OT: M-Audio or MOTU

LarryP wrote on 11/8/2003, 7:22 PM
I’m about to purchase 24 channels of line level input for live recording and would appreciate your comments. I’ve narrowed it down to 3 M-Audio 1010’s or an MOTU 24I/O. After reading past posts here and Usenet each vendor has had their problems and both seem to be working better now. The O/S is XP and the motherboard is an Intel PE845.

On the M-Audio 1010 there were some driver issues with Vegas and some questions about sample accurate syncing of multiple units. MOTU has had poor customer support and a PCI problem, especially with VIA chips, which seems fixed with the new PCI-424 card.

I would really appreciate hearing from Vegas users how multiple 1010’s are working and are they staying in sync and how the 24I/O is working before I plunk down the money next week.

Many Thanks.

Larry Pajakowski

Comments

Rednroll wrote on 11/10/2003, 7:20 AM
I haven't used either, but I'll voice my opinion on MOTU, since I use their midi interfaces. MOTU is a MAC based company first with the PC side being second hand to them. So the point I'm trying to make is if getting good driver support is a purchashing issue with you I would recommend your M-audio choice. Before Win XP was released, I wanted to update my win98 system to Win2k. Motu released OSX updates, but never released win2k drivers. They never released new drivers until Win XP was released, so I was forced to stay with Win98, then finally was able to jump to XP, or go out and purchase new midi interfaces. So if you can wait 3 years for a driver update, then go with the MOTU.

Actually I'm wondering why you haven't considered the echo Laylas? I've been using dual Echo cards for years with rock solid sync. Vegas prorammers have even mentioned in these forums that Echo drivers are the best written drivers available and work great with Vegas.

Goto www.echaudio.com
zemlin wrote on 11/10/2003, 10:31 AM
I have a 24i rather than the 24i/o, but I'm happy as a clam wih V4 doing multitrack recording with the ASIO drivers.

Perfect sync, no dropouts (not a single sample lost on any track) on a 24 track (24 bit/44.1K) test recording 2 hours long. I've used it many times in the field for recording live bands without a hitch. Also works well in a multitrack studio environment.

I run XP, my motherboard is an ASUS P4B266 with a 1.8G 256k CPU. (845D)
Geoff_Wood wrote on 11/10/2003, 3:48 PM
MOTU drivers have been pretty good on Windows for the last few years now. On audio devices at least ....

geoff
jbirch1 wrote on 11/10/2003, 7:05 PM
Larry,
I have no other working experiences, so I can't really compare, but my set up here works fine. I have the motu 24 i/o working on a dell p4 with vegas.
Good Luck,
Jim
LarryP wrote on 11/10/2003, 8:29 PM
I ordered the 24I/O.

Thanks.

Larry
AFSDMS wrote on 11/25/2003, 8:41 AM
Sorry I missed deadline on this :-) Here's my experience. . .

I have a Delta 1010 and had good luck recording 8-tracks live using Vegas 2. But the possibility of a Windows crash (which never happened over many hours of live recordings, thank heavens!) had me stressed so, for little more than the cost of 2 more 1010s, I got a Mackie MDR-2494 24-track digital recorder.

For a couple years the PCs/DAWs have stayed at home and the 24-track goes to a gig. At home the MDR (now discontinued, of course :-) plugs into the Ethernet 100 network and I transfer all the 24bit/48 kHz .WAV files to the DAW.
adowrx wrote on 11/28/2003, 4:24 PM
I see this has been up for a while, thought I'd give my 2 cents, anyway. When using cables for the 24i, I couldn't fit 24 Neutrik TRS cables all in a row. (Not enough space, UHHHHH). Switchcraft connectors do fit, however. As far as performance, my 24i and 2408 work very well, indeed w/VV 3.0 and Cubase as well.

-Joe
LarryP wrote on 11/28/2003, 5:43 PM
Well I bought the 24i/o and so far so good. One nice feature is the built in mixer which will come in handy for the "safety net" recording I'm doing of a live concert next year. Never hurts to have a backup recording.

Larry