Just a minor remark on the routing: that's one of the true strong points of the unit (next to the actual driver low latency performance) so take your time to understand it. May take a week or two to see all the options it opens. You might not even need to adjust your templates a whole lot apart from the audio inputs once you figured out YOUR best way of monitoring...

Is there a way to mute the main outs on the unit either hardware or software (besides turning the level all the way down)?  The situation I am trying to figure out is when recording from a mic, obviously I want the output coming through the phones and not the monitors which are connect to main outs.  What is everybody doing?
 
Also, I experienced a little bit of wonkiness last night.  I initally got no sound from iTunes.  I fiddled with the bit rate and the output setting in iTunes and it started working (required iTunes to be closed and reopened.)  However, when I went back to the old settings, it still worked, so I don't know what I did to fix this issue.
 
I also started recording from the guitar input yesterday.  There is a bit of wonkiness where I will get distortion at a certain sample rate but then it will go away after changing the sample rate up or down, or by even toggling the record arm or input echo buttons in Sonar.  Still haven't figured out what is going on there.  I am not getting quite as good latency as you two are, but I think that is because of my machine being a little long in the tooth.  I think I am still sub 10ms at 44.1 which is better than my M Box.
 
Anyhow, very happy with the MotU so far.  I need to get an angled rack stand to I can see the front panel better (or figure out how to raise it up) when I am standing up.

dwardzala
I need to get an angled rack stand to I can see the front panel better (or figure out how to raise it up) when I am standing up.

I do everything from the webUI, which I have open on the 2nd screen. Hardly ever change anything on the unit directly ...
 
 

dwardzala
Is there a way to mute the main outs on the unit either hardware or software (besides turning the level all the way down)?  The situation I am trying to figure out is when recording from a mic, obviously I want the output coming through the phones and not the monitors which are connect to main outs.  What is everybody doing?
 

The webUI is also your friend here ... there are mute buttons for every channel in the mixer page (in case you use the direct mixer which I recommend) ...
 
Anyway, your options are quite a few. Here's what I use, maybe some of it can help you figure out your setup ...

• I have all inputs in the MOTU routing grid labelled with what is physically plugged into it, which makes routing a lot easier (you can save/recall setups!)
• MOTU direct mixer is used for zero latency monitoring of virtually everything that does not need Sonar FX processing (hardware synth, digital piano, mic'd bass or guitar, drum kits, ...)
• Nevertheless I have DAW OUT 3+4, 5+6, 7+8 reserved for Sonar headphone mix buses (and permanently routed to different headphone plugs around the studio, but this can be changed quickly by save/recall of MOTU routing and mix, which I also recommend to learn/use) ... this is way I can quickly setup to record a singer with the reverb that I will later (probably) use in the mix ...
• Plus I can quickly combine both options ... e.g. zero latency for digi piano and dry vocals plus reverb tail from Sonar FX ...
• Aside from that I use a monitor controller for muting mains and talk back ... but that is not a must as virtually everything it does can be achieved by Sonar buses and MOTU routing.

 
 

I know its in the manual but how do you activate the direct mixer when using it as an AI?
 
I mainly want to see the meters on the LCD so I can better set levels.

It's always active, you just need to route your audio there i.e. you need to make the proper connection in the routing matrix - especially for the output (meaning you need to route the mixer out to your head phones and mains, not the DAW output)
 
What I usually do is route all physical input channels to DAW input channels and in parallel also to the MOTU mixer (so I only have to mute/unmute in the MOTU mixer for changing direct monitoring). I also route the main DAW output to the mixer so that I do not need to change the routing whether I monitor directly or via Sonar or hybrid.
 
BTW, I usually keep all mixer FX turned off (no need for it unless I use the Ultralite sometimes also for a standalone mini mixer)

sometime else ...
 
I tried to save new device presets yesterday on the Ultralite, but with the webUI connected via USB I always got an error message (Error 500???), while via LAN it worked fine !?!
 
Anyone else seen this? Is this a general problem that appeared with the latest firmware or related to what I tried to save??? I remember having seen this error once about a year ago, but cannot remember what caused it, back then it seemed like some setting that it did not like as I could eventually save the device preset ... which I could not do at all via USB yesterday!
 

I actually saved a preset over USB yesterday without issue.
 
Also, I figured out I need to use the Audio Interface & Mixer configuration.  Without doing that, the mixer screen shows a message that indicates them mixer is inactive.

There are some other threads about pops, maxed out meters, no sound, VST3 plugs, 64 bit engine etc, and some of these symptoms are what I see when I have my buffers set too low.
 
I've always blamed the MOTU drivers for this, since things work fine when I set the buffers right. Also with these newest drivers, I was having problems on some files when using buffers = 64, but I could change the MOTU buffers to 128, and it worked fine - then when I changed back down to 64, it continued working fine.
 
I've been working with MOTU support, and not much happening.
 
Now the breakthrough! I disabled the 64 bit engine in Preferences -> Driver settings - and voila!! All my files load fine at 64/48 and 64/16! I still can't use buffers = 32, but if I disable all plugins, it's fine. So I think this is a SONAR (with some VST3 plugins) problem after all. I think the bakers are on to it (according to the other threads) so in the meantime - I'm finished scratching my head.
 
I think I can finally say that these newest drivers are really good. ;-)

So it's the 64 bit sonar engine once again. I had issues that were eventually traced to the 64 bit engine just a month ago.

I'm not so sure that there is anything happening on the Sonar end as what regards the 64 bit engine problem. My problems were actually with the latest Cakewalk VST3 plugging LP EQ and LP MB so it would be all in their hands... but considering how many times this 64bit engine has been at the root of problem threads in recent years I cant remember reading about any fixes or improvements in all the monthly update docs...

IHMO many have meanwhile simply unchecked this to be on the save side

Yeah well, I missed that somehow ;-)

There are a few threads about pops and no sound, and CW said they suspect a problem with the VST3 plugins - so they might be on to it. We'll see...