customer reviews
47 People rated this product :
6 out of 10
11 People wrote reviews
8 out of 10
"nearly indispensible bit of mac gear"
Feature:
see "Sound." lots of inputs, tiny box.
Quality:
amazingly robust for its weight & profile. don't know where the "brittle knob" complaint comes from. suggestion: don't try to hang your guitar on the knobs, maybe?
Value:
for the features, & for those who can afford a mac shop, it's perfect. probably not recommended for the windows world. you'll have problems, and there are other, less elegant solutions for you. don't buy one, i'd say, only to complain later that it's a "mac thing" or too expensive. instead, use google to find "windows firewire audio interface." or you might consider why so many happy, successful folks never have to wrestle with drivers & security patches...
Desirability:
certainly a sexy bit of gear. so tiny & capable. "all you brought is THAT?!"
Sound:
didn't use "10" because there may be better mic pre's out there. but this is 9.5...
Ease of Use:
the interface is far from intuitive and requires a bit of twiddling, but i haven't found a sound i want that i couldn't create. admittedly, this is not for noobs. experience with similar is required, but if you grok the "page & value" stuff, it's not a challenge. interfaces flawlessly with logic & coreaudio, but that's no surprise, since everything motu has been meant for mac for 25 years. probably a kludge with kludgy systems.
Support:
motu support has always been knowledgeable and accessible, although they can be impatient with dumb questions. hell, so am i.
Overall:
for its purpose, part of a studio i can fly around without blowing carry-on weight limits, i expect to have this for a long time.
Submitted: 7/26/2008
Style of Music: music
7 out of 10
"Support, Drivers? Thumbs down. Sound? Thumbs way up!"
Feature:
**** One problem I've had with the Ultralite is that it's drivers won't work with over 3 Gig of RAM. I have 4, but I can only use three because of this "known issue" (according to MOTU support, although they mean, "known to us, but we're not telling anyone about it until after they buy one"). Not wanting to waste memory, I recently bought a Focusrite Saffire, because their drivers don't care how much memory you use. But I ended up returning it, because the sound just couldn't match the Ultralite - the Saffire sounded very thin in comparison.
Another area the Saffire didn't measure up in was the headphone level. I'm a loud singer and I need plenty of level to track vocals, and I would've had to buy a headphone amp to be able to work with the Saffire. The Ultralite's are way loud enough.
Quality:
I've had some issues, but none with build quality. It's solid.
**** I will say if you're using Vista, turn off the Aero interface. I was having a lot of pop/hiss/click noise issues as a result of the MOTU drivers conflicting with Vista and the graphics card. Once I turned off Aero, no problems.
Value:
Worth the going price on sound quality alone.
Desirability:
Not the prettiest interface, or the best aesthetic design.
Sound:
The sound of this unit is impressive, especially at this price point. I've gotten impressive, near commercial quality vocal tracks running a Studio Projects C1 through a Studio Projects VTB1 into this unit. Playback of mixes and other audio also sounds great. It's accuracy has allowed me to produce better mixes.
Ease of Use:
It's true, the knobs are too close together. Once you get over that, it's a non-issue. The MOTU is pretty easy to dial in.
Support:
MOTU support leaves a lot to be desired. Expect to wait 48 hours for a response, and don't expect it to be too overly helpful when you get it. With regard to my memory issue, their response was basically, "Yeah, we knew about it all along. Guess you'll have to wait and hope for a driver update." Thanks, MOTU.
Overall:
I'm still looking for an interface that will match the sound quality of the MOTU, but will allow me to use all of my memory and have better drivers and support. Eventually I might have to move up to RME or something. But until then, I gotta stick with this interface for its sound and ignore its ugly side.
Submitted: 11/18/2007
Style of Music: Alternative Pop Rock
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