Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
Hey Kevin! Bet you wondered why I sent you that. Cheers A > On 5/4/01 at 10:14 AM, kevin@unitcircle.com (Kevin Goldsmith) wrote: > > > Can you talk about your experiences with the 828? I'm having a hard >time > > finding reviews of it, but I'm thinking seriously about picking one up. > > Anyone using one of these with a PC? > > > Quoted From the Max/MSP list, So not applicable to PC, sorry. > > Hi all, > Well, much to my surprise my MOTU 828 multichannel firewire box arrived > today. If you don't know what I am talking about, go here: > http://www.motu.com/english/motuaudio/828/body.html > > What I've got: g3/500 powerbook. also testing on G4/450. OS 9.1. Most > recent Max/MSP. For all these tests I used a signal vector size of 16 > samples. > > Here is some of what I have found thus far: > > 1. I've been using a MOTU 2408 mkII on my desktop, so here are some > differences for those who are more familiar with this card (mainly >PCI-324 > card). There is no longer an app to change settings on the card. instead > changes are made via a control panel or control strip module. also > installed are 2 extensions which are needed in order for the mac to talk >to > the card. changing card settings is a breeze! > > 2. asio latency. for me this is critical since most of the stuff I do > involves me live with my clarinet...so latency is just something I don't > want. not overwhelmingly great news in this category. the minimum sample > buffer size, which to a large extent determines input/output latency, is > 128. PCI-324 ASIO driver is 64, FYI. Using Les Stuck's latency tester, > this equates to about a 6.893 ms in Max/MSP. But...there is a problem. > Testing some of my slightly more involved patches (i.e. more involved >than a > single sfplay~ or groove~) I've noticed that with this buffer size, my > g3/500 pb just can't keep up. lots of hiccups and at times DSP just >decides > to stop working and needs a reboot. This is the case with both groove~ >and > sfplay~, just to eliminate possibilities of a slow hard-drive. Setting >the > buffer size to the next level (192) cures all. no stutters, hiccups, >stops. > all works fine. 192 = 9.796 ms latency in Max/MSP using same tester as > before. On my G4/450, none of these problems exist. A buffer of 128 > samples works great with none of the problems found on my powerbook. I > contacted MOTU tech support via email and got a reply today(!) regarding > this...basically they say there is enough of a difference in CPU's >between > the 2 to account for this. > > As an FYI, I also tried this using Peak and MOTU's Audio Desk. Both could > handle playback fine with the 128 sample buffer, but as soon as you added > any effects I got the same problems found in my Max tests. > > 3. cpu usage. looks like you take a bit of a hit for the using the ASIO > driver...but I also saw this with the driver for the PCI-324 card. what > takes up 14% using the sound manager takes up about 22% using the ASIO >828 > driver. The good news is that there is very little difference in CPU >usage > between 2 channels and 8 channels of output. So...perhaps worth the > tradeoff. I personally think so. > > Despite the fact that I can't get the sample buffer size below 192, I >still > really like this card. it's just too cool to have multichannel output > coming from my powerbook. Not only that, I can plug it into any firewire > mac, install a few drivers, and I've got multichannel output wherever I > go...and I only need one card for my g4 and powerbook. Great for the >David > Beaudry Road Show. Other perks of the card are 2 mic preamps for >channels 1 > and 2 (that is if you aren't too picky about your mic pre-amps), s/pdif > in/out, an in and out ADAT light pipe, and ADAT sync.