MOTU 24i/o 24-bit/96 kHz pciE converter

[bacchus40]

thanks for the continued responses... i'll have a look through those test results gEtz76

you're dead on the money as far as folks being gear-whores... hhaha... thats what i'm trying to avoid by doing research early...

for the most part, my OMni HD will be plenty, as mentioned i'm rather comfortable with a solid work ethic and over-dubbing.... all i need in the 1st pass is drums and bass... typically 6 drum tracks n' 2 bass {one D.I. so i can toss it through my 11R at mix time}... everything else gets done one very juicy track at a time... different mics n' such are always a good thing but with guitars n' such, all i need is 2 tracks at a time, again... 11R is an invaluable tool in the studio..

therefore... an I/o with more than 12 tracks is only useful to me when i absolutely need to get a full band all in one go and even then... i try to make sure everything is isolated properly as most musicians will find they still wanna over-dub a diff. take when mixing begins.. i can do better, always seems to happen... heheh...

lucky for me my mix location is low over-head so i have no issues with this at all.. i prefer it actually..

as far as firewire vs pciE... latency is the big killer... specially if i'm running 16 tracks A/D on one go... best believe the talent will want effects on their mix.. and everybody likes something different.. i completely understand that... i've tried the whole firewire thing and i never had luck with it... always something... some-one is always unhappy... so yeh for me at least... it needs to be super low latency and the mixing engine needs to take the load off my CPU...

i do not mind having to switch units on projects.. honestly i doubt it will be a need all that often... from what i keep hearing, and this is across the board.. i will have no issues with the conversion quality of my HD OMNI,...

as always.. plenty of research still... thanks for the continued support...


yes Tom i can see what you mean by the HDX system... its def. in my sights.. which is exactly why i dont wanna blow a tonne of dough on interfaces
I may not even need in my particular setup... it would be great to have DSP mixing on hand... as I mix ITB

[bacchus40]

Originally Posted by getz76

And actually doing loopback tests, LIKE THIS ONE, are pretty revealing. Maybe not 100% accurate, but they do provide a relative ranking.
.

had a quick look through those tests.. very revealing yes...

it appears even the older Motu units were rather impressive in their conversion capabilities.. which is very promising indeed...

i agree with you as well in regards to transparency... this is what i look for as well.. though a nice warm, musical sounding unit is always great for tracking, specially with my work-flow... again... as long as both units are up to the task... im' sure the tests are on the money... cant see anybody being able to distinguish a difference, specially after we toss in all the effects and analog emulators n' such.. i'm even getting into summing buss mixing... at the end of the day.. all i need to be sure of is that what's sittin' in front of the mic is well represented once its ITB....

[getz76]

Originally Posted by bacchus40

as far as firewire vs pciE... latency is the big killer... specially if i'm running 16 tracks A/D on one go... best believe the talent will want effects on their mix.. and everybody likes something different.. i completely understand that... i've tried the whole firewire thing and i never had luck with it... always something... some-one is always unhappy... so yeh for me at least... it needs to be super low latency and the mixing engine needs to take the load off my CPU...

That's completely false. Plug-in latency with TDM is higher than native. Always. Full-stop. I don't know about HDX-DSP, but with TDM, every plug-in has at least 1 sample of latency. Compared to native, they are always +1 sample.

If you are talking about choking the crap out of your system for processing power, well, if you have a proper host system and a good DAW, it should be a non-issue. I run plenty of plug-ins while tracking in Logic without a problem, even on a MacBook Pro at 24-bit/96kHz with a 64-sample buffer. Pro Tools native is not ideal for this, but if you have a Mac, Logic is $199 and the tracks are going to sound the same regardless. The same 1's and 0's abound. Consolidate and import.

Hopefully if there is a new release of Pro Tools, it will address some of these issues. I'm not implying that DSP is unnecessary, but for most music production native should be fine; most other DAWs have illustrated this.

Now, there are plenty of FireWire units with DSP for monitoring with near-zero latency (see Metric Halo, RME, MOTU, etc). Dynamics, reverb, EQ. What else does the average person need for tracking? The best PCIe units have lower latency than the best FireWire units, but that doesn't mean the better FireWire units are not adequate. Even with software monitoring, you are talking about +/- 2ms. Avid's marketing comparison chart is dated, there are plenty of FireWire interfaces getting under 4ms roundtrip at 96kHz.

Personally, for guitar, I tend to take a DI in addition to a mic'd amp, or I take a DI and I put the person through a POD or SansAmp GT-2. Re-amp later.

[bacchus40]

yeah i guess the mac i was working on at the time was just damn slow.. it was a while ago as well.. and it wasnt my gear i was working with...

i did not know TDM had such bad plug in latency... hmm... hope HDX-DsP is better at this then!! thank you for the info..!!

i personally dont foresee any latency issues with my i7 quad-core, much less the hex core which will replace it soon enough.. so yeah i'm not really worried.. for me HD10 is a necessity, mostly for its voice count & post pro. capabilities... just so happens it comes with a PCIe card which is what I was after in the 1st place so im hoping none of this will be an issue... i have seen enough posts which prove latency is not an issue on newer systems.. i hadn't even seen that comparison chart actually... but yeah its a marketting scheme as always... who can blame them really..


as far as firewire units, yes i was hoping someone would chime in on that as i have seen more and more of them pop up with DSP onboard for near-zero latency monitoring... which is a definate bonus..!

yup.. thats usually my method for guitars as well.. i like to do a mix of both DI and mics as well... i just got my 11R so i'm gonna be looking for every excuse under the sun to abuse the crap out of it!! hahahah...

i'm not into LOGIC anymore... my buddy runs it.. seems okay.. i still cant stand the interface for audio... midi is obviously another story...

[getz76]

Originally Posted by bacchus40

i did not know TDM had such bad plug in latency... hmm... hope HDX-DsP is better at this then!! thank you for the info..!!

TDM does not have bad latency; the point is that there is no real difference in latency for plug-in usage between TDM and native. 1 sample is immaterial.

Last decade, the issue was the power of native host systems ability to run plug-ins at low-buffer settings. You know, that Moore's Law is pretty amazing. Think about it; TDM was 2001 or so, right? Back then, we were using Pentium III processors in PCs and PowerPC G4s in Macs.

GeekBench is not a fully valid depiction of host capability, but it does show magnitude.

Pentium III system scores are about 500. A modern MacPro? Nearly 23,000. That's a HUGE difference. Most of the problem with native use in Pro Tools is Pro Tools itself. Hopefully there is another Pro Tools release and hopefully it addresses those issues.

[WombatStudio.Org]

Again bacchus40, I hope this isn't too off topic for this thread.

Originally Posted by getz76

What's currently wrong with your FireWire setup?
PCIe has the potential for lower latency versus FireWire in theory.
What do you expect to be "better"? Latency? Roundtrip latency is lower on PCIe, all things equal.
If you a registered owner of the 24 I/O, MOTU will do a swap for the PCI card to PCIe for a charge. Check out their website.

It's not the FW setup that's "wrong" it's tracking in Pro Tools with a FW device. Namely, punching in. I've used MuteTone but that started crashing upon removal (with 10.1.2 I think) and separating rec/play faders doesn't work.

I was hoping the PCI card being physically in the computer would help so that I didn't have to worry about latency during tracking anymore. I can run my computer with the H/W buffer at 128 or 64 but there's still Elvis going on and I assume that's the FW latency cause 64 samples should be fine, yes?

I also would benefit from the additional inputs and outputs the 24io brings. I'm running Mac but I already know that I can't aggregate them (FW and PCI). Currently, 12 drum channels + click leaves me with 3 channels for scratch guitar, bass and vocals. I can easily have 2 guitars, keys, etc. so the extra 8 inputs would come in handy. 24 outs makes the 16ch monitoring systems appealing. Currently I have 6 aux (only using 4) + LR so I'm using Furman HDS-6.

I'm a registered MOTU user (DP7 as well) ... I will check into it ... Thanks so much!

[getz76]

Originally Posted by WombatStudio.Org

It's not the FW setup that's "wrong" it's tracking in Pro Tools with a FW device. Namely, punching in. I've used MuteTone but that started crashing upon removal (with 10.1.2 I think) and separating rec/play faders doesn't work.

Punching in on Pro Tools native is awful.

Something like Logic makes life a lot easier; proper input monitoring without workarounds, the fact that plug-in performance is much better, and if you do get to the point where you are choking the system with plug-in processing you can freeze tracks. I'm not telling you to move to Logic, but Pro Tools native really needs improvement.

I think Pro Tools is the real problem, not your interface.

By the way, the upgrade to the PCIe card is $295.

[bacchus40]

ahhh,.. okay thats what i figured.. i thought i was reading it wrong...

i see what you mean.. yeh i only ran TDM back in 2002 while i was in
school and we actually tracked to ADAT .. all was done
on a big arse console, patch bay n' outboard effects... the whole nine yards..

TDM was something we transferred into via 888s if i'm not mistaken... so i did a couple
mixes on that system.. but we didnt do any tracking on it per se..

over the following years i had opportunity to work with a couple different projects but we ran via firewire, latency was always a pain in the arse... of course the macs used
in these projects were not the monsters we have today, or even the past 2-3 years so yes my experience is a bit outdated obviously..

no worries on the derail Wombat, thats the purpose of these threads.. to compile as much usefull info in one thread so we can all keep learning and moving right along..

i am dealing with a pretty good sized learning curve myself this time around... but the system i'm working with now is custom built, and built to last, at least i've got that going for me...

all i know is i've been around long enough to know the more you take off the cpu's load the better off you are.. i'm def. not shy in the plug-in department when it comes to tracking
so i'm just trying to make sure everything is nicely balanced.. as i mentioned before.. HD/NATIVE is ground zero for me...

logic's freeze track option sounds pretty damn sweet... though i'm not about to fork over a couple hundred bucks for that function alone... lol... so yeah i get your point..

either way, from what i'm reading.. latency and plug ins will not be much of an issue with these new systems so i'm gonna keep on keepin' on until something gives..

I can understand Tom's love of HDX running the MOTU 24 1/0 though.. best of both worlds really... with a proper time piece keeping the old Unicorn ticking along smoothly i can see it being a great experience.. lets hope the gods are with me n' i'll be able to boast the same capabilities before long..

though i think i'll wait till PT11 comes out for that little upgrade... hehhe.. hD/native should hold its value locally so i'm not worried on that regard... whos to say the deals may be game changers next year... knock on wood...