# PC: MOTU M2 dropping audio



## David Lai

Hi everyone!
After getting my MOTU M2 hooked up with my USB C port, I found that occasionally it would cut out the audio and then the audio would return again. I tried all other non-USB C ports (only 1 on my laptop), changed buffer size from 256 to 512 then back, checked all power settings on Windows and disabled all means of USB power management, and even updated my bios firmware. I can't look at bios because I'm totally blind and bios has no screen reader support. The diagnostics info presents the error code x00020002, and says that the USB host port has dropped audio. Usually this dropped audio occurs when I try to open or close a software window on the computer like the mail or web browser, and sometimes when I play the piano or listen to music, the dropping out of audio would hit too. I'm pretty certain that a buffer size of 256 samplesis the lowest latency I can manage without introducing additional pops and clicks, so we will stay at 256.
Any thoughts as to how to solve the problem? The MOTU tech support has also reported this to the development team, so I guess I'll wait for now.
Thanks!
David
Laptop: Dell Precision 3540 with an updated 32 GB of ram and a 2TB SSD. The CPU is Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz 1.99 GHz, and the operating system is Windows 10 version 2004 X64.


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## Audio Birdi

The MOTU M2 has had constant problems with dropouts on Windows, which was frustrating when I had one, as it's a truly great interface, but I feel the drivers aren't too good unfortunately :(

I'd tried various buffer sizes and USB ports too. Still a no-go and unfortunately ended up returning it. Tech support gave me the suggestions you've done already. It's a shame to see these dropout issues still occurring.


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## David Lai

Audio Birdi said:


> The MOTU M2 has had constant problems with dropouts on Windows, which was frustrating when I had one, as it's a truly great interface, but I feel the drivers aren't too good unfortunately :(
> 
> I'd tried various buffer sizes and USB ports too. Still a no-go and unfortunately ended up returning it. Tech support gave me the suggestions you've done already. It's a shame to see these dropout issues still occurring.



Really? Now that's tough!! Then, what do you suggest? I was hoping that this would be my ultimate final decision in purchase, sothat everything could be settled...


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## Audio Birdi

David Lai said:


> Really? Now that's tough!! Then, what do you suggest? I was hoping that this would be my ultimate final decision in purchase, sothat everything could be settled...


This is what I was most frustrated about too and seriously thought it was the best bang-for-buck, which it still is apart from Windows drivers :(. I've not got a new interface yet as most are silly prices due to covid and everything being out of stock most places too.

I've heard good things about Audient interfaces, great converters and they keep updating the latency amount with their driver updates which is cool. Also, the EVGA Nu Audio PCI-e sound card was tested by the Scan Pro Audio team and they recommend it.

I'm tempted by the Focusrite Scarlett 3rd gen series but not sure quite yet as drivers for the 1st gen were pretty bad, but have since improved a lot, still weary though.

I do kind of feel the whole "RME or nothing" bandwagon have a point, but the cost is out of reach for sure unless I spent a long while saving up.


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## David Lai

Audio Birdi said:


> This is what I was most frustrated about too and seriously thought it was the best bang-for-buck, which it still is apart from Windows drivers :(. I've not got a new interface yet as most are silly prices due to covid and everything being out of stock most places too.
> 
> I've heard good things about Audient interfaces, great converters and they keep updating the latency amount with their driver updates which is cool. Also, the EVGA Nu Audio PCI-e sound card was tested by the Scan Pro Audio team and they recommend it.
> 
> I'm tempted by the Focusrite Scarlett 3rd gen series but not sure quite yet as drivers for the 1st gen were pretty bad, but have since improved a lot, still weary though.
> 
> I do kind of feel the whole "RME or nothing" bandwagon have a point, but the cost is out of reach for sure unless I spent a long while saving up.



That's interesting. Well, being blind means that it would be better if the controls were tactile, and the nobs are not endless encoders, which the MOTU M2 accomplishes beautifully. I only use the audio interface for latency issues, and since it provides balanced outputs for monitors, I can take advantage of that too. This audio drop out thing is the only problem I'm having... Sad!


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## haydn12

I have the MOTU M4 which uses the same drivers. No dropouts at all. I'm using it with Cakewalk by Bandlab. Running the buffer size at 128 for rock tracks. I usually have move the buffer up 256 if doing classical tracks with about 25 VSTi instances loaded. I could run the rock tracks lower but the latency isn't noticeable at 128 for recording guitar and bass.


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## creativeforge

Not sure if it has to do with conflicts in your laptop.

Just in case (don't want to insult you, so don't be offended, just trying to help with basic stuff, going by elimination).

The Windows audio settings can be a pain sometimes, and sometimes I never know which combination to keep.



Sweetwater has some instructions too:


*IMPORTANT: *_Windows sets the default playback device to Output Channels *3 & 4 *on M4 interfaces. You will need to go into Windows Sound Settings and manually change the default output to Channels *1 & 2*.
You need to download and install the MOTU M-Series driver in order to connect with a Windows PC. The interface won’t be able to connect without it. Mac computers do not require driver installation, but it is recommended for the lowest round trip latency and stereo loopback inputs. Install the driver software and restart your computer to complete the setup. 
_

_*Windows:* Change the Sample Rate and Buffer Size with the MOTU M-Series app._


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## David Lai

Hi friends!
Replying to a couple of posts here at the same time, so I'll not quote each.
The first post -- really admire you that you don't have any drop outs! You've got yourself a wonderful audio interface in my opinion!
To the second post, you didn't offend me at all. I got the M2, and I did follow the instructions. In fact, my screen reader is echoing back the letters through the M2 interface to my KRK Rokit5 G4's as I type this reply. I'm pretty sure that all my Windows settings are up to date, and power management settings are turned off. According to the email I received from MOTU this past afternoon, they believe it's the USB chipset not being able to keep up with the audio data sent to it. But I'm connecting to a USB C port! I guess the only way to look at it is through Bios, but being fully blind means that I can't navigate Bios on my own, and my house mate doesn't speak very good English to read these things to me. I can't use Team Viewer to do Bios. Is there any way for the Bios to be projected through a phone's camera? ThatI don't know.


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## Quasar

To the OP, sorry for your troubles. In search of a secondary portable interface (mainly just for location recording of one or two audio tracks) I looked long and hard at the M2/M4 on the interwebs, wanted to like it enough to buy it, but have read enough of these sorts of instability reports (in Windows, not MacOS AFAIK) that I got scared away and got an Audient iD14 instead...

...I figured I knew what I was getting at least: reliability and good pres, even if not RME level RTL, and so far the Audient has worked exactly as advertised and I'm happy with it. It would be great if MOTU gets their driver act together for the M2/M4, but quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggests they haven't yet done so. It seems to be hit or miss with Windows users, which is a shame, because the feature/price ratio is otherwise extremely attractive.


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## David Lai

Quasar said:


> To the OP, sorry for your troubles. In search of a secondary portable interface (mainly just for location recording of one or two audio tracks) I looked long and hard at the M2/M4 on the interwebs, wanted to like it enough to buy it, but have read enough of these sorts of instability reports (in Windows, not MacOS AFAIK) that I got scared away and got an Audient iD14 instead...
> 
> ...I figured I knew what I was getting at least: reliability and good pres, even if not RME level RTL, and so far the Audient has worked exactly as advertised and I'm happy with it. It would be great if MOTU gets their driver act together for the M2/M4, but quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggests they haven't yet done so. It seems to be hit or miss with Windows users, which is a shame, because the feature/price ratio is otherwise extremely attractive.


I agree with you completely! Actually, all I want is a high-quality output for my speakers, a low latency asio driver for my virtual piano software’s, and a function that allows me to capture my live playing through the high-quality internal recording audio. The MOTU M2 checks all the boxes, but the only problem I’m having is the fact that it cuts out audio from time to time. If there are similar audio interfaces that have easy control, and very important, rotary encoders with boundaries, then I’d be happy to try out another interface.


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## David Lai

Reviving this thread a bit. Is it possible to increase how much power is fed into the USB port using BIOS? Or should I buy a AC-powered USB hub? Will this solve the problem completely or should I change to a different audio interface?


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## David Lai

haydn12 said:


> I have the MOTU M4 which uses the same drivers. No dropouts at all. I'm using it with Cakewalk by Bandlab. Running the buffer size at 128 for rock tracks. I usually have move the buffer up 256 if doing classical tracks with about 25 VSTi instances loaded. I could run the rock tracks lower but the latency isn't noticeable at 128 for recording guitar and bass.



Are you using it on a laptop or desktop? Mine is a laptop, the Dell Precision 3540.


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## haydn12

I am on a desktop using a USB-C port.


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## David Lai

haydn12 said:


> I am on a desktop using a USB-C port.



Ah, I am on a laptop with a USBC port -- I guess laptops are less stable?


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## haydn12

I build my own computers and pick the components carefully. The software is pretty stripped down and computer is only used for Audio or video editing. I have another computer for running Office apps, paying bills, internet and an occasional game of golf. I have very few issues with either computer. I may see a couple crashes a year.


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## David Lai

haydn12 said:


> I build my own computers and pick the components carefully. The software is pretty stripped down and computer is only used for Audio or video editing. I have another computer for running Office apps, paying bills, internet and an occasional game of golf. I have very few issues with either computer. I may see a couple crashes a year.



You are certainly a person with lots of patience and determination. Good for you!!!


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## David Lai

It looks like the dropping audio problem is most annoying after I played a DVD video. Indeed, the audio kept going on and off and on and off... as the video was playing, and after the video it still kept going on and off and on and off and on and off... I wonder if it was something to do with the driver for my MOTU, or is it that my CPU needs greater power?


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## Audio Birdi

David Lai said:


> It looks like the dropping audio problem is most annoying after I played a DVD video. Indeed, the audio kept going on and off and on and off... as the video was playing, and after the video it still kept going on and off and on and off and on and off... I wonder if it was something to do with the driver for my MOTU, or is it that my CPU needs greater power?


I honestly feel it's the driver that MOTU has made, as many on GS have experienced dropouts on Windows, which is frustrating since they ended up making ridiculously good macOS drivers for the M-series of their audio interfaces.


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## David Lai

Audio Birdi said:


> I honestly feel it's the driver that MOTU has made, as many on GS have experienced dropouts on Windows, which is frustrating since they ended up making ridiculously good macOS drivers for the M-series of their audio interfaces.



Then do you suggest I hold on to it and wait for them to fix their driver? It's been 3 months since any sort of updates, and even MOTU tech support believes it was the power that's fed to the USB C port not enough for the audio interface, which I find to be really odd -- come on, it's USB C! They designed it for the USB C port and they say that this port doesn't feed the interface much power? That's really strange in my opinion.


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## puremusic

I've heard other folks saying the MOTU drivers for Windows can have issues for some. If you have a MAC they apparently work great. I wouldn't wait for a fix.


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## David Lai

puremusic said:


> I've heard other folks saying the MOTU drivers for Windows can have issues for some. If you have a MAC they apparently work great. I wouldn't wait for a fix.



Well, I guess I'm now in the unfortunate few here... Well, maybe a dac would be also suitable? Since all I need is a reliable audio device to play virtual pianos with lower latency and better performance than whatever the computer offers, while at the same time boost my listening experience when listening to music.


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## RonOrchComp

David Lai said:


> Hi everyone!
> After getting my MOTU M2 hooked up with my USB C port, I found that occasionally it would cut out the audio and then the audio would return again. I tried all other non-USB C ports (only 1 on my laptop), changed buffer size from 256 to 512 then back, checked all power settings on Windows and disabled all means of USB power management, and even updated my bios firmware. I can't look at bios because I'm totally blind and bios has no screen reader support. The diagnostics info presents the error code x00020002, and says that the USB host port has dropped audio. Usually this dropped audio occurs when I try to open or close a software window on the computer like the mail or web browser, and sometimes when I play the piano or listen to music, the dropping out of audio would hit too. I'm pretty certain that a buffer size of 256 samplesis the lowest latency I can manage without introducing additional pops and clicks, so we will stay at 256.
> Any thoughts as to how to solve the problem? The MOTU tech support has also reported this to the development team, so I guess I'll wait for now.
> Thanks!
> David
> Laptop: Dell Precision 3540 with an updated 32 GB of ram and a 2TB SSD. The CPU is Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz 1.99 GHz, and the operating system is Windows 10 version 2004 X64.



In order to get the best USB performance, you have to ensure that the port you plug your MOTU into does not share bandwidth with anything else.

Check your manual for which ports share bandwidth, and which do not.


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## David Lai

RonOrchComp said:


> In order to get the best USB performance, you have to ensure that the port you plug your MOTU into does not share bandwidth with anything else.
> 
> Check your manual for which ports share bandwidth, and which do not.



Well, it is a separate USB C port. That most certainly doesn't share bandwidth, as it only has one such port on my laptop.


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## Audio Birdi

David Lai said:


> Then do you suggest I hold on to it and wait for them to fix their driver? It's been 3 months since any sort of updates, and even MOTU tech support believes it was the power that's fed to the USB C port not enough for the audio interface, which I find to be really odd -- come on, it's USB C! They designed it for the USB C port and they say that this port doesn't feed the interface much power? That's really strange in my opinion.


I'd return it / sell it, if they've not updated drivers in months and yourself as well as other people have had similar / the same issues with the drivers, then there's going to be a long wait for them to fix it unfortunately. It's an amazing interface and nothing beats it for the price, so it's a shame that the drivers themselves for Windows are not up to standard of the interface itself :/. I know MOTU have been Mac only in the past I think and Windows driver writing probably isn't their strongest suite unless it's their AVB range, but even that had bad drivers when they finally made them Windows compatible.


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## David Lai

Audio Birdi said:


> I'd return it / sell it, if they've not updated drivers in months and yourself as well as other people have had similar / the same issues with the drivers, then there's going to be a long wait for them to fix it unfortunately. It's an amazing interface and nothing beats it for the price, so it's a shame that the drivers themselves for Windows are not up to standard of the interface itself :/. I know MOTU have been Mac only in the past I think and Windows driver writing probably isn't their strongest suite unless it's their AVB range, but even that had bad drivers when they finally made them Windows compatible.



OK, I'll talk with my Sweetwater sales engineer to return it -- but I must land on a product that would do similar audio things at low prices, less than $200!


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## RonOrchComp

David Lai said:


> Well, it is a separate USB C port.



And what does that mean? That means it may share bandwidth with something else. Or, maybe not. You can not assume these things; you have to read the manual.


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## David Lai

RonOrchComp said:


> And what does that mean? That means it may share bandwidth with something else. Or, maybe not. You can not assume these things; you have to read the manual.



The manual? It is not with me in America and I don't think I can access one. Do they have something online? That I don't know, unfortunately...... Are you saying that if this shares bandwidth with something else, that the first thing to do is to buy a new computer?


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## VladK

USB Power Delivery specification for USB 3.1 (supported by USB-C connectors) does not provide strict requirements on the source output power. There are 4 predefined voltages, but power supplies may support any maximum output power from 0.5 W to 100 W. And I would not expect a laptop to provide high power output.


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## RonOrchComp

David Lai said:


> The manual?



Yes, the manual.

Did you not get one when you bought the unit? If you bought it used, check MOTU's site. They are a reputable company; I find it hard to believe they dont have manuals for their products on their site.



David Lai said:


> Are you saying that if this shares bandwidth with something else, that the first thing to do is to buy a new computer?



Maybe. You have to find another port that does not share bandwidth, or find another computer. This is why desktops are preferred here.


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## RonOrchComp

VladK said:


> USB Power Delivery specification for USB 3.1 (supported by USB-C connectors) does not provide strict requirements on the source output power. There are 4 predefined voltages, but power supplies may support any maximum output power from 0.5 W to 100 W. And I would not expect a laptop to provide high power output.



Interesting - so you are saying that maybe the port is lacking power? Possible, I guess.


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## David Lai

RonOrchComp said:


> Interesting - so you are saying that maybe the port is lacking power? Possible, I guess.



I have the same question. Also, due to space limitations, I can't use a desktop at this time, plus laptops are easier to travel with. So I hope to keep my current setup.


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## dcoscina

I’ve experienced the same issues with the M2 on my MacBook Air i7. It did it on Mojave and also Catalina. When I’d be running a modest track in Studio One, it would cut out and I’d have to reset the thing. Also noticed this when using the M2 as the default sound for the system. While I love the design, it’s been a really PITA since it got it last year. So I picked up a UR12 (this is just for my portable rig- I have an Apollo Twin Duo for my larger rig). 

have to say the sound is much cleaner and the output is louder too on the UR compared to the M2. But then again Steinberg has always had its own drivers and the UR has been solid (I used to have the first gen UR22).

shame about the MOtU. Again, I love the design and build but it’s just too unstable and craps out at least once per session if not more per day even on general audio demands outside my daw. :(


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## thorwald

Since a different interface requirement came up, I thought I'd mention that I am super happy with my Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD.

It's nothing fancy, but it does the job and I get pretty decent latency, down to 64 in some cases.

The control panel works well with screen readers as well. I assume you use Reaper, no issues there either.


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## Dev174

Hello everyone!

First of all, excuse my english, I hope you will understand my point.

So, today I connected M2 to desktop and seems I have the problems as OP had.
I tried to disable USB power management (didn't work), tried to change several USB ports (front and back -- didn't work too), tried their cable and another one (same result).
And seems I've found the solution of this problem (not 100% sure but after approximately 1,5-2 hours of using there was none drops at all).
With their late WIN drivers (dated 17-03-2020) there are drop-outs of audio every 5 minutes. I tried their older driver (dated 21-11-2019) and It did work.
But there is one minus of using this driver -- when watching video in Youtube the sound appears ~0.5 sec after starting video (maybe one of another drivers could fix that problem and still be stable).
Hopefully it helps.

Their drivers changelog:





Download | MOTU.com







motu.com


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## johanes22

Try to change USB cable or using other USB port. I have same problem and fix it using another USB cable. Also don't use long USB cable , use standard length ( est. 30 cm )


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## David Lai

johanes22 said:


> Try to change USB cable or using other USB port. I have same problem and fix it using another USB cable. Also don't use long USB cable , use standard length ( est. 30 cm )


I tried different cables and different USB ports. My most powerful is A USB type C port, but all with the same result. I've since moved on to a FocusRite 4I4 3rd gen and it does all I want beautifully.


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## johanes22

David Lai said:


> I tried different cables and different USB ports. My most powerful is A USB type C port, but all with the same result. I've since moved on to a FocusRite 4I4 3rd gen and it does all I want beautifully.


Focusrite 4i4 is good , I love Focusrite too ( but mine is Focusrite 2i2 , have no loopback function :( , but if you want to evaluate bit depth 32bit on Motu compared with focusrite 24 bit, it is better to solve the problem ....... or you can give it to me , ha ha


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## David Lai

johanes22 said:


> Focusrite 4i4 is good , I love Focusrite too ( but mine is Focusrite 2i2 , have no loopback function :( , but if you want to evaluate bit depth 32bit on Motu compared with focusrite 24 bit, it is better to solve the problem ....... or you can give it to me , ha ha


Well, I only deal with 24-bit audio files (some hi-res 24-bit flac files), so the FocusRite does the job. A bit more than what I wanted to pay, but hey -- it gets it all done and has loopback, so I'm a happy camper now.


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## Pictus

I would try


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## Whiteboyrolly

Just install oldest driver , i solved this.


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