MOTUnation.com

Hi there,

I'm annoyed by the behavior of my Ultralite mk3 hybrid and I'm wondering if it's just my system or common and expected. This is on Windows 8.1 64bit using USB. This laptop doesn't have FW.

I 'm using the laptop, booted into Windows. Then I decide to listen to some music while working and plug in the Ultralite, connected to my studio monitors/headphones. Bummer, regular Windows programs like Firefox and Spotify won't play audio. When I click the Windows speaker icon in the bottom right it shows correctly that the Ultralite's main outputs are in use and I can see the volume meter jumping. But the level meters on the Ultralite and in Cuemix stay dead quiet. I only seem to be able to resolve this by rebooting the system, which I often don't do because of having to quit all my work.

It doesn't happen with dedicated audio programs like MaxMSP. Seemingly only programs that rely on Windows' audio management are affected.

It sucks. I'm a musician. I like to listen to music when I'm not making music. Having to reboot is so 1995.

This sort of thing never happened to me on Mac. Please tell me that Windows is not so retarded that it can't do this without rebooting...


Thanks for all insights, Dieter

Oh and it happens on a desktop PC as well...

Can someone confirm or refute this behavior?

It happens to me as well. If I have WaveRT turned off, I can usually get the device back online by turning it off then on again.

Ok thanks, I will try that. Any idea whether that's a MOTU or a Windows issue?

It's most definitely a MOTU issue.

Nope, still flaky here. WaveRT off and restarting the Ultralite doesn't help.

sounds like you need to go into device manager and turn off
"windows can turn off USB when idle to save power"

device manager > right click on USB Hub> select power management tab > uncheck all the boxes

do this for all USB devices that have power management tab

click ok, maybe restart. should be done anyway as part of a DAW optimization

Best of Luck

jaymo

Thanks, I'll try that. I started on DOS/Win in the 90's, then did most creative work on Mac for the past 15 years so I'm a bit behind on this kind of Win tweaks. I looked up more DAW optimization tips. I already had most set but not this USB power management thing.

Btw, I have the Ultralite now also on a Win8.1 desktop connected by firewire and similar symptoms occur.