thinking about getting a MOTU 828mkII...

Ethan Holdtrue · Post by **Ethan Holdtrue** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:20 am

I was thinking of expanding onto my MOTU 896HD with a 828mkII (firewire not usb). I was wondering if any one had/has one and what they thought of it, or if they had something similar and liked it more.

Thanks :]

workshed · Post by **workshed** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:44 am

I just upgraded to an 828mkII. Prior to that I was running an 2408 mkI and had an 828 mkI that I ended up never using. So far I really dig the increased sample rates and bit rate. I haven't even begun to use Cuemix, but am excited to see what it can do. One thing I did discover is that I need to run it through my Mac's built-in firewire port and not the cheapo add-on PCI firewire card I have. I mistakenly plugged it into the PCI firewire card and was getting all kinds of horrible pops and clicks when recording just one track with a reverb plugin on it at 88.2khz. Now that I have fixed my errant setup it seems to be running much more solidly. I'll be curious to see how well it does recording multiple tracks at once. My 2408 did great at that, but it used the PCI324 card.

-Bret

Ethan Holdtrue · Post by **Ethan Holdtrue** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 1:57 pm

neat-o.

any one else out there? Or are you all to busy getting your stuff moded?

spankenstein · Post by **spankenstein** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:51 pm

Mine has been great so far. No major problems and it's just always worked. I really like using Cuemix as it gives me a lot of options for cue mixes (hah).

spankenstein · Post by **spankenstein** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:52 pm

Actually... I do have one problem. HAVE YOUR MONITORS/HEADPHONE AMPS OFF! When you power up or power down there is an EVIL clicking noise.

John Jeffers · Post by **John Jeffers** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:01 pm

Do you use Mac or PC? A fair number of PC users have sync problems when they try to use multiple MOTU firewire devices. It took me three days of tweaking software and replacing hardware to get my dual 896HD setup working. Others have not been so lucky. Go check out the "MOTU Hardware" forum at www.unicornation.com. But be warned, the site admin is a Mac user, and he's not particularly sympathetic to PC users.

If you're a Mac user, well then I guess you can disregard all this.

Ethan Holdtrue · Post by **Ethan Holdtrue** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:37 am

Yea I've been having problems with my standalone 896 HD, but I think since I switched over to the ASIO drivers they have gone away a bit.

Just wondering but what were your final settings to resolve your 896 HD issues?

ryanlikestorock · Post by **ryanlikestorock** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:51 am

I have it and like what it does for the money. For some reason, the whole panning balance is backwards... so, when I pan something hard right, I hear it hard left in the headphones. It's an easy thing to fix, but weird that it's a problem in the first place.

The sound isn't bad though. Pretty good for the price. I like the size of it too. It's easy to do mobile recording with it and a laptop.

John Jeffers · Post by **John Jeffers** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 9:52 am

Yea I've been having problems with my standalone 896 HD, but I think since I switched over to the ASIO drivers they have gone away a bit.

Just wondering but what were your final settings to resolve your 896 HD issues?

I never had any problems with one 896HD. It was only when I tried to add the second one that things went south. I've been using the ASIO drivers since day one.

My main problem was that I was running a PCI video card, and that along with the firewire card I had the 896HD's plugged into, was just too much bandwidth on the PCI bus apparently. When I switched to an AGP video card, the sync issues went away.

I also switched to a Belkin firewire card with a TI chipset. MOTU says on their support site that they prefer a Lucent or TI firewire chipset. I was using an Adaptec card with an Agere chipset.

Another thing that sucks is that Windows XP Service Pack 2 can cause problems, and MOTU recommends avoiding it. So right now, I'm using a totally basic, stripped-down Windows XP install, on Service Pack 1, and everything is working well. I've tried running all 16 tracks at 88.2, and I'm able to do this with no problems.

gregnrom · Post by **gregnrom** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:10 pm

I am completely happy with mine. It is the best bang for the buck.
I use it mostly for slaving Digital Performer to my 24-track.
The sound is o.k. Then again, I haven't tried running a whole session through it.

mingus2112 · Post by **mingus2112** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 4:39 pm

i have an 828 mkI and i love it. i even. . .uh. . .like the preamps (hides). . .

anyone know if they're the same preamps as the mkII?

RuudUnit · Post by **RuudUnit** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:05 am

The first one they sent was dead on arrival, but the second has functioned flawlessly on OS9 and OSX since the day I got it.

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thinking about getting a MOTU 828mkII...

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