Any of you guys well versed in MOTU stuff?

Jeff_D

Jeff_D

New member
I've been half-heatedly shopping for a new interface for a while now. I currently use two MAudio Delta 1010lt cards in a pc w/ 64bit Win7. While I know there are higher quality interfaces on the market, for the price these have been really good for the past 8 or 9 years now. However, when I upgraded to Windows 7, I started to have issues with them syncing together- issues I never had the entire time I used them in XP. I had to get a cable to link the two together, which I never needed before. And still now, I'll have an occasional issue where one card (the "slave") will start to distort and crackle and the only solution I've found is to restart the PC... at best, thats a hassle... at worst, its a real buzzkill especially if I'm recording someone else's band and I have to tell them that the excellent take they just did would have to be redone while my PC restarts... especially when one of the guys in that band is a Mac guy.

Anyway, I haven't spent a lot of time trying to solve that because a) I don't use my studio *that* often* b) it doesn't screw up that often- maybe once in a day-long session and c) I knew I'd be shopping for an upgrade at some point anyway.

SO. For the past couple years, I've been daydreaming about a MOTU 24io. I already have 16 channels worth of worthy micpres- 8 channels in a Presonus D8 and 8 channels in a Soundcraft M8 board. At $1400+ its a bit of a stretch for me, considering I make very little $ from my studio and considering that's a $1000 upgrade from the $400 worth of soundcard I have now.

I was cruising ebay last night and came across something I didn't even know existed- the 24i. It has 24 inputs and only 2 outputs, which would be totally fine since I mix everything in the box. And at $200 to $400 for one, it seems very affordable. Of course, I understand that I'd need the host card to plug it into and that's where things seem to get hairy. From what I can tell, the pci324s only work in older 32 bit computers and there's something about the PCI bus voltage that I didn't understand. So, then there looks to be 2 or 3 different versions of the PCI424 host card with varying compatibility issues. But, the wierd thing to me is, that it doesn't seem like you can buy just the host card from like musiciansfriend or sweetwater. Then, the other question is, will all of the different rack units work with all the different host cards?

Anyway, if that doesn't pan out, I'll probably look into the MOTU 828mk3 hybrid. MOTU 828mk3 Hybrid | Sweetwater.com I can put the 8 1/4" outs from my m8 mixer into the 1/4" inputs and run the D8 in through the adat input.

Any thoughts? I'm open to other brands. BUT, I really want to keep using my Soundcarft M8 because aside from having nice pre's it also doubles as the mixer for the pa (my studio is also my band practice space). So, I really don't need an interface that has a bunch of preamps built in.

Merry Christmas.
 
Jeff_D said:
I was cruising ebay last night and came across something I didn't even know existed- the 24i. It has 24 inputs and only 2 outputs, which would be totally fine since I mix everything in the box.
Click to expand...

Give MOTU a call. That's a fairly old interface, and it isn't on the compatibility list for the 424 card (though I *think* it will work). The 324 is an ancient 5v PCI card that is incompatible with any PC or motherboard built in the last decade. So unless you have a very old computer (last century Windows box running Windows 98 or *maybe* XP), you'll have to get a 424-based card.

You can buy the host card upgrade from MOTU. The only two host cards MOTU still sells are the PCIX-424 and the PCIe-424. I would not recommend buying any of the older cards, as older cards are much less compatible with current hardware.

More to the point, I'd suggest restricting yourself to the PCIe-424 if at all possible. In the long run, any computers that still have slots will have PCIe exclusively—parallel PCI is fading fast—so if your computer has no free PCIe slots, I'd suggest buying the PCIe-424 along with a newer motherboard. :)

Also, be sure that the original owner transfers ownership to you through MOTU. Otherwise, AFAIK, you cannot purchase upgrade cards from them. Would be worth clarifying that with MOTU.

Hope that helps.
 
Yeah, that totally helps. I read in my searching about the 5v and 3v PCI slots. I've been building PCs for 10 years now and never knew there was a difference, lol. Buying from ebay (which I pretty much Never do), I don't know how much luck I'd have in getting ownership transferred. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of a USB or Firewire device. It'd be nice to take it out with a laptop for live recording.
Do you have any thoughts on the host-card -route versus a generic firewire connection like the 828mk3? Does the host card provide a more stable or robust connection than firewire or usb?
THANKS again!
 
Hi Jeff.

I just wandered, is your sole reason for upgrading the glitches etc?

If it is, I'd totally just recommended getting a second hard drive and dual booting XP for your recording.

Dual booting is recommended anyway for a number of reasons,
like if your os craps itself, you just boot the other one and worry about it later, and it separates work from play.
You could have a streamline xp with nothing on it but your daw and samples and then keep win7 for all your other stuff.

Maybe that's not what you were looking for though.

If your set on an upgrade, idk if I'd recommend pci. It seems like the kinda thing they'd drop support on, if they haven't already.

You mentioned the 828 mk3. Take a look at the mk2. It's a heck of a lot cheaper and I can see any deal breaking differences. (I have the mk2)

With regard to transfer of owner ship, just ask before you buy.
If the seller agrees to transfer it, tell him/her to write that in the listing, then your covered.
This is no trouble to do, and any half decent seller will oblige.


If for some reason they fail to come through, you have solid grounds for a refund, although that's unlikely to happen if they agree.
 
The glitcheeness of the 1010lts in Win7 is a big reason for wanting to upgrade. But, stepping up to (presumably) better sounding converters would be a big plus too. Going back to XP is a totally do-able thing I think. The reason I upgraded to Win7 was because I wanted a 64bit os to go with my new 64bit processor... but I only ended up putting in 4gb of ram, which XP can handle most of that. I don't need to dual boot though- this is a dedicated recording machine and I'm pretty well versed in the safe operation, upkeep and maintenance of windows machines (aside from the fact that I didn't know there was a 5v pci slot lol). My last dedicated recording PC was connected to the internet 24/7 for 6 years in my band practice room/studio without a single issue. This current machine would be too, but everytime it goes to sleep, when it wakes up the network adapter won't come back online (another annoying issue).

Anyway, I checked out the MK2- the biggest difference I can see is only a single ADAT input... that kind of is a problem, at least it could be in the future. The plan would be to connect the direct line outputs from the Soundcraft board to the 8 1/4" inputs on the 828. Then I'd connect the ADAT optical lightpipe thing from my Presonus D8 to the 828 to get my other 8 channels. The best this could do then would be 44khZ... which is ok, because that matches the limtations of the D8. BUT, I may want to replace the D8 at some point to get true 96k. I really don't even know what the sound difference would be because now I'm not using that at all. I'm using the analog outputs on the D8 to feed one of the 1010 cards.

So, since you have the 828, have you had any troubles with the firewire stuff? Any issues connecting or staying connected? This would be my first firewire device.
 
Honestly, i think the only difference you'd see at 96k is the amount of hdd space you'll be using.

Having said that, the 828mk2 is capable. All digital IO are 96k capable according to MOTU.

You're right about the channel count though. The mk3 has 16 channels of adat.

What's the max IO you expect to be shooting for?


I don't have any problems with the 828, or any previous firewire devices. (I've had a good few)

It doesn't like being turned off then on again immediately, but who does that?lol.
 
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I use damn near all 16 channels when I record now...
1. Drum Overhead left
2. Drum Overhead right
3. snare
4. Kick
5. Tom High
6. Tom Mid
7. Tom Low
8. Snare Trigger
9. Guitar one
10 Guitar two
11. bass
12. Vocal
13. Vocal
14. Vocal

So, 14 tracks if we do a live take. If I'm recording for real- just drums and one guitar scratch track its more like 9 tracks. I think the MK2 with one ADAT in means I can get either 8 channels in @ 44k or 4 channels in @ 96k.
I'll probably shop til I find a good price. I'm actually most of the way through an album with this band right now, so I probably won't pull the trigger on a new interface til we're ready to start the next one in a couple months.

Good to hear some positive feedback on the firewire interfaces.

THANKS again!
 
Hey, one more question. What about the onboard effects processor? Can you use those effects in a session? I mean, I'd never track with effects on; I always track dry and add effects in Reaper. So, do the effects from the MOTU show up in the effects list in your recording software? It would be nice to take some of the that burden off of the computer cpu.
THANKS!
 
You'd need to check for sure, but I always figured they were real time, like onboard effects in a mixer.

Personally, i just write stuff like that off cos I know I'm never ever gonna track with a reverb/compressor/eq etc.


Apparently "Input signals to the computer can be recorded wet, dry, or dry with a wet monitor mix (for musicians during recording, for example)."
 
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