MOTUnation.com

Hey everybody.

I got screwed by digidesign and now I'm looking to replace my digi001 audio interface with a motu ultralite. I have no experience with motu and I'd like to get your opinions on what I can expect from this company.

Here are some questions in order of importance. I would greatly appreciate people's thoughts on any of these topics:

How long does motu support their hardware? Have they ever stopped updating drivers for your hardware and you were stuck never being able to upgrade your OS? (digidesign does this in an attempt to force you to keep upgrading your hardware. OUCH).

On OSX, have you run across any software that wasn't compatible with your audio interface? I know there have been some probs with skype. But I'm hoping itunes, dvd players and other basic audio software will be able to use the hardware freely. Likewise if there are any serious audio applications that don't play well with motu hardware, please let me know.

For you windows users:
Is there any software you found that wouldn't work with your motu hardware? I'm planning on using Sony Acid/sound forge etc..
What windows sound interfaces does motu implement in its drivers? ASIO wdm, mme, etc..


Thanks for the input everyone!


-tom

Be careful. As of right now, MOTU doesn't support Windows XP with SP2, although beta drivers have just been released. They are also very selective about "recommended" 1394 interface chips. My overall sense is that they are really coming from behind in terms of both time and competency in the Windows world, but that they do a better job with Macs.

If you have a PC scan all the forums you can find ( this one in particular). I haven't tried the latest beta driver yet since my Ultralite failed just after their 90 day warrantee expired. The fact that they have such a short warrantee period indicates something given it's shorter than most other vendors with which I'm familiar.

Hope that helps.

sleddog wrote:Be careful. As of right now, MOTU doesn't support Windows XP with SP2, although beta drivers have just been released. They are also very selective about "recommended" 1394 interface chips. My overall sense is that they are really coming from behind in terms of both time and competency in the Windows world, but that they do a better job with Macs.

If you have a PC scan all the forums you can find ( this one in particular). I haven't tried the latest beta driver yet since my Ultralite failed just after their 90 day warrantee expired. The fact that they have such a short warrantee period indicates something given it's shorter than most other vendors with which I'm familiar.

Hope that helps.

Wow. Thanks for the warnings.
In summary:
Support for Windows XP with SP2 is only beginning now.
MOTU is still more comfortable with mac 1394 interfaces (firewire).
Your Ultralite failed on you.

Can you give me more specifics on how your Ultralite failed?

I think the 1394 chip in the Ultralite failed. I suspect the failure was initiated by a couple of power failures we had a few days before I noticed that the Ultralite wasn't completely working.

Overall I really like the Ultralite. When it works it does a lot of things very well. I'm just left with the feeling that MOTU isn't committed to making it work well on PCs in a timely fashion. They seem to know and like macs and will take what they can get on PCs.

As I said, if you have a PC, be careful.

sleddog wrote:I think the 1394 chip in the Ultralite failed. I suspect the failure was initiated by a couple of power failures we had a few days before I noticed that the Ultralite wasn't completely working.

Overall I really like the Ultralite. When it works it does a lot of things very well. I'm just left with the feeling that MOTU isn't committed to making it work well on PCs in a timely fashion. They seem to know and like macs and will take what they can get on PCs.

As I said, if you have a PC, be careful.

OK. good to know.
I'm planning on using my mac G4 for now, then upgrading to an intel mac and running both OSx and vista/xp. In general I like working on a mac, but I would like to be able to run Sony acid/ sound forge here and there.

my ultralite has been up and running on a daily basis for about 7 months on my system. i did run into the fire-wire incompatibility issue twice but found the right card twice as well. a PCI card and when i upgraded to PCIE again.

Don‘t buy the crap if you plan on using a PC. Mine isn‘t working at all and if it dosn‘t work when I get the firewire PCI-card with a TI chip, ill throw the box out of the window.

a TI chipset isn't guaranteed to work i know that the Adaptec firewire card i tried had the TI chipset and did not work. for PCIe use the card i have and for PCI use a belkin F5U501 or F5U503

oh boy. I just bought one of these and waiting for it to be shipped. I'm running XP SP2 as well since I use Audition mostly. I have already read about the FW chipset issues and got a firewire direct card with a TI chip, I spoke to MOTU tech support today and all they said was to make sure to use a TI or Lucent chipset and I'll be fine. So I hope that works.

Also, please note that if you are running Windows with SP2 and download MOTU's beta driver, you probably need the "fix" outlined in Microsoft's KB885222. MOTU doesn't mention this as near as I can tell, but this has been referenced elsewhere in this forum and on the RME web support site.

Maybe that will help some of you. I wish MOTU had better documentation, but they at least appear to be trying to hire some more support staff. Maybe they really are committed to making this stuff work on Windows.

Finally, note that the word on the street regarding Vista content protection "features" frightens me. I hope it doesn't make doing home studio work more difficult under windows than it already is.

Regards,

SledDog