opting for a new soundcard.

[Disco_Steve]

[quote="MichaelBenjamin"]just buying a good firewire card sound easier than it is. quote]

compleatly agree, I NEVER know which one is going to work!, it normally depends on the chip used inside the firewire sound card, and they normally dont tell you. and motu wont let you download the spec sheet without buying the thing!
Dan had his moto on his mac, he pluged it into my machine, (separate firewire card, again bought bassed upon internet trawl for good chipsets) and when he pluged it into my machine, it broke and never worked again!
dan managed to get it replaced, but the replacement broke on him about 3 months latter, so he got that replaced, and I cant remember how but he ended up with two!

[aliasant]

YEah. Windows caps firewire ports so that they work slower. Probably to be able to say USB 2 is faster which is a total bull.
There are some ways to change the default speeds but its no that easy.
For me who likes to be able to run it at 192kHz I need it to work and if it has to take tinkering, bying extra cards, reading forum thread after forum thread, reinstalling drivers and even the entire op system several times to get it to work something is seriously wrong.

Its funny thoug. On my Mac this Motu Traveler ran like a dream. Never a single hickup, restart, reinstall drivers or anything.
Perfect every day.

[infuzion]

just buying a good firewire card sound easier than it is.

I couldn't use the Firewire port for audio on my old laptop, so I bought a PCMCI card, which didn't work, & I couldn't get my Presonus to work on my desktop until the 2nd Firewire card. Presonus has a bad FW rep also, so I'm not sure if this is partly Presonus' fault. I will never use firewire again!

Man, so much bad news about the MOTU MK3... I bought one but haven't really used it yet. Sad thing is the salesman said MOTU was better than M-Audio for drivers!

[trogluddite]

I will never use firewire again!

Ditto. Got my Yamaha mLAN setup working well in the end, but it seems Yamaha and all of their supposed 'partners' gave up on mLAN simply because of the bad performance due to firewire issues. Even after dozens of driver updates, I still have a cyclic CPU peak every few seconds due solely to the soundcard drivers.
Had similar issues with two different camcorders too. I wonder why MB manufacturers even bother to put a FW port on their products, given how little attention they (and Microsoft) seem to have paid to compatability - there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the FW standard, its synchronous protocol ought in principle to be much more suited to AV work than USB.
I'd second the M-Audio/Roland recomendation, I know people with each of those running very low latencies with good reliability and CPU performance (using external pre-amps though, so I can't vouch for mic/guitar quality).

[aliasant]

I will never use firewire again!

Ditto. Got my Yamaha mLAN setup working well in the end, but it seems Yamaha and all of their supposed 'partners' gave up on mLAN simply because of the bad performance due to firewire issues. Even after dozens of driver updates, I still have a cyclic CPU peak every few seconds due solely to the soundcard drivers.
Had similar issues with two different camcorders too. I wonder why MB manufacturers even bother to put a FW port on their products, given how little attention they (and Microsoft) seem to have paid to compatability - there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the FW standard, its synchronous protocol ought in principle to be much more suited to AV work than USB.
I'd second the M-Audio/Roland recomendation, I know people with each of those running very low latencies with good reliability and CPU performance (using external pre-amps though, so I can't vouch for mic/guitar quality).

It is NOT firewire.
The problem is WIndows/Microsoft.

Firewire cards works excellent on Macs. Very fast and reliable.

[MegaHurtz]

These RME cards look pretty sweet
http://www.rme-audio.de/en_products_hdsp_9632.php

[attic]

I have had better luck since I switched to Windows 7 64bit and using reaper. I have used this Motu setup on 3 different machines with many different configs and alternate hardware it always fails in one way or another. I have not had one Bsod since the move to Windows 7 and new drivers from Motu but I will never recommend them to Windows users. Synthmakers exe. export doesn't work with it on my XP sp3 nor Windows 7 64. The sound quality is ok and it has a lot of inputs so that's good. I know how to trouble shoot as I have been computing since dinosaurs. C64, Amstrad, Amiga 500, Amiga 2000, Atari St, 386, Multiple Macs pre Osx, so on. I currently use Win 7 64, Ubuntu, Cloanto (virtual Amiga) and WinXp. I wonder what the safest card is for Synthmaker? What does Malc use?

[infuzion]

It is NOT firewire.
The problem is WIndows/Microsoft.
Firewire cards works excellent on Macs. Very fast and reliable.

Well, this highlights an advantage for Mac; due to a limit of what hardware (only from Apple) you can buy, there are far less compatibility issues to worry about. But crappy chips for FW does not help either.

Honestly, FW will be a moot point soon as USB3 &/or whatever new Ethernet standard takes off.

I have had better luck since I switched to Windows 7 64bit...I have not had one Bsod since the move to Windows 7 and new drivers from Motu but I will never recommend them to Windows users
...I know how to trouble shoot as I have been computing since dinosaurs. C64, Amstrad, Amiga 500, Amiga 2000, Atari St, 386, Multiple Macs pre Osx, so on. I currently use Win 7 64, Ubuntu, Cloanto (virtual Amiga) and WinXp. I wonder what the safest card is for Synthmaker? What does Malc use?

Ah, good, my production laptop is Win7-64!
I have you beat though; I used first a Radio Shack TRS-80, & my first computer was a Timex Sinclar with a whopping 4Kb expansion IIRC.

[infuzion]

Related: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4200902

[Tzarls]

You mean a Timex 1000? IIRC those had 2Kb onboard RAM and the expansion was 16Kb.

I still have my TRS-80.... I had my first "sampler" on that computer, a program written by a guy named Jeremy Spiller. Good days.

[trogluddite]

Timex 1000? IIRC those had 2Kb

Which in turn was a re-badged Sinclair ZX81 - we only got 1Kb in the UK!! The original ZX80 was even more basic - you had to build it yourself from a bag of components!!

[attic]

TRS-80 Timex Sinclar .... I'm just waiting for someone to say PET.
I guess everyone here remembers Bill Gates getting pie in the face and purple motion tracker files.

[infuzion]

You mean a Timex 1000? IIRC those had 2Kb onboard RAM and the expansion was 16Kb.

I guess technically "Timex Sinclair 1000".
PET computers were not around when I was young. They were being made, but unavailable in stores near me, & none of the schools & neighbors had one.
==
Back on topic:
What programs & VSTs were being used when the MOTU MK2/3 were being used please? There are a few programs & a good handful of VSTs, esp ones made with a certain app (cough cough,) that have memory leaks & overwrite issues. That would explain why Win7 & OSX is more stable also, since they both address memory issues better.

[aliasant]

You mean a Timex 1000? IIRC those had 2Kb onboard RAM and the expansion was 16Kb.

I guess technically "Timex Sinclair 1000".
PET computers were not around when I was young. They were being made, but unavailable in stores near me, & none of the schools & neighbors had one.
==
Back on topic:
What programs & VSTs were being used when the MOTU MK2/3 were being used please? There are a few programs & a good handful of VSTs, esp ones made with a certain app (cough cough,) that have memory leaks & overwrite issues. That would explain why Win7 & OSX is more stable also, since they both address memory issues better.

I dont know about mk2/3 since I have the MOTU Traveler mk2 but when I used Vista x64 I could only use max 96kHz. In XP I found a way to boost the firewire speed from the capped 100 to 400 ( it ran at 800 in OSX) so that I could use up to 192kHz and that was when I had XP sp2 running on my old mac. The same mac were the Traveler ran like a dream in OSX so heres nohing wrong with the firewire card itself ( Mac Pros internal firewire).

Now hat I ave this new ASUS/Intel i7 PC running W7x64 I can still only use up to 96kHz and its quite annoying. I can select 172 or 192 in my asio setting but theres no sound. MOTU has still not responded to my support ticket about that.

Sometimes after I booted my system I have to restart the MOTU a couple of times to get the soundcard activated..... weird. At least it works fairly good now compared to before but I bought this card because I wanted to be able to use 192kHz....

[Tzarls]

I still use my MOTU 2408MKii, and it works just fine with SM, my own stuff made in SM and a few other VSTis. Any particular VST you want to know about?