Any one get M series Motu to work with Maschine Plus?

OhulahanBass · 2023-10-27T03:25:59+00:00

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I just tried the Motu out on M+, it's a good lil interface and wold have been great for it to be a companion interface to M+. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well. I have updated to the latest firmware on M6 but when using it with Maschine it makes a nasty Digital crunch randomly every minute or so.

Has anyone got a Motu to work with M+?

Any suggestions?

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Fugazi81

No unfortunately not, I have an Ultralite MK5 here and exactly the same problem. The digital distortion or better said that sounds to me more like a digital bit reduction, also happens there as soon as I connect the MK5 to the M +. It then sounds as if an LFO (sine) modulates the bit reduction. Totally unusable. I have an old Focusrite 18i6 here that runs without problem. The Motu I can unfortunately not use with M +.

imagevoice

M2 works perfectly. M4 and M6 maybe needs extra power?

OhulahanBass

It isn’t a power issue, I have the Motu plugged into its own power.

OhulahanBass

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103349#Comment_103349

Did you start a ticket with NI CS?

I just did this morning so hopefully I hear back. I have been loving Persons Quantum for years but was frustrated that I couldn't use for both my M+ and my DAW. I hoped Motu would give me the low latency but also play nice with M+ so I could leave all my instruments plugged into one interface shared between both systems. Hopefully NI can figure this out, I think it may have to do with not being able to choose clock source or anything from Maschine hardware.

Fugazi81

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103496#Comment_103496

Hi, no I didn't create a ticket because I had my Focusrite to fall back on. But I will create a ticket.

By the way, I also have a suspicion that this is related to the bitrate or sample rate. I hope they can solve this with an update. I bought the Ultralite MK5 specifically for the M+.

6xes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103720#Comment_103720

although im not using a Motu interface... its an odd thing, but i was going through a process of getting my audio4c interface to play nice across 2 computers simultaneously.... both a PC & M1 Mac Mini.. it turned out that making the bitrate identical(likewise samplerate) on PC & Mac & interface solved problems i was having,,

having identical Bitrate's across software & hardware is often overlooked

OhulahanBass

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103720#Comment_103720

Yeah the M6 was a bit of a trial, if the M6 works I was going to keep the M6 for travel podcast capture and get an ultralight or 828 for the studio.

OhulahanBass

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103723#Comment_103723

As far as I know, on the Motu and every other interface I have used (~10) the bitrates and depths are set on the Computer or device with CPU. Maschine does not give us this option, so I think that may underly the issue, perhaps the motu is defaulting to the wrong rate. That or, there is no master clock being properly communicated between the units, that is another setting that doesn't exist on the M+.

6xes

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103796#Comment_103796

If the maschine+ you are using has a fixed bitrate(unchangeable)... then i would look at making every other bitrate hinge around the fixed bitrate, and you can follow up on testing your hardware units albeit interface

6xes

looking at the specs of the maschine+

built in audio interface of 24-bit/96kHz

also would pay to have the same buffer sizes when following up with your testing

goodluck!

OhulahanBass

https://community.native-instruments.com/discussion/comment/103873#Comment_103873

I don’t think you understood the issue. M+ in standalone doesn’t let you set rate or buffer and also doesn’t even list what is. I assume 44.1k but have no clue what the buffer is set to. M+ in standalone will give a latency calculation but that calculation doesn’t change when switching audio interface to M6 so something fishy is a foot I believe.

You can change these values if you’re working in Maschine 2.0 using the M+ as an audio interface but in standalone you get what is set and not displayed. So, unfortunately, both M+ and M6 do not allow you to edit their sample rate or buffer or clock source while using M6 with M+ in standalone.

hopefully support can work something out.

CmdrCody

What's it going to take to get some basic audio interface tunables in the M+???

As a user of other stand-alone groove boxes which connect to a class compliant audio interface, the client connecting to the interface benefits greatly by being able to set their clock settings to properly sync with the audio interface. This is pretty common practice these days, and to rely on the interface itself to have these tunables is to make assumptions, which land us in situations like these: where the two devices cannot ever sync up, and bit-crushed-like distortion ensues.

On ANY audio interface I have used where I have the luxury of making it a slave to the USB client (or it simply does this by default), M+ seems to do great. If the poor audio interface doesn't have this ability, M+ doesn't give you the ability to hand off the master clock to the interface, even though it is no longer hosting the primary interface for you. You're stuck with it as the master no matter what.

This is a design issue and it cannot easily be overcome. The only way I could interface my MOTU Ultralite MK5 was to use a bridge interface which converts USB to ADAT. This tiny device (MINIDSP MCHStreamer KIT) has the luxury of handing off the master clock to the connecting client, so that it can handle the design issues in M+. The Motu syncs with the ADAT, which is synced to the M+ as the master. I use it and it is very stable, but it is not an ideal solution because it adds more cables to my rig.

Wouldn't it be nice if M+ just worked with other high end mobile audio interfaces like MOTU and the TE TX-6 without jumping through these kinds of hoops to sync the clocks?

Ableton had this exact issue with Push3 and ADAT, and as soon as they allowed the Push to set the master to ADAT and not make the push be the master, the problem was solved. AKAI has also had and fixed similar issues.

What gives NI???

Can we at least expand the compatible device list if you are unwilling to allow us to configure the interfaces ourselves?

OhulahanBass

Motu told me it was due to M+ using an outdated Linux kernel. Motu does not support the kernel used by Maschine. If I remember correctly, they don't officially support Linux at all, but the latest kernel will work with their interfaces. So that tells us two things:

1) Motu interfaces aren't fully class-compliant on Liunux

2) The issue would be fixed if NI updates the kernel

darkwaves

@CmdrCody said:

AKAI has also had and fixed similar issues.

Really? I've always read that the mpcs had the same issue (or worse) with the MOTUs

My goal with M+ is to have my hardware all connected to an AVB device sending multiple channels over to my desktop via AVB. I'm not a fan of the MPC workflow I remember from my old 1k, but that would be enough to get me to look at the Force.

CmdrCody

I don't use AKAI I was just doing some comparative research on others that have attempted to implement class compliant USB audio in their devices.

I must say, coming back to this thread the MINIDSP MCHStreamer KIT is the best solution to bridging the Maschine+, Push3, iPad, and PCs to each other or to ADAT-compliant devices, because you have so much control over the way the device shows itself to the "host" by being able to flash it with custom firmware modes. ADAT is a pretty simple standard, which makes the MOTU and SCARLETTs I use all quickly compatible with the MiniDSP bridge and thus Maschine+, Push3, iPad, etc...

Now the only thing that bugs me about Maschine+ is the limit of 44K sampling... Otherwise, the setup I mentioned earlier in the thread is very stable and makes me not have to think about and fuss with audio connectivity. I can multitrack a Virus Snow, Blofeld, TB-3, and S-1 to the Maschine+ with discrete channels and total mixer control on the Maschine+, all going through my MOTU mk5. I have also experimented with moving the mixer and recording functions to an iPad connected to the MOTU with the Maschine+ bridged via ADAT, and it works well with AUM but the iPad adds a little additional wiring for power, audio, and MIDI that makes a laptop/DAW seem more practical.

My overall goal is a DAW-less rig with Maschine+ as the brain multitracking my HW synths. In this vein, this setup is the best I can come up with for extreme mobility and connectivity while maintaining a fast workflow to save, replay, refine, and perform my projects.

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