Ultralite mk3: No errors, but also no sound!

[dustplanks]

after spending some more time on it this morning, i think i have everything working (finally!)
i am using reeper's driver, with which i was initially experiencing my original audio dropout/high frequency bleep problem. i tried disabling my wireless connection which seems to have cured the problem.

my next question is whether or not it will be possible to get a driver in the future that allows the smaller buffer sizes (96 and below) in the current motu update.

reeper-thanks again for your driver fix.

[reeper]

cool im glad it helped, btw lan and wlan are the ususal suspects...

[comradec]

I've experienced similar issues with my Ultralite-mk3 too.

Everything worked absolutely great for the first month when I was using it on a Windows XP system with Ableton Live 7, although I never really explored the intricacies of the CueMix software during that time.

I then decided to use the Ultralite-mk3 with the Windows Vista set-up I had installed on the same computer with a dual-booting arrangement. All seemed to go well installing the drivers but no sound was produced, just as others here have described the problem. Oh well, that could be fixed another day so I switched back to my XP set-up but found that the unit was no longer producing any sound there either.

I'll try Reeper's modified driver and see if that fixes the problem but it is frustrating. The support on MOTU's website is very poor compared with similar manufacturers.

I was particularly annoyed that MOTU don't make their manuals available in electronic format. An essential element of the Ultralite-mk3, as I understand it, is its portability - you can take it anywhere. In that case, I'd have expected to be able to keep a PDF copy of the user guide on my laptop computer so that I could consult it whenever the need arose without having to carry the hard copy version as well. But, no, it seems that MOTU are not willing to make that available.

[FelisenumJaap]

cool im glad it helped, btw lan and wlan are the ususal suspects...

Hi Reeper
new user here too, with no sound. Installed your driver and BINGO!!!
Thanks again!
Jaap en Vincent

[dustplanks]

so - after a few days and a show this weekend with sound working successfully, i'm back to my original problem.

the interesting thing is this...i get the high frequency blips very frequently (approx every 2-3 seconds) after starting up (even with wireless and lan disabled). if i open the task manager, the blips correspond to a 3-10% rise in cpu usage for the process "System" owned by "SYSTEM" (too bad it's not a little more specific...). after a few minutes with Live open, things settle down and audio i/o to/from Live works without any problems. but...when i close live and try to play an audio file in windows media or itunes, i get an error indicating that my sound device is not functioning properly. when i look in sounds and audio devices, the first tab says "no audio device," but the tab for setting the default audio in/out and MIDI playback devices still shows the motu ins/outs. if i open live back up again, live's outputs play through the ultralite without any problem. if i close out of live and turn off the ultralite, i get the blue screen indicating a driver error.

any ideas? i've tried disabling the built in audio card, but that doesn't change anything. i checked the firewire drivers and they are still the sp 1 versions that i re-installed. also - i'm guessing that since the ultralite audio i/o works fine with ableton, this isn't a firewire issue.

thanks in advance for any help!!!!!!

[reeper]

my advice- is - reinstall xp with sp3. install my driver.
update jmicron,intel,nvidia,lan drivers to the latest ones.
also disable wlan when tracking.
regards/reeper

[dustplanks]

should i reinstall the sp 3 firewire drivers? everything else on my system is sp 3.

[reeper]

uh well i never tweaked any of my firewire drivers lol i just did a clean install and used the modded driver
works like a charm
-and by the way tried the spikecheckertool from tc?
run it and see if u get the "spikes" when you start something

http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... 14&t=32256

regards /reeper

[comradec]

I've tried Reeper's repacked driver but the no-sound problem with my Ultralite-mk3 persists.

The Ultralite appears to work fine in the Windows XP system in my dual-boot setup, but it won't produce any sound at all in the Windows Vista system.

The Ultralite shows up as present in Vista, the system is configured so that Ultralite is the default sound playback/recording device and the volume is set to maximum, but no sound comes out. Nor does it register on the Ultralite's display screen.

This is very frustrating as my previous audio interface, a Phonic Helix Board 12 FireWire MkII, works absolutely perfectly in both XP and Vista systems. The Ultralite was supposed to be an upgrade, but it's been nothing but trouble.

[reeper]

why run vista? nice gui?

[comradec]

why run vista? nice gui?

Well, it does have a "nice GUI", yes, but I probably don't get the 'benefit' of that as I've disabled much of the eye-candy, just as I've done in my XP installation.

That said, there are still some moderately pleasing aspects to Vista's GUI, primarily in terms of workflow and navigating your way around the system. And let's not be snobbish about GUIs - if they're merely ephemeral adornments, as some people's comments about Vista would have us believe, then we'd all be rejecting XP too in favour of command-line centred operating systems.

All the same, MOTU do advertise the Ultralite-mk3 as Vista-compatible (http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ ... ivers.html). We're therefore entitled to expect it to work reasonably smoothly on a Vista system. Moreover, it's getting increasingly difficult to buy Windows XP as Microsoft are only making it available to business customers and netbook manufacturers, or at least they will be doing that soon. Consequently, more and more prospective Ultralite purchasers will have Vista-based systems.