 F5U501 they have texas instrument chipsets that are compatible with MOTU firewire devices.

[ben20uk]

I had this same problem but found out it was the firewire cards i was using that did it. I could not use 44.1 or 48khz. i could only use 88.2 and 96khz.

Get a belkin firewire card and your problems will be gone.

I tried an NEC card and an adpatec fireconnect 800 both did not work.

use the Belkin F5U503v F5U503 F5U501 they have texas instrument chipsets that are compatible with MOTU firewire devices.

Ok, it sounds promising... Thanx! By the way, what"s your latency and CPU load?

[project]

I keep my buffer at 256 although i can go as low as 96 sometimes with a small project. CPU is always different depending on the VSTi's i use and so on.

[karhide]

Hi I'm new and I've just bought an ultralite and I'm getting the similar problem with a Dell Latitude laptop I've also tried it on another dell laptop with the same problem. I've tried a dynex pcmcia card that when I asked in the shop they said it used the TI chipset but I'm not convinced because it had the same problem as the internal firewire port on the laptop.

Can some one recommend a pcmcia card that uses the TI chipset when I looked up the ones 'Project' recommended they were pci cards?

[Smokehouse]

For all of you Windows XP SP2 folks out there, let me strongly recommend that you follow the advice at the RME site and roll back the two FireWire drivers in SP2 to the SP1 version. Doing that made all sorts of problems go away, and other have had similar success. Check out this link. I think it should be standard advice for all MOTU firewire SP2 users.

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12461