Motu Ultralite/RME/Firewire PC woe

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 10:36 pm

I recently bougth a Motu Ultralite Audio interface and it doesn't work properly.
If i lower the samples per buffer to anything below 1024 samples the unit will soon start distorting or bitcrushing the audio really badly.

I just changed the unit to a new one but I have the same problem. In the store we tested the UL with a Mac and it was able to run flawlessly at 32 samples per buffer!
I have experienced the problem on my old PC with XP and also on my brand new 2 GHz Core 2 Duo laptop running vista. I have upgraded the UL firmware to 1.15 ie. most recent and also the new Motu vista firewire drivers.

We're thinking it's a PC firewire problem...

Can any of you UL users on PC use the UL at lowest samples setting without getting this distortion of the sound? Or put simple: Does your UL work?

I hope it can be solved or i will have to find another card.

nihad · Post by **nihad** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 11:30 pm

could be a vista thing .. i run it on xp with 256 samples i think and it runs nicely ..

Verbal · Post by **Verbal** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 11:31 pm

I've seen a couple threads about people having issues with the Ultralite in Vista.

nihad · Post by **nihad** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 11:34 pm

also don't forget to do a clean install or remove all the bloat ware manually. also, turn off processes that are not essential for your use ..

keithkemp · Post by **keithkemp** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 2:48 am

i believe i had the same problem...a little disconcerting at first though, so don't freak out!!
this is vaguely discussed in the manual-you need to have a firewire card with TI chipset.....
so, don't waste your time going to Microcenter or best buy..
this was a $40 pci-slot card that i ordered online...
the manual has a small list of manufacturers that are easily found with a google search..
hope this helps.

hacktheplanet · Post by **hacktheplanet** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 6:44 am

keithkemp wrote:i believe i had the same problem...a little disconcerting at first though, so don't freak out!!
this is vaguely discussed in the manual-you need to have a firewire card with TI chipset.....
so, don't waste your time going to Microcenter or best buy..
this was a $40 pci-slot card that i ordered online...
the manual has a small list of manufacturers that are easily found with a google search..
hope this helps.

TI Chipset is VERY important. I went through 3 different cards before finding this out. I do have an extra PCI Firewire card with a TI Chipset if you want it. $10 plus shipping from Chicago! I'm using an identical card in my machine right now, and it works perfectly.

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 6:31 pm

Soarer wrote: I have experienced the problem on my old PC with XP and also...

So it's not a Vista only problem.

I have a Texas Instruments Firewire chipset in my laptop. I can see it under hardware I-don't-know-the-name-in-English.
It says "Texas Instruments OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394-Host Controller"

Nihad it's good to hear that you run it nicely at 256 samples.

If i had to buy extra hardware in order to use the UL I would surely find another AI.

I'm going to my music store again tomorrow to see if I can solve this
with their support.
I'm pretty offline at the moment but I'll check here again tomorrow.

Thanks for your replies.

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:41 pm

Damn... I've returned the ultralite.
The support guy from in the shop where i bought it said that 4-pin firewire does not work properly with these cards. I dunno, I used it with a 6-pin on my Old PC with XP so that doesn't make sense but I canot make it work so I returned it.
There's no PCMCIA slot in my laptop but theres a PC Express card. I don't know if I can get a card that would work

Now the only option is the MOTU 828Mkll USB 2 Audio Interface I think but it is very big and not so portable. Anyone got this card?

Damn, I start considering going Mac! But I cannot afford it

mikemc · Post by **mikemc** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 10:15 pm

Soarer wrote:Damn... I've returned the ultralite.
The support guy from in the shop where i bought it said that 4-pin firewire does not work properly with these cards. I dunno, I used it with a 6-pin on my Old PC with XP so that doesn't make sense but I canot make it work so I returned it.
There's no PCMCIA slot in my laptop but theres a PC Express card. I don't know if I can get a card that would work

Now the only option is the MOTU 828Mkll USB 2 Audio Interface I think but it is very big and not so portable. Anyone got this card?

Damn, I start considering going Mac! But I cannot afford it

this sucks, "4-pin firewire does not work properly" is not true... I wish I had seen your post eariler. I had similar problems with my Ultralite when I first got it, upgraded software and also applied a patch to the OS from microsoft for firewire support, blogged this:

http://utenzil.blogspot.com/2006/06/ute ... alite.html

Are you sure you applied the updates by pushing the buttons the way you need to?

In addition, I have found there can be 'oddities' that get introduced when you try to adjust some interface buffers, etc, from within live: you get the behavior you are talking about. If you've done this and you get crackles, deactivate the interface from within live, adjust the buffer size with the tool that comes with the interface outside of Live, re-start Live. It will pick up the settings from your "external" adjustments when you re-activate the card. I don't know why this works, but it can eliminate crackles.

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 5:48 pm

Got rid of the Ultralite -I changed it to the awesome RME Fireface 400.
Very nice indeed! I really like the fireface a lot. I still have a problem with crackles and pops when going lower than 512 or 256 samples and 50% CPU usage but I have ordered a Pc express card for my laptop that will give me 2 firewire ports so I hope that will take care of the rest and it will make the Ff buspowered. I get less noise from the preamps than the motu and its no problem to update the RME firmware.

Great Card!

warpian · Post by **warpian** » Fri Apr 20, 2007 6:47 pm

Nice upgrade

Please keep us updated if you solve those aforementioned problems!

(1st post...

)

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 9:44 pm

-sigh... i got the Belkin firewire PC express card and i doesn't make any difference at all! I had expected the PC card to be able to bus power the Fireface 400 but it doesn't

Does it make sense to make a pc express card with 6-pin firewire (instead of 4 pin since the last 2 pins are for pus power) when it does not pus power the card???

Still I have to use this top quality expensive card with 512 samples.
And RME says it may run at 64 samples...

I am trying to solve this with RME but I don't expect much anymore.

Is it my Laptop? I've reported these issues to my laptop support as well so we'll see.

PC sucks bigtime in this field for sure. Wish I could afford a Mac.

synnack · Post by **synnack** » Thu Apr 26, 2007 10:31 pm

Until recently i would have blamed vista but...

http://www.motu.com/newsitems/vista-drivers-shipping

I suspect it's more of a firewire compatibility issue. A friend of mine had nothing but problems with the firewire builtin to his HP laptop and as soon as he bought the right firewire PCMCIA card everything ran smooth as can be.

http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technot ... %20chipset

I suspect your laptop's chipset is based on NEC?

Soarer · Post by **Soarer** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:26 am

NEC? no it's a
Texas Instruments Firewire chipset.

jacob_ma · Post by **jacob_ma** » Fri Apr 27, 2007 8:52 am

Soarer wrote:NEC? no it's a
Texas Instruments Firewire chipset.

Mate, there is a big difference between "Texas Instruments Compatible" and Ti.

Also, some laptops share devices with other Bus Devices, is it on the PCI bus, it could be shared with a stupid USB Camera device for example. Make sure you disable everything you can in device manager, everything but your audio card!!!

There are many, many, variables at play here!!!

There is a PCI tool available which can tell you the PCI latency for all devices on your PCI bus, which I assume your Express card is...If you have a Fancy Graphics card in your Laptop chances are its Hoggin' all the PCI latency which could definately be source of such issues.

I've never heard of a Firewire Card go as low as you suggest. PCI Audio cards get much lower latency.

Motu Ultralite/RME/Firewire PC woe

Motu Ultralite/RME/Firewire PC woe

Re: Attention Motu Ultralite (PC) users please help