MOTUnation.com

I tried oh how I tried to get my original MOTU 828 Firewire to work with my new Macbook Pro last night.

Ideally, I would just plug the TOSlink mini headphone to TOSlink cable into my 828 and it would work. It doesn't. The MOTU recognizes that there is a link (the OPTICAL input light activates), but no sound is generated.

Since there were no options for changing the interal config on the MOTU, I plugged in the firewire cable to change the settings. No matter how I configured it with ADAT or TOSlink options, the 828 simply would not output any sound.

Am I out of luck or is there actually a way to get the 828 to work with the latest Macbook via digital optical?

Don't know if this will help or not;

If the light on the front of the 828 is showing that it is recieving a signal, you should be able to get sound out of it. My experience with 828 is only with the MKII version and I don't know the differences, here is what I would do to live monitor that signal: Either bring up cue mix or controll the mix manually from the front of the 828. Set mix 1 to main out 1/2. Turn up toslink 1/2 and pan hard left and right.

Did you set the clock to spdif?

not sure if it helps but the macbooks only have 2 chan optical in/outs... i think most recording equipment with optical does 8 chan. not sure if that changes anything... i would imagine it shouldn't but i can't seem to find anyone who knows one way or the other. i'll be experimenting with that myself tomorrow.

Jyme wrote:i think most recording equipment with optical does 8 chan.

True, but he did mention trying TOSlink and ADAT (TL being the stereo type), so I guess that one does. My 2408 only does ADAT over the optical ports.