[LAU] Hardware - Soundcard - MOTU Ultralite AVB - Working Gnu/Linux Debian 8.7

[Len Ovens]

On Thu, 30 Mar 2017, list wrote:

> Just put my hands on one Motu Ultralite AVB
>
> Work out of the box - Debian/Gnu 8.7 - with Jackd / Qjackctl (with
> an .asoundrc, not sure usefull to record, but needed to play audio from
> the browser with html5 videos online)
>
> Plugged in USB.
> Plugged with RJ45 cable to a hub, total access to the internal software
> with firefox on the IP address assigned to the card - DHCP working -  to
> change all the routing/effects/mixing of the card. 
> Firmware update through the web interface too.
> Plugged quickly a microphone, worked with Ardour.

Thank you for your report. That is one of the AIs I have been looking at 
to replace my aging delta66. I have been looking at that one both because 
it is USB 2.0 compliant (as your report comfirms) and because it has AVB 
(and is therefore expandable) which I would like to experiment with. I 
have already picked up an intel i210 NIC (two of them actually) for this 
purpose.

> This is a really good idea to put all the controls on the card, with a
> web browser, this make this card «agnostic» from the OS
> Can not believe this from MOTU...hope others major brands will follow
> this idea.

While motu does mention linux on their site for these IFs, I suspect it is 
a side effect of making it work easy with MacOS (which comes with AVB 
built in) and being AVB compliant where things need to be controlable over 
the net. Still, "works for me".

Interesting that your computer shows that you have 48channels all 
together, but the spec says at 96k you should have 64 (32 each direction) 
with 28 internal and the rest through AVB. I guess it is possible some of 
these are mixer generated (the ice1712 does that). It appears that at 48k 
this box will set your computer up for as many as 128channels (64/64 i/o). 
I am not sure where they all come from though, other places talk about 3 8 
channels streams at a time which is only an extra 24.

Ok reading the manual, the mixer is 24/24 i/o SO that is where the 24/24 
comes from. It looks like the ultralite has 18 inputs and can only accept 
one extra AVB stream of 8 more while having 18 outputs with the ability to 
add two more AVB output streams for a total of 16 more. I don't see 64/64 
from any of that.

With direct AVB to computer, they suggest the limits (depending on the 
computer resources) as 256 channels total or 32 streams. The total network 
load can be over 500.

Reality check: it is rare even now for me to use more than two inputs and 
two outputs of my current 6/4 i/o... I have only 8 mic pre. So all of this 
for me is just spec. I would probably throttle it to 8/8 for my use.


--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net