Sound Keeps cutting out, and it gets weirder

Very interesting thing for me is that the sound NEVER cuts out when I'm working in Logic Pro 7.2. If I have Logic Pro closed and I'm doing anything else like listening to iTunes or Quicktime or iMovie, the sound cuts out. (I have the MOTU 828 is my audio output). Even more interesting is that if I have the Logic Pro 7.2 application open but I'm not doing anything with it the sound does not cut out. I can walk away from my computer for several hours with no music or audio playing and as long as I have the Logic Pro 7.2 app open I can come back, open up iTunes and play a song with no problem. So I've been keeping Logic Pro open all the time when I'm on the computer. Very strange.

Mac Pro 2.66GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8) 3GB RAM

very interesting.. I'll give it a try...

OK, some progress...err maybe

I actually got through to MOTU tech support today around 1400. My first clue was that the phone number actually rang instead of going to straight to a dial tone.
Spoke to a tech support guy who then spoke with engineering and testing. I updated him on the situation , and asked what to do ... nothing we haven't tried already. So here is what you need to know:
1. MOTU is officially aware of the anomoly
2. Reference ticket is 15808 if you call
3. They have been tight on staffing over the holidays, but should be picking up momentum. Phones shouldbe answered, and emails returned.
4. Keep on them and let's get it resolved.

Let me know if anyone else is able to get through.

bravo!

good work!

once small step for man, one giant --

(Holidays or not, Motu usually never picks up their phone though...)

Hehe, I sent an email out to Motu about a month ago, I had gone through everything listed here with my new 828mkii, and came to the conclusion that the driver is f'd up. I even went as far as wiping my HD and reinstalling from scratch everything. That was fun, but then, I like doing that sort of thing. I eventually got through to Motu, got the same list of things to test and do, went through the list. Same results. I am soooooo happy that I am not the insane one here, the only idiot that cannot get this **** thing to work. I am currantly trying to get it to work with fcp, fcp simply stops playing audio till you change the output option from motu to line out.

Alex

Oh yea, one more thing, I also got a seperate Firewire card just for the Motu, same problems, I still believe it is a driver issue.

a temporary fix that I discovered is to have iTunes running in the background, constantly playing a song. If you are doing audio or editing or anything that requires monitoring sound, then just turn down the volume in iTunes (but let it keep playing the tunes).

That does work but is sort of annoying to be constantly playing iTunes, even with the volume down. What I do (which I wrote about a few posts ago) is launch my Logic Pro application and just have it in the background and I'm fine. The sound NEVER cuts out. And I don't have to be playing anything in Logic Pro; as long as I have the program open in the background the sound never cuts out. I wonder if the same would work for GarageBand. Guess I'll try that for a few days and write back.

Mac Pro 2.66GHz Mac OS X (10.4.8) 3GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300GT

Ugh, another workaround, when is Motu going to simply re-code the driver? Or am I being too demanding?

"ugh? another workaround?"

you think you're too cool for school, don't you?

but I have a newsflash for you Walter Cronkite... you aren't...

Maybe you guys have already noticed this, but there's a FireWire driver at MOTU that isn't visible in the downloads section:

http://downloads.motu.com/firewire/fw_1.4.1.zip

This link was in their news section (it doesn't appear on the driver download page). Are you guys using 1.4 or 1.4.1 ?

I don't have a Mac Pro, yet, so I don't know if this fixes the problem. I'd be curious to know, though, since I'm planning to buy a Mac Pro, and this thread has me a little worried...

James
james@nashvillain.com

This problem is NOT new. I have been complaining about it to MOTU for more than a year. It is also not just with newer (2006) Macs.

I have an 828MkII running with my Mac G5, original single processor, OS 10.3.9. The problem is constant and infuriating.

If I am using the DVD player or Logic Platinum, the sound works great until (sometimes with a huge heart stopping "thwack") it cuts out. I can get it back by turning off (thunk) the 828, waiting a few minutes (the longer the better) and turning it back on (ear splitting "POP"). As soon as the OS sees the 828, the sound will play through it again. Then it cuts out again at decreasing intervals (20 mins to start, then 5, then 2 or 3). At that point I need to reboot the mac to get another non-gracefully degrading session, or give up on the 828 (usual course of action) and use the Internal outputs.

Other odd behavior: when the 828 doesn't go out with a loud THWACK, it sometimes just vanishes, and then I hear odd thumping at 30 to 40 second intervals. Sometimes I hear the sound trying to come through before the thumping takes over.

iTunes for some reason can play through the 828 for HOURS and HOURS. So far as I can remember, the cut out has never happened with iTunes playing (interesting to note that other posters here have observed that this problem goes away if they leave iTunes playing at zero volume in the background).

Final Cut also seems to be OK with the 828mkII.

Motu tech support has responded to several of my emails over the months (and none of my phone calls) and I've done eveything they suggested, with no luck.


G5 original, single CPU Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Well, I'm glad I found this. Altough my problem is not with Motu. I have presonus firepod running and I have issues with sound cutting out. So it seems like this is a firewire issue. I also have a Sony dsr 11 that does the same with picture in final cut. Any anwsers?