Adding another 828mk3 in 2024 for diasy-chain FW action

[m00dawg]

I can't seem to find it now that I'm trying to look for it, but there was a post here which outlined the steps on how to daisy chain multiple mk3's. I noticed in the manual yesterday that this could even be a thing, but on Windows, the manual doesn't say how this affects DAWs and I'm trying to sort out what to expect there?

I've been trying, for years now, to get more I/O and will probably unfortunately be jumping ship to an RME MADI to Pulse16MX combination. I was previously all aboard the MOTU AVB train and might end up there given RME's new AoX PCIe card (which can do both AVB/Milan and MADI).

At any rate, that upgrade is expensive. So when I noticed the whole daisy chain option for the 828mk3's my interest was peaked. It doesn't really go into any detail in the manual about how many channels I can get at various sampling rates. It only says at 192khz I can only daisy chain 2 MOTUs on the same FW bus. I'm using a PCIe firewire card with 2 connections but I don't recall if they are separate busses.

The goal would be to get 18-24 channels worth of I/O but minimum would be 16/2 for analog mixing and 16/18 (though I could probably make it work with 16/16) for tracking. Ideally this at 192 which means I can't just connect another unit via ADAT (I already have a Pro40 hanging off my current 828).

I think based on the limited information, I'm still on plan A (migrating to MADI as noted above). But this plan is waaaaaay cheaper and might be an alternative where I can get in line and wait for a brighter timeline for when MOTU AVB gear becomes available again.

TLDR, any experiences with using Ableton Live on Windows using firewire-chained 828mk3's, optionally at high sample-rates?

[mikehalloran]

Windows? Good luck with that. The macOS supports Aggregate Devices but Windows does not. Other than the 828 manual mentioning daisy-chaining via FireWire, I'm not sure. The FW spec does allow for up to seven devices on a chain.

MOTU recommends an external clock when sync'ing three or more interfaces.

[m00dawg]

Indeed, the FW chaining was mentioned in the Windows manual with Windows screenshots. So it "works" but the manual then doesn't say what you do afterwards though the implication seems to be the MOTU drive may handle the aggregation. I'm just not sure I want to risk buying a used 828mk3 to find out. Failing that, there's ASIO4Everyone or whatever that thing is called that can do aggregates but I'm not sure what the impact would be.

There's a post here from 2016 that mentions the steps but now I can't find it. No one replied to that post either but the steps seemed sound. I just wasn't sure what my total I/O counts would end up being (how the "main outs" are handled as well as the front mic inputs, notably).

[zappazapper]

I run two 896mk3 Firewire interfaces, but not "daisy-chained". They are each connected to the computer separately, and they both require their own Firewire bus (pcie card). The MOTU driver handles the aggregation natively - both interfaces show up in the MOTU config, and all 64 channels of input and output are available in Reaper.

[NoFi Audio]

I can't seem to find it now that I'm trying to look for it, but there was a post here which outlined the steps on how to daisy chain multiple mk3's. I noticed in the manual yesterday that this could even be a thing, but on Windows, the manual doesn't say how this affects DAWs and I'm trying to sort out what to expect there?

I've been trying, for years now, to get more I/O and will probably unfortunately be jumping ship to an RME MADI to Pulse16MX combination. I was previously all aboard the MOTU AVB train and might end up there given RME's new AoX PCIe card (which can do both AVB/Milan and MADI).

At any rate, that upgrade is expensive. So when I noticed the whole daisy chain option for the 828mk3's my interest was peaked. It doesn't really go into any detail in the manual about how many channels I can get at various sampling rates. It only says at 192khz I can only daisy chain 2 MOTUs on the same FW bus. I'm using a PCIe firewire card with 2 connections but I don't recall if they are separate busses.

The goal would be to get 18-24 channels worth of I/O but minimum would be 16/2 for analog mixing and 16/18 (though I could probably make it work with 16/16) for tracking. Ideally this at 192 which means I can't just connect another unit via ADAT (I already have a Pro40 hanging off my current 828).

I think based on the limited information, I'm still on plan A (migrating to MADI as noted above). But this plan is waaaaaay cheaper and might be an alternative where I can get in line and wait for a brighter timeline for when MOTU AVB gear becomes available again.

TLDR, any experiences with using Ableton Live on Windows using firewire-chained 828mk3's, optionally at high sample-rates?

I am currently running 2 828 MKII and a 2408 MKIII.

The 828s connect to the PC via Firewire, a cable to each. The 2408 connects to 828 #1 as an ADAT device. You just have to go into the MOTU control panel and enable ADAT A (or B or C) on the 828. gives me 24 outs to my console....