|
Post by bricejchandler on May 7, 2021 0:49:16 GMT -6
I’m mentioned this before - but the Apogee Element series is incredible. Zero latency and same quality conversion as symphony mk1. Agreed! I've tried most of the mid priced interfaces and settled for an Element88 and I'm 100% satisfied with it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2021 4:42:15 GMT -6
Yes. Ultralite mk 5 is made in China and went back to Cuemix from the AVB software. The 624, 1248, and 16a have thunderbolt, better AD, and better DA analog parts than the others. Thanks for the info. I've been on RME for many years so the entire MOTU line is foreign to me. Surprised that their newest interface would have worse AD/DA conversion than their older models which are years old by now. I don't really need tons of bells and whistles; just a handful of line ins and outs with good conversion. Looks like it'll be between the 624 and Ultralite MK5 Also, you mentioned the mixer software? Is there a bigger advantage to the AVB software? The MOTU DA is good. The AD is okay. Why not just buy a separate converter for your RME interface?
|
|
|
Post by theshea on May 7, 2021 5:17:14 GMT -6
i am on a rme fireface 400 for yeeeears and perceive (and always have) the sound as „clean“. so, you‘re saying the highs are no good? i gotta add that i use external preamps into the ff400 almost all the time. would you suggest, time for a new audiointerface?
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 7, 2021 5:21:51 GMT -6
I have an Ultralite MK 5 coming in the post tomorrow, I'll try to expand the thread with my thoughts after enough time has passed for them to form. It has better specs, on paper at least, compared to the 624. I want to be a guy on TV with a funny suit, "Oh my gawsh! Look at those numbers, fokes!"
SSL headphone amp is totally fine, no argument there. To be quite honest I didn't spent hours on it. There were too many other sounds pushing me away on that thing, mainly coming through the speakers. And I am skeptical about how much heapdhone amps really differ once they perform into the "adequate" zone, which I'm thinking now, might be just about as good as it gets.
|
|
|
Post by guitfiddler on May 8, 2021 10:21:53 GMT -6
I remember the Lavry being clinical sounding. Yep more accurate treble on all of them. No Burr Brown smoothness like Dangerous. Modern Analog Devices opamp accuracy. The Bricasti dac is like the Lavry Black on crack if you can ever score or hear that. I liked the sound of the Lavry DA10, but haven't heard the DA11, I noticed they added the USB. Wished the DA10 had the USB. I really like my Dangerous AD+ and DA!
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 8, 2021 12:55:58 GMT -6
I'm trying to be mindful and not post too much like I have been lately, but bear with me, this is a pretty good one:
Ultralite MK5, initial report. Build quality is good, it survived a smashed up shipping box, and whatever caused that. It's reinforced, the chassis, and feels overall higher quality than the M4, not surprising given the cost. Locking XLR on the front are a nice touch. Single color, large OLED display is bad-ass, very pixelated and bright.
DAC quality is impressive, it has a little more character than the M4, more weight in the lows and mids. Very open and detailed also. There is a slightly "dry" quality to the sound, which I find appealing. Highs don't shimmer, they have some neutral texture. Sound stage is uh, 3D, you can easily place things in terms of depth and on some imaginary sound stage. Bass will slam out of this thing, in speakers or headphones, never heard my Focal do this before. Heaphone amp has no problem with HD650, they can get into the rapid hearing damage zone. I was getting lost in the music, which is a good sign. First song was ragan's "Just Got Lost," actually. Pulled me out of a funk. This DAC, phone out as well, seem perfect for critical listening, but I'll have to do some work with it of course.
Haven't recorded or tested latency yet, that will happen later. Yes, I'm sure there's some novelty bias, but this sounds great. Doesn't take long to hear that.
|
|
|
Post by Ned Ward on May 8, 2021 13:06:51 GMT -6
Great Article! I upgraded from using my Eleven Rack to a B-stock 3rd Gen Scarlett 18i20 and it does sound better, but couldn't afford the same Clarett 8Pre at the time. I also have 20 year old Event Monitors, guitar amps and my most expensive mic was $300... so good enough for now for me. I realize I'm the weakest link in my recording abilities...
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 11, 2021 15:47:48 GMT -6
Here's some MOTU Ultralite MK 5 sounds
first performance is the Sound Devices 302 preamps into the line inputs/ADC
second performance is the MOTU mic pres
no processing, just a limiter on the mix bus
|
|
grantb
Junior Member
Posts: 97
|
Post by grantb on May 11, 2021 16:05:50 GMT -6
monkeyxx, I'm reading all your mk5 experiences with great interest. Thinking about picking one up. Are you going to run a REW loopback test on it?
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 11, 2021 16:12:21 GMT -6
Thanks, grantb. Here are the RTL Utility results with the MK 5, with the M4 for reference. Some higher sample rate buffer settings were not testable in RTL Utility so they are missing. My opinion has gone from hype to moderately strong appreciation, I'm still happy with it so far. I thought the mic pres are a tiny bit lacking in body, but the line inputs seem totally adeqaute, with whatever mic pres you like. This thing definitely has a signature sound. On my laptop, the 64 buffer is almost usable, with a few clicks and pops once in a while, and the 128 buffer seems about right with these, and that PC, although it's not the most fun latency to play guitar through at 10+ ms. I suspect my "power computer" desktop would to better with low latencies. Might be an AMD vs Intel thing, not sure, but some have thought this.
|
|
grantb
Junior Member
Posts: 97
|
Post by grantb on May 11, 2021 16:35:24 GMT -6
Here are the RTL Utility results with the MK 5... Thanks for that, I'm not too worried about latency though for my purposes. I am wondering about audio stuff like frequency response, harmonic distortion, IMD. With the Sound Devices MixPre 10 II I am wanting to replace as my everyday interface, I learned that these things can not be taken for granted as confirmed by SD themselves. I should give the MK5 a pass strictly on the OLED, but the way they have implemented it seems like burn in will not be as noticeable as it is in the MixPre (which is truly awful).
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 11, 2021 16:44:48 GMT -6
Here are the RTL Utility results with the MK 5... Thanks for that, I'm not too worried about latency though for my purposes. I am wondering about audio stuff like frequency response, harmonic distortion, IMD. With the Sound Devices MixPre 10 II I am wanting to replace as my everyday interface, I learned that these things can not be taken for granted as confirmed by SD themselves. I should give the MK5 a pass strictly on the OLED, but the way they have implemented it seems like burn in will not be as noticeable as it is in the MixPre (which is truly awful). That's a great idea, I misread what you said. I guess I could just measure the input to the output, I would love to see those results also. Sad to hear about the MixPre OLED display, I guess I will find out the more I use it.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 17, 2021 2:37:09 GMT -6
More ULMK5 stuff, for anyone interested. Still haven't measured audio specifications yet. My laptop hates it, it hates my laptop. DPC latency spikes are too much here. Not even sure if I can use this with that computer. But my big, main computer loves the ultralite. No dropouts whatsoever, very stable. So it's picky about computers in a way that my M4 is not. Both windows 10 in this case. After living with both, the Ultralite is on 'another level' from the M4. But I could record with either. The UL is more fun, more exciting, responsive. Triple the cost and triple the functionality. Think I might buy an iPad to do mobile recording / mixing with this interface. Here's a track to listen to, not sure how much this helps, but it was recorded entirely with the Ultralite MK 5. I find the mic pres and ADC to be very precise and accurate, having almost no color at all. You will really hear transients, clarity on the top end, these kinds of tones. It's a lot of fun to play these amp sims through the Ultralite, they have an edgy sound and feel very responsive in the hands. It's an expressive platform for amp sims, assuming your computer can run the 128 buffer or better if you can go even lower. Sounds like a pretty high impedance guitar input. Extremely low input noise, very quiet signal.
https%3A//soundcloud.com/user-707541281/125-splattered-berries-strat-making-jam-ultralite-testing-di-input
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 4:12:42 GMT -6
Bummer the drivers are struggling. I had an ultralite on the shopping list.
I do have an ipad. Why do you think ipad may work better.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 17, 2021 4:29:29 GMT -6
Bummer the drivers are struggling. I had an ultralite on the shopping list. I do have an ipad. Why do you think ipad may work better.
My desktop computer works flawlessly, my HP laptop does not work well.
The main reason to try an ipad is just how small they are. I don't know if it will work well or not, but I'm attracted to that workflow.
I'm writing to you on battery power right now, using the M4.
The Ultralite won't do that, it needs mains power. So it's half way in that direction, not a true mobile system, but in that direction.
I'm a computer / interface / plugin enthusiast it's my main area of gear interest, to describe my fascination.
I would recommend the ultralite but test it carefully on your main / intended computer, have a return option on it if you order one.
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 5:21:51 GMT -6
so i went from a lfc with lynx converters and purpose built desktop and dual monitors to.....
a laptop the size of a dinner plate. have been on a laptop for quite a few years now connected to a focusrite gen 2. initially a surface pro 2 which i recorded bands with... done many sessions on the surface pro 2 / focusrite and not skipped a beat.. about a month ago i switched across to my dell laptop. not recorded with it yet but mixing a few things now. with both the surface and the dell i plug into a big monitor for mixing.
one reason i swapped from the surface pro to the dell was i got additional usb ports and that alone has been worth it.
so recently i started a new job and was given an ipad pro. I'm intrigued to try it out too but it's limitation is usb slots and no monitor connection. so like you i've been thinking using it for tracking and then mixing on the laptop.
power wise i'm ok with an interface that isn't usb opwered.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 17, 2021 5:36:26 GMT -6
gouge even if you do have a laptop that works with Ultralite MK 5 (check your DPC Latency performance with the free app LatencyMon), you can use the iPad as a cue mixer, for your client or something, to do the heapdhone mixes on, a control surface. You could even mix a live gig this way, EQ, reverb, gate, compressor. Same idea here as you, iPad as a "Bit Bucket" for live data capture, mixdown later on one of the more powerful computers, with real monitors and etc. My setup has shrunk as well. My wall of amps has at least temporarily been disassembled, along with the wall of synths. Most of the outboard mix gear has been sold down the river. Workflow is faster and sounds are better than ever.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 17, 2021 9:16:03 GMT -6
More ULMK5 stuff, for anyone interested. Still haven't measured audio specifications yet. My laptop hates it, it hates my laptop. DPC latency spikes are too much here. Not even sure if I can use this with that computer. But my big, main computer loves the ultralite. No dropouts whatsoever, very stable. So it's picky about computers in a way that my M4 is not. Both windows 10 in this case. After living with both, the Ultralite is on 'another level' from the M4. But I could record with either. The UL is more fun, more exciting, responsive. Triple the cost and triple the functionality. Think I might buy an iPad to do mobile recording / mixing with this interface. Here's a track to listen to, not sure how much this helps, but it was recorded entirely with the Ultralite MK 5. I find the mic pres and ADC to be very precise and accurate, having almost no color at all. You will really hear transients, clarity on the top end, these kinds of tones. It's a lot of fun to play these amp sims through the Ultralite, they have an edgy sound and feel very responsive in the hands. It's an expressive platform for amp sims, assuming your computer can run the 128 buffer or better if you can go even lower. Sounds like a pretty high impedance guitar input. Extremely low input noise, very quiet signal.
https%3A//soundcloud.com/user-707541281/125-splattered-berries-strat-making-jam-ultralite-testing-di-input
Follow the gearslutz guides for amd/Nvidia drivers Go into device manager and disable all selective suspend for Usb. Disable all power saving options in power settings in control panel. Brute force turn off cortana and all feedback to micro$off and search indexing in group policy manager. Finally go into your bios and turn off cpu scaling. I had fan problems doing this (too noisy!) so had to turn it back on but it works! If this doesn’t kill dpc latency, your computer is screwed! Buy a MacBook! I’m not messing with you. It just works for this stuff. Maybe wait until the new arm Mac book pros! Windows laptops have gotten worse for drivers!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 17, 2021 9:17:43 GMT -6
so i went from a lfc with lynx converters and purpose built desktop and dual monitors to..... a laptop the size of a dinner plate. have been on a laptop for quite a few years now connected to a focusrite gen 2. initially a surface pro 2 which i recorded bands with... done many sessions on the surface pro 2 / focusrite and not skipped a beat.. about a month ago i switched across to my dell laptop. not recorded with it yet but mixing a few things now. with both the surface and the dell i plug into a big monitor for mixing. one reason i swapped from the surface pro to the dell was i got additional usb ports and that alone has been worth it. so recently i started a new job and was given an ipad pro. I'm intrigued to try it out too but it's limitation is usb slots and no monitor connection. so like you i've been thinking using it for tracking and then mixing on the laptop. power wise i'm ok with an interface that isn't usb opwered. How is dpc latency on the surface book pro? I need a windows laptop for other windows only software. The current daw machine is a bit older but works but the later models of Thinkpads are awful for dpc latency. Total crapshoot! One model can kill Macs and one year later, the next will be unusable for music!
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 17, 2021 9:34:53 GMT -6
Follow the gearslutz guides for amd/Nvidia drivers Go into device manager and disable all selective suspend for Usb. Disable all power saving options in power settings in control panel. Brute force turn off cortana and all feedback to micro$off and search indexing in group policy manager. Finally go into your bios and turn off cpu scaling. I had fan problems doing this (too noisy!) so had to turn it back on but it works! If this doesn’t kill dpc latency, your computer is screwed! Buy a MacBook! I’m not messing with you. It just works for this stuff. Maybe wait until the new arm Mac book pros! Windows laptops have gotten worse for drivers! Did all that stuff! The computer itself just doesn't perform. Works OK with all apps closed and WIFI off, but works even better with the M4 for some reason. Mac book would be cool but expensive.
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 14:22:57 GMT -6
i ran the latencymon app and then did a bunch of driver updates and performance boostss to the laptop. then ran latency mon again. end result is cpu0 has latency due to apci.sys.
now i know that. what can i do?
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 14:52:00 GMT -6
so i went from a lfc with lynx converters and purpose built desktop and dual monitors to..... a laptop the size of a dinner plate. have been on a laptop for quite a few years now connected to a focusrite gen 2. initially a surface pro 2 which i recorded bands with... done many sessions on the surface pro 2 / focusrite and not skipped a beat.. about a month ago i switched across to my dell laptop. not recorded with it yet but mixing a few things now. with both the surface and the dell i plug into a big monitor for mixing. one reason i swapped from the surface pro to the dell was i got additional usb ports and that alone has been worth it. so recently i started a new job and was given an ipad pro. I'm intrigued to try it out too but it's limitation is usb slots and no monitor connection. so like you i've been thinking using it for tracking and then mixing on the laptop. power wise i'm ok with an interface that isn't usb opwered. How is dpc latency on the surface book pro? I need a windows laptop for other windows only software. The current daw machine is a bit older but works but the later models of Thinkpads are awful for dpc latency. Total crapshoot! One model can kill Macs and one year later, the next will be unusable for music! Ive not used a surface book.
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 15:32:04 GMT -6
Follow the gearslutz guides for amd/Nvidia drivers Go into device manager and disable all selective suspend for Usb. Disable all power saving options in power settings in control panel. Brute force turn off cortana and all feedback to micro$off and search indexing in group policy manager. Finally go into your bios and turn off cpu scaling. I had fan problems doing this (too noisy!) so had to turn it back on but it works! If this doesn’t kill dpc latency, your computer is screwed! Buy a MacBook! I’m not messing with you. It just works for this stuff. Maybe wait until the new arm Mac book pros! Windows laptops have gotten worse for drivers! Did all that stuff! The computer itself just doesn't perform. Works OK with all apps closed and WIFI off, but works even better with the M4 for some reason. Mac book would be cool but expensive. Ive been digging into this. Have you tried processor affinity? Im going to try some setting tweaks tonight.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 17, 2021 18:02:57 GMT -6
Did all that stuff! The computer itself just doesn't perform. Works OK with all apps closed and WIFI off, but works even better with the M4 for some reason. Mac book would be cool but expensive. Ive been digging into this. Have you tried processor affinity? Im going to try some setting tweaks tonight. I might do a double check with this list in this thread, no I haven't checked processor affinity yet, I will check all this again tomorrow, see if I can make any progress.
|
|
|
Post by gouge on May 17, 2021 20:54:57 GMT -6
i did some more digging and fingers crossed this will help with laptops. for my dell it seems to be specifically cpu0 that has the latency. when i remove it from the test list on latencymon i get a pretty good result. (yet to be tested in real world) protools have a thing on it. even though i'm using reaper and focusrite i'll use this approach as a base point and see what happens. avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Troubleshooting/Optimising-Processor-Affinity-Windowsbe good if you could try the same and rerun the mk5 and see if it helps.
|
|