List Price: $595.00
Sale Price: $549.00
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- Hybrid FireWire/USB2 connectivity - connect to your computer via either bus-powered FireWire or hi-speed USB2.
- CueMix FXTM - flexible 10 input/14 bus mixer with on-board DSP effects, including reverb with sends/returns, EQ & compression on every input & output.
- 10 inputs / 14 outputs - no channel sharing in UltraLite-mk3 Hybrid; mic , S/PDIF I/O, headphone out & main outs are handled as separate channels.
- Classic ReverbTM - provides five different room types, three frequency shelves with adjustable crossover points.
- Two forms of compression - a standard compressor with conventional threshold/ratio/attack/release/gain controls and the LevelerTM.
- An accurate model of the legendary LA-2A optical compressor, which provides vintage, musical automatic gain control.
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** UPDATE: 7/19/2013Having owned this device for 3 years now (wow, time flies!) I can say with a fair amount of certainty that this is a solid product. It has basically been on for 3 years without issue. During my initial setup of the device in 2010, things weren't very smooth (I recall having to install drivers and connect the device in a specific order, or Windows botched the driver install) but I just built a new PC and had no troubles this time around. I downloaded the latest version of the "All In One" driver/software combo from MOTU, installed it, fired up the device and it just worked straight away (via Firewire). I haven't beat on it with my DAW yet (still using Cubase) but some basic tests showed it was working just fine.
If you need a compact, portable device that works with both OSX and Windows 7 (x64) this is probably a good choice!
** ORIGINAL REVIEW (2010) **
Having purchased and used this device for the better part of 6 months, I figured it was a good time to write my review. I tend to get verbose, so I'll try and get right to the point! To give you some context I'm a singer/songwriter/producer/engineer (mostly as a hobby these days) so my "field use" of this device has been diverse; everything from recording vocals and guitars to producing dance music solely using internal VST instruments and plug-ins.
To further expand the context, I'm both an Apple and PC user and am platform agnostic for the most part (yes, people like me exist!) and have used this device on both operating systems/hardware, with heavy usage on the PC side.
PC: Intel E8500 (CPU), Intel DP35DP (Motherboard), 8GB RAM, Win7 Ultimate x64, Cubase 5.5 64-bit
MAC: MacBook Pro (MB986LL/A) 2.8Ghz 15.4-Inch (2009 Model), OS X Snow Leopard, Ableton Live
POSITIVES
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In general the device is very well-built; solid casing, sturdy knobs, all while staying very lightweight with a VERY low footprint. It is extremely feature-rich, especially for the size! It will likely fit in any audiophile or basic laptop bag, which makes it a pleasure to keep on my desk when connected to my main system. Prior to this I had a Delta 1010 and needed a small mixer between it and my monitors for control but everything is built right into the device.
Connecting microphones, instruments, and headphones to the device is a snap with so many front-facing inputs. I'm also a huge fan of having an entirely separate headphone output on the front of the device with its own volume control, which makes it easy to quickly jump between my monitors and headphones when mixing. No more clutter or external mixers!
NEGATIVES
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While I'm happy with the device in most regards, there are some significant issues. Bad enough that I will state plainly that I do not feel that the cross-platform or USB/Firewire hybrid functionality is ready for primetime, even after several driver updates. I firmly believe this is an Apple-targeted device first, and development/support for PC systems has been secondary. All of the negatives I've experienced so far have been on the PC, detailed below. It is hard to not give this 4 stars because the functionality and form are so great, but in a practical scenario I've had a lot of stability issues.
SETUP: The initial set up was difficult. This was not a plug-and-play device. Driver installation, device connection and system restarts had to be in a specific sequence in order to get the device to be recognized and function in Windows 7 x64. I had to uninstall/reinstall the driver/software a couple of times in order to get it right. Thank heavens for community forums!
FIREWIRE: The move to Firewire has been interesting, to say the least. This is a rat's nest of information unto itself and really a problem with the Windows environment in general, but the short of it is that if you ever decide to use the 3rd party Unibrain SBP2 FireWire 800 drivers (because Microsoft is behind the curve with FireWire support) you may need to rollback the driver to the Windows default, just for the one particular port that the MOTU is connected to or the device will no longer work. I upgraded to this driver when I purchased a DROBO so I could utilize FireWire 800 speeds and had to figure out this workaround. MOTU isn't to blame for this, although I would like to see them support the superior Unibrain drivers for FireWire.
SOFTWARE / DRIVERS: The CueMix software is a bit confusing -and defective! In my adulthood I've become much better about reading manuals, but I'm of the mind that if something is unintuitive to the point of being unusable out of the gate, it should be simplified. Routing is somewhat complicated but what made this part of the process extremely difficult to figure out is that the software, after a random period of time, stops displaying ANY sort of input/output meter data whatsoever so you cannot see which channels are active. This is paramount to getting a visual cue of how hot an input is or what the output level of the device is. The device continues to operate the same, and input/output meters continue to work in DAW apps, but the CueMix software basically dies and the only way to get it to come back is with a system reboot, or a power off/on of the device.
Also, I haven't seen a Blue Screen of Death since the early 2000's but this device has blessed me with at least one per-month. If the device is powered off/on while the driver is loaded (i.e. any time in Windows), or if you change device settings while within a DAW (such as latency level, a very common adjustment) the driver will typically crash and take the whole system with it. Even with the most recent software update, the whole thing just feels slightly unstable. Opening CueMix while in a DAW makes playback begin to stutter and glitch sometimes, and I'm typically left feeling like if I breathe on the device my app or OS will crash. Again, I haven't had this issue with any M-Audio hardware -or any hardware since the early days of Windows XP.
SUPPORT: I contacted support regarding the above issues, fully open to the idea that my system configuration could be at fault, but after contacting them twice through the registered user support forms on the website, I never received any feedback (5 months and waiting). Any time I have a question or issue I have to scour user forums in order to get any information.
In closing, this is a great piece of hardware but if you're looking to run a Windows 7 x64 environment you might want to consider another device. It is entirely possible that my specific hardware configuration is to blame, but being pretty straight-forward I doubt this is the case. I think this device was targeted at MacBook users, with PC support being secondary. The set up on the Mac was MUCH simpler, and no, this is not a case of PC vs Mac; being well-versed in both operating systems I can tell you that most other devices follow a relatively similar setup path, but setting this up on a PC was a bit nightmarish.
Buy MOTU UltraLite-MK3 Hybrid FireWire/USB2 Audio Interface Now
Very clean preamps, logical setup, reasonably user friendly, sounds great and works beautifully with Cubase 5. Also compatible with Vista 64 bit. Great package for serious home recording.Read Best Reviews of MOTU UltraLite-MK3 Hybrid FireWire/USB2 Audio Interface Here
No technical problems at all with the installation, or drivers. On the Sonar forum site it's been suggested that this interface will work it's best using a TI chipset firewire interface. I have no problems so far. I'm using it now in Sonar 8.5, through firewire (motherboard VIA chipset).Within Sonar each of the mono inputs (or combined as a stereo input), can be assigned it's own track. That's 8 mono or 4 stereo tracks that can be recorded at once. So no more line in, single stereo input transfers for any previous SB owners. The sound quality can be awesome, but my computer is getting a bit old (XP SP3, Duo 2.4 gig, 2gig Corsair XMS, Infinity MB) and, the ultra high sample rates are probably not very realistic (176400, 192000) for myself, through Sonar with multiple tracks and plugins. But 96000 is achievable, with 40 audio and 13 MIDI tracks, using about 10 VSTs, (total round trip latency of 9.8 milliseconds, using 256 samples).
My previous interface was a Sound Blaster Live, so the available options and technical details can be a little bit daunting. What I have figured out so far, is that it has an assignable return. This takes the place of the "What You Hear" function, on a SB card. The onboard hardware options are easily turned on and off, like the dynamics and EQ sections. So yeah I may not know how to fine tune each and every parameter, most of this can be done internally in a DAW.
The advantage is it's there for when it will matter to learn these functions in detail and take a huge load off my system, using the external enhancements for compression reverb etc. instead of VSTs. Right now it's not a critical issue to myself and I have yet to actually study the manual.
The included CueMix software layout is a little clunky (and what was the reason it can't be maximized to show one more track without scrolling and separate enhancement windows?? ).But not prohibitively so and has been rock solid on my system.
I'm really satisfied with this purchase and it has improved the quality and consistency of my home recordings. For the first time what I hear in the software at 96000 using mixes at about 80 megabytes in size, is what I hear on a final conversion to a 256kbit MP3, total 6.62 megabytes. The capabilities and detail adjustments are available for when I care to learn to use them and in no way obstructive, if I choose not too.
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Before this I had an m-audio omni studio pci card based interface. This annihilates it in every way. Solid drivers, easy installation, amazing sound, simple routing, usable fx... There are a lot of interfaces on the market and prices keep dropping but I believe this to be a sound choice when looking for a high quality, extremely versatile interface with no headaches. Very practical in it's simplest form yet able to handle whatever you can throw at it. I have cuemix and the drivers installed on 2 pcs and 1 mac and no problems on any of them.
I have the TSR mains connected to my M-Audio BX5 for monitoring/mixing and found the integral DAC to render audio accurately and, I might add, enjoyably. The headphone amp also sounds good, has plenty of volume and it is easy to render pleasing mixes with my Sennheiser HD580 headphones.
I mainly use the Ultralite for live stereo recording of classical guitar solos and ensembles with Bias Peak Pro 7. The Ultralite and Bias Peak work together like they came from the same company and are totally seemless. For multi-tracking projects it also works flawlessly with Logic (& GarageBand of course). Not a fan of AudioDesk (the free multi-track app it ships with it) but it's basically a watered down version of Digital Performer. So if you like Performer, you'll get along well with AudioDesk.
The mic preamps are very clean--no noise reduction plugin needed--and have plenty of gain and headroom for my mics (KM184).
For the record the MOTU drivers and apps have been hardcore solid with my Macs, running fine under Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion. I haven't suffered a single crash, freeze or strange behavior in the Ultralite or any of my plugins or recording apps. And my sessions and editing go on for 4 or 5 hours at a stretch.
The only "gotcha" is a minor one: the control knobs are rather tiny, black against black and close together but I realize the size is a design choice you make to squeeze everything into a half rack space. I'd rather have portability than a full rack unit with big honkin' knobs. Sliver colored knobs would be easier to see in your typical darkly lit studio.
MOTU is at its core a Mac centric company. I actually bought their first product, Professional Composer in 1986, running it on a tiny beige Mac. I think some of the Windows users have suffered a bit because of MOTU's lack of experience with PCs. I'm guessing it's more difficult to develop PC drivers due to greater hardware variations and flavors of Windows. Whatever, I'm a happy camper and their products have been solid for me. The only PITA is MOTU's copy protection is rather draconian.
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