MOTUnation.com

Hi to everybody! I am a newbie in this forum and i was reading all about Motu hardware... i am an old 2408 user long time ago... I’m trying to understand if it’s suitable for me to be back in Motu with a very cheap 8 pre firewire... i’m working with a 2012 mac mini with High Sierra and Cubase 10. Can someone tell me if with my specs the 8pre can work on my system? Thanks a lot and sorry for my poor and cheap english...

For anyone who's been using their firewire devices on Catalina, how has it been so far? Still uneasy about upgrading!

I have an 828 MKII Firewire and an 828 MKII USB. Both work under Catalina with the major issue that the computer no longer wake from sleep. I've emailed support to see if this is a known issue, but at this point I wish I had not upgraded to Catalina. You're really not gaining anything in terms of new OS features and you could be losing your audio interface, so if you haven't done the "upgrade" I'd hold off.

jiewjif wrote:I have an 828 MKII Firewire and an 828 MKII USB. Both work under Catalina with the major issue that the computer no longer wake from sleep. I've emailed support to see if this is a known issue, but at this point I wish I had not upgraded to Catalina. You're really not gaining anything in terms of new OS features and you could be losing your audio interface, so if you haven't done the "upgrade" I'd hold off.

What Mac did you upgrade?

Any updates on this? I'm about to buy the 16" MacBook Pro and am still running an 828 MKII FW. Trying to figure out if I need to budget for a new interface as well.

Also, what specific driver were you all using to make the MKII work with Catalina?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer!

10AK wrote:Any updates on this? I'm about to buy the 16" MacBook Pro and am still running an 828 MKII FW. Trying to figure out if I need to budget for a new interface as well.

Also, what specific driver were you all using to make the MKII work with Catalina?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer!

There are many posts in this thread stating that the latest driver works.

mikehalloran wrote:

10AK wrote:Any updates on this? I'm about to buy the 16" MacBook Pro and am still running an 828 MKII FW. Trying to figure out if I need to budget for a new interface as well.

Also, what specific driver were you all using to make the MKII work with Catalina?

Thanks in advance for any insight you can offer!

There are many posts in this thread stating that the latest driver works.

Thanks. Just jumped on Motu's website and saw that they specifically had an 828mkII firewire driver, I saw another post earlier that confused me because it referenced hybrids. Not super technical and some of this goes over my head.

I saw that you wrote earlier : "My 828mkII is working fine over Mojave into my iMac Pro. The FW400–800 cable goes into the Apple FW-TB adapter into a Thunderbolt dock — from there, a TB2 cable goes to the Apple TB2–TB3 adapter that plugs into one of my TB3/USB-C ports."

Did you end up upgrading to Catalina and running the same setup without any issue? Also, what kind of Thunderbolt dock are you using? I'd like to emulate your setup. Thanks again for the help.

10AK wrote:Thanks. Just jumped on Motu's website and saw that they specifically had an 828mkII firewire driver, I saw another post earlier that confused me because it referenced hybrids. Not super technical and some of this goes over my head.

I saw that you wrote earlier : "My 828mkII is working fine over Mojave into my iMac Pro. The FW400–800 cable goes into the Apple FW-TB adapter into a Thunderbolt dock — from there, a TB2 cable goes to the Apple TB2–TB3 adapter that plugs into one of my TB3/USB-C ports."

Did you end up upgrading to Catalina and running the same setup without any issue? Also, what kind of Thunderbolt dock are you using? I'd like to emulate your setup. Thanks again for the help.

Hmmm... just as I'm going away from it — the 828mkII part that is (getting a new USB 2 box).

Anyway, there are only a few true TB docks for SATA III drives. I use this one available from OWC and Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/OWC-Drive-Dock-S ... ics&sr=1-7

It has on/off switches for each drive and the two TB ports that are necessary for my setup. The supplied TB cable is only one foot so I bought a longer one.
https://www.amazon.com/Certified-Cable- ... ljaz10cnVl

mikehalloran wrote:

10AK wrote:Thanks. Just jumped on Motu's website and saw that they specifically had an 828mkII firewire driver, I saw another post earlier that confused me because it referenced hybrids. Not super technical and some of this goes over my head.

I saw that you wrote earlier : "My 828mkII is working fine over Mojave into my iMac Pro. The FW400–800 cable goes into the Apple FW-TB adapter into a Thunderbolt dock — from there, a TB2 cable goes to the Apple TB2–TB3 adapter that plugs into one of my TB3/USB-C ports."

Did you end up upgrading to Catalina and running the same setup without any issue? Also, what kind of Thunderbolt dock are you using? I'd like to emulate your setup. Thanks again for the help.

Hmmm... just as I'm going away from it — the 828mkII part that is (getting a new USB 2 box).

Anyway, there are only a few true TB docks for SATA III drives. I use this one available from OWC and Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/OWC-Drive-Dock-S ... ics&sr=1-7

It has on/off switches for each drive and the two TB ports that are necessary for my setup. The supplied TB cable is only one foot so I bought a longer one.
https://www.amazon.com/Certified-Cable- ... ljaz10cnVl

I was actually looking at alternative USB interfaces myself because after going through this thread and others out there, it sounds like the FW mkII is going to be a pain with Catalina. New computer is on the way and will see how it goes. Thanks again for your help, I really appreciate it.

The last 828mkII was made in 2007. Mic pres and DACs have improved and come way down in price since then. It’s time for me to upgrade and slim down.

So to MOTUs credit: they did a great job and the 828 kmII FW works well with macOS 10.15 Catalina. Hooray.

Hi guys,

Sorry I'm having some troubles to sort things out in my mind.
I own a 828MkII FW running fine on my 2012 MacBookPro (El Capitan) via the FW port. I recently upgraded my Mac with an SSD and tried Catalina to find out it was running smoothly after all.
The question is : do I need to plug the 828 into the Thunderbolt port via a FW to TB adapter to make it work under Catalina ? Is it the same for Mojave ? Can it works at all ? Or do I need to revert to an older OS ?
Quite a few questions indeed, sorry I'm a bit confused.

Gazolina wrote:Hi guys,

Sorry I'm having some troubles to sort things out in my mind.
I own a 828MkII FW running fine on my 2012 MacBookPro (El Capitan) via the FW port. I recently upgraded my Mac with an SSD and tried Catalina to find out it was running smoothly after all.
The question is : do I need to plug the 828 into the Thunderbolt port via a FW to TB adapter to make it work under Catalina ? ....

No.

Thank you for that simple answer to a simple question.

My mistake, works fine for me. If someone is having troubles downloading the right driver from the MOTU website, I'm the one to talk to, I've been there.