I am getting a constant crackling from my MOTU ultralite under the following conditions:

First, I should not that I don't get the crackling at all when using an HP laptop with an Intel chipset that's about 18 months old. I've recently purchased a Gateway with an AMD Turion64 x2 and something that says in the device manager "TI compliant" firewire device.

When I connect the ultralite to the computer, there is no crackling. However, as soon as Sonar PE5 is (5.2) is started, there is a constant crackling (heard through the main mix and shown on all the ultralite meters), even with the trim completely down on all. The crackling breaks up the sound coming in from monitoring point of view. I haven't tried recording and playing back yet.

I'm thinking I need to try (a) a new firewire cable and/or (b) a PC card firewire interface with TI adapter. Other thoughts?

I should mention, having read through the forum, that unlike an earlier post, I'm getting this crackling regardless of whether I'm daisy chaining a firewire drive off the ultralite.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Perry

I think your right.. I would check the MOTU website and see if they recommend a specific PCI firewire card.. For example Presonus interfaces recommend a card with a VIA chip on it.. Also testing a different cable would be a good idea also..

All of the MOTU FW interfaces that I've seen suggest TI chipsets, and sometimes NEC.
In my experience, they are particularly picky compared to some other FW interfaces I've used (like Presonus), and even getting a TI card isn't a silver bullet, but it generally at least helps.

With my 828 Mk1, going to TI helped the interface performance, but didn't remove the frequent 828 reboots due to it just disappearing.
Others have reported that getting a TI chip totally fixed their MOTU issues.

So, it's worth a try, and they're not incredibly expensive, particularly with a board like the Ultralite.
Of course, it could be other things, like IRQ settings on the board in question, buffer settings to CPU power ratio, etc.

Here follows opinion:
MOTU driver developers prefer Mac. Of the two I've been around (Ultralite and 828Mk1, particularly the 828), their Windows drivers are flaky to say the least, and on 4 Windows systems over 4 years (for the 828)... both have been completely stable on the Macs they've been used on.

Here follows a rather extreme opinion:
I'm done with them, and won't buy another after the 828 dies or I get sick of turning it on or off for the drivers to pick it up (getting close to this one). In the 4 years I've used the 828, it's been the least reliable interface I've ever used, and their driver development for Windows has been laughable.
I know MANY others, however, who've had NO issues with them, and swear by their quality.

Here follows a little word of advice:
Keep copies of EVERY new driver you try with it, even over years. I frequently had to roll back to a less-flaky driver release when a current one was junk.

I'm really not sure what's up with MOTU, but I suspect that to some degree they test their drivers primarily on their extreme upper end and/or their newest hardware.

Take care,
- zevo

I am getting a constant crackling from my MOTU ultralite under the following conditions:

Hate to ask the obvious, but how are you clocking? Whenever I get crackling noises, that's the first place I look.

OK, a follow up. First, new cable didn't help, but getting a SIIG dual port cardbus (NN-PCM222-S4, per the website, but it says NN-PCM222 on the box) seems to work perfectly. The SIIG doesn't say what its chipset is on the box, but the website says other of their products use TI). Now the bizarre thing: according to the Gateway website, the computer I've got has a TI product that does firewire, USB, and cardbus! Maybe it's the combo that makes the problem? Anyway, I'm just happy I'm working now. I'll report if something goes wrong.

Couple of follow ups to above: 1. Internal (to the ultralite) clocking solely. Not using SPDIF yet on this machine and not needing to get digital timing between devices up to snuff.
2. I've used Presonus and MOTU firewire devices for audio and have generally had good experiences. I wanted the MOTU because it fits into my carryon easier. It runs rock steady very fast on the HP (and silent--with great sound). I like the Presonus (FirePod) a lot too, but there's the occasional light flanging effect that I can only get rid of by turning off the sound engine--and then it goes away). Anywho, I wouldn't abandon MOTU, but I'm old enough to remember they started as a company selling a wordprocessing program for the newly released IBM PC.

Hate to ask the obvious, but how are you clocking? Whenever I get crackling noises, that's the first place I look.

mbgc,

I was just wondering if you can expand on this clocking thing?

Thanks,
Ron

do you have wireless internet enable on your computer? I had this cracklin problem with my MOTU traveler until I disable my wireless internet and the cracklin went away.

Forgot to mention that I disabled the wireless internet in at attempt to make the crackling go away. Now, with the SIIG card, I have no crackling even with wireless enabled. Can someone explain to me why the onboard TI adapter, which is a combined USB/Firewire/Cardbus adapter, seemed to cause the crackling but when I put in a cardbus card for firewire that obviously runs back through the onboard combo TI adapter the crackling is gone??

I'm not sure why the combo wouldn't work, but MOTU used to say NOT to use combo adapters.

Now, however, they say this (slight difference, but meaningful, particularly if your combo indeed uses a TI chipset onboard):
http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technotes/fw-chip-on-pci-and-pcmcia-cards/view?searchterm=firewire%20chipset

Who knows?
But it's fixed now, right?

Glad you like the Ultralite. My friend LOVES his... and the sound is excellent... better than my 828 (which is getting a little dated). He's using it with Logic Pro 7 (on his mac) & a Novation SL. It's an incredibly powerful setup, and very portable.

Take care,
- zevo

mbgc,

I was just wondering if you can expand on this clocking thing?

Thanks,
Ron

Sorry it took so long -
Whenever you are using multiple digital devices, you must set the sample rate to match throughout. One device (in this case, the MOTU) needs to be set to master, and everything else needs to be set to slave. Mismatched sample rates or incorrectly clocked devices always result in crackling noises...

Here's an excellent article - I'm at work and have to go..
word clock, etc.