Mainstage 3 / MOTU Ultralite Mk3 Hybrid driving me crazy

My buffer size is 128 like yours. The sample rate is 88.2.

I'm a Chapman Stick player so I'm running two channels of audio through an outboard preamp and then into the MOTU.

I have the CPU meter displayed and it does not spike at all when the dropout occurs.

Try changing the sample rate to 44.1.

Didn't make a diffference.

Are you using firewire or USB?

I'm using the power supply and running USB.

Have you tried using firewire. Theoretically, USB, at 480 Mbps, is faster than firewire 400, which is 400 Mbps. It has been explained by the guys at the Mac store that USB 2 only transmits one way at a time, whereas firewire sends both directions simultaneously. I don't know if it will make a difference for you, but it might be worth a try.

Interesting. I was actually heading upstairs with an old FireWire cable in my hand when I read your response.

My laptop actually doesn't have any FireWire inputs so I had to go from my FireWire 400 cable to an adaptor converting it to FireWire 800 to another adaptor converting that to Thunderbolt. Seemed like a jumble best to avoid but once I plugged it all in I played through it for about an hour and have had no sound dropouts whatsoever. Obviously I'll have to give it a bit of time before I pronounce it fixed.

Maybe time to switch to a Thunderbolt interface.

I plan on upgrading to a Thunderbolt interface, too. Maybe MOTU will introduce an Ultralite Hybrid Thunderbolt at the winter NAAM show next week.

Sounds like stickmusic121 is having a different issue to my original IOAudiostream errors - perhaps something that's specific to MainStage, as a MainStage error message is appearing in the log.

Stickmusic, have you tried any non-intensive tests, such as just looping a track in iTunes and seeing if that causes any dropouts over the course of a few hours? I'd be very surprised if 2 audio channels was enough to cause any kind of dropouts, unless of course you're using any third-party plug-ins that might be causing problems?

I can confirm that on my laptop I've experienced none of the IOAudiostream errors / dropouts since running tests with Yosemite. I'm going to try putting Yosemite on a Mac Mini too and see if that is stable. I will be using Logic and MainStage a lot over the next few weeks so will report back if anything of interest happens.

I, too, would love to see MOTU introduce an Ultralite hybrid with Thunderbolt. Here's hoping!

I haven't spent much time just running iTunes. For a solid three days, I played through the FireWire hookup with no dropouts at all. At one point toward the end of the day yesterday, I did experience one single drop out. An anomaly? I don't know but all in all I'm still pretty pleased. I will run some low intensity tests and see what happens.

I am running both audio input and output. I have two channels of audio going in. Inside MainStage, I am using Guitar Rig 5, Mobius for looping, and Playback for occasionally running a rhythm track. Using USB, I have experienced the dropouts even with just two channels in, two channels out, and no other plugins though.

Just a side note for those interested in Thunderbolt interfaces for live performance. I have a friend who's been using the Zoom Tac-2 for quite some time now and has found it to be the best interface he's used to date. With the Tac-2r coming and looking a bit more interesting than its predecessor, I might give it a try.

Well, after multiple messages with Motu (this "Bob" guy I interacted with always communicated and kept the dialog going, kudos to him) I still have no solution for my two Ultralite and Ultralite MK3 units working under Maveriks. Bob suggested I being the machine to Yosemite, my gut tells me that this would open another Pandora Box full of Pandora Boxes, I can't waste my time debugging software for these guys.

This is very disappointing; I have another unit (Apogee GIO) with 0 issues, and as soon as I go MOTU (firewire) I run into these troubles. The unit reacted differently once I changed the drivers last time (instead of having these clicks every 15 minutes, it would be randomly every 3 hours), I was hoping these guys at Motu would keep investigating, and isolate a way to deal with this IOAudioStream[0xffffff8052709000]::clipIfNecessary.... " situation.

I guess I am now looking for a 1/2 rack board that works well. The Zoom option seems interesting, but I need more than two inputs.

The RME units seem a good path forward. Does anybody here use them, and have you run into any issues with it (Using Mainstage/Logix)? Let me know

Best regards,

Well ... after about a week my connection via FireWire started snap, crackling, and popping with the exact same issues I was seeing before. This is with two channels of audio input and very minimal processing. This just seems unacceptable. I have an old 828mkii that I am going to pull out of the box. At one point, I used that unit with no issues before updating to the Ultralite. I may be getting ready to simply pronounce the Ultralite unit garbage and spend the money on something reliable. I simply cannot go out live like this.

Only just seen this thread... I had the same problem with an UltraliteMk3 last March and because I was in a time-critical situation - e.g. performances looming - I just quickly bought a Focusrite6i6 . It performed flawlessly, I tailed the log files for days and there was not one dropout!! I sold the MOTU on for a bit of a loss 😟 And also sadly the 6i6 doesn't sound as good to my ears, but then it is 1/2 the (new) price at less than £200.

mikman.

So, after 9 months waiting for MOTU to release a driver that could work with Mavericks, I got a RME UCX, which worked perfect, instantaneously. i loaded Mainstage with 4 or 5 parallel channel strips in my heaviest concert and my little mac mini worked perfectly with this interface, firewire, multiple analog inputs and 3 midi channels full of notes... not 1 glitch.

Definitively and terminally disappointed with MOTU; I have suggested their our products to multiple people early on and have purchased a few units from them, I guess they lost what I would consider a good and patient customer. When I spoke to the sales guy I got the RME from, he told me that I was not alone, lots of people having issues with their MOTU boards. Sad to see these guys going down like this.

So... it seems it is true.... quite pricey, but you can't go wrong with RME. Regards