Motu interfaces with cakewalk

[Alan Tubbs]

I’m thinking of getting the new ultralight 5.

any comments in general or specific.

I know, this question should be in hardware but that gets so little action.

[John Vere]

I have a Motu M4. My only gripe has been I needed to purchase a dedicated USB 3 pci card to make it work. It is buss powered. I see the Ultralite has a power supply so that is good. 

The driver has one weird issue which normally shouldn't matter, but it doesn't support WASAPI Exclusive. Otherwise of course you always use ASIO. 

Other than that I think Motu is a good brand. 

[gustabo]

I have an UltraLite mk3 and it's still going strong! Solid ASIO drivers

[Alan Tubbs]

Thanks all.  Good to know about the windows drivers.  After getting a summing mixer I need more outs.  I’d really like a lynx, but in the meanwhile the motu looks to fit the bill as a clean stream while the RND can “transform” things.  

any other examples are great -even bad ones.  I read the long gearslutz/space thread and as usual, the first pages had some good info while the last 200pgs were arguments about different opinions.  Hope to review it first.

@

[bitflipper]

I think you've made a safe choice. We've never done a proper poll on what interfaces people are using, but based on years of forum discussions the Ultralight appears to be one of the most popular models in use. I was a happy MOTU user for many years, until the unit died. Be aware, though, that the company is very Mac-centric and appears to have like maybe one guy working there who's conversant in Windows drivers.

[John Vere]

Funny how you noticed that as well. It might even explain why they didn’t include WASAPI exclusive support for the drivers. 

[rsinger]

I have both an M4 and midi express XT and they both work fine. The drivers have been solid for me.

[Alan Tubbs]

Yea bitflipper, I thought you used them.

and thanks to the other comments. Many of the software  problems I’ve read about have people watching utube and gaming and answering email.  This will be a pure music computer and offline.  My retiring win 7 machine lasted a long time that way.

[spiffo]

Ok I’m going to be a slight dissenting voice here. I had a MOTU MIDI Express XT had no end of issues with it constantly disappearing then reappearing in Win10. That’s when I noticed that the Windows drivers hadn’t been updated since 2013, really, nothing has changed or needed to be improved for 8 years?
I ditched it and went with the Mio iConnectivity stuff, a much more solid dependable solution, imho

[gmp]

I have an AVB Ultralite.  In 2015 got it , a new computer, running Win 8, which was new for me going from Win 7. it took me about a year before I had a stable system. I ended up sending the first one back after almost a year. They were very good about sending another one even though I was a little over a year. A power surge took out the LAN. MOTU is more Mac centered, but they finally got it together and it's been super, no issues for 5 years. The mixer and routing are complex and confusing, but extremely powerful

[Alan Tubbs]

Thanks all.  
 

Always good to hear dissent, esp. when it has a happy ending.  Being Mac centric always shied me off before, tho motu seemed to offer bang for bucks.  I always tried to up the quality rather than quality, but the mk5 seems to have nice clean ins and outs and I have enough external hardware to stamp a transfer coupled sound going in.

[Triangleman]

I ran a MOTU 828 firewire for a lot of years and it slowly died and I replaced with an ultralite mk4.  I feel both were good choices and good long term value.  And when windows 11 finally pushes me over the edge I know I can just plug the mk4 into a mac mini with Logic and keep on going.

[bitflipper]

When my MOTU 828 abruptly died, it caught me off guard with no money for a replacement. I went with Focusrite, just because it was cheaper than another MOTU would have been (and way cheaper than what I really wanted, an RME). Fortunately, despite making my choice based on cost alone, I lucked out. The Focusrite has turned out to be an excellent interface. It has all the features of the Ultralite and then some (e.g. 2 headphone outs, 2 front-panel mic inputs). I still think the Ultralite is a good choice, though.

[John Vere]

My story for what it's worth is I was actually happily using my Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 1st Gen. But the driver was getting old and I had GAS. I was just going to purchase a 6i6 3rd Gen. but they discontinued it. The 8i6 is the closest replacement but now we are looking at $450 Can.  

So I compared all interfaces with the features I wanted and decided to go with the M4 even though it had 2 things missing, no power supply and no SPDIF. I rarely use SPDIF anymore and can always dust off the 6i6 or my Tascam if needed. The buss power was an issue in the end.  

I thought I'd repurpose the 6i6 using it for my office compute. Lo and behold when installing the driver I notice it's an update!  

Anyway I almost sent the Motu M4 back to exchange for the 8i6 as it was defiantly performing terrible compared to the 6i6. I had to raise my buffers more than double to stop the stuttering and static??  So much for Motu having the best drivers myth. I contacted support and I was told that this was due to me using a shared USB hub?? The solution was to purchase and install a dedicated USB 3 PCIe card. That was $35 now added to the cost of the interface. It seemed to fix the issue but I will never purchase any buss powered interface again. They are just cheaping out if they don't at least give you the option of a power supply.  

But I will probably return to a Focusrite next time around but by then things could change. 

That is why I made a sort video on the subject.

https://youtu.be/ZWuzhOUM9IQ

 

[Bill Phillips]

On 8/29/2021 at 1:14 PM, bitflipper said:

When my MOTU 828 abruptly died, it caught me off guard with no money for a replacement. I went with Focusrite, just because it was cheaper than another MOTU would have been (and way cheaper than what I really wanted, an RME). Fortunately, despite making my choice based on cost alone, I lucked out. The Focusrite has turned out to be an excellent interface. It has all the features of the Ultralite and then some (e.g. 2 headphone outs, 2 front-panel mic inputs). I still think the Ultralite is a good choice, though.

I have both and still prefer CueMix to Mix Control.

On 8/28/2021 at 10:50 AM, bitflipper said:

I think you've made a safe choice. We've never done a proper poll on what interfaces people are using, but based on years of forum discussions the Ultralight appears to be one of the most popular models in use. I was a happy MOTU user for many years, until the unit died. Be aware, though, that the company is very Mac-centric and appears to have like maybe one guy working there who's conversant in Windows drivers.

+1

I have the 8228 mkII. The last driver update was in 2015. They've had several Mac driver updates for the same interface in 2021.

[Alan Tubbs]

Good stuff, all.  There seems to be shortages of the mk5 what with chips production down.  It might be a while.   I was hoping for. A Labor Day sale.

thanks

@

[John Vere]

Man. We really need to bring manufacturing back home. I tried to by a frigging stove and there’s none to be had. Guess why. Meanwhile there are empty factories in Canada and the US that not long ago made these things. Oops better not break the rules here.  

[bitflipper]

Fear not, Cactus, North America still dominates in stomp boxes, guitar strings and toilet seats.

[Alan Tubbs]

Motu is completely out of the mk 5.  I’ll get a review unit as soon as any new units are available so I can see if there is any fuss to get excited about.  I’ll update here tho motu said it would be at least a couple of weeks before they get any.