MOTU Ultralite with HVX200

kwoff

kwoff

Well-known member
I have a MOTU Ultralite, which I use for field recording to a PowerBook and attached to a G5 Mac for monitoring in the studio. I am happy with the gear for these purposes. The unit also can be used as a stand-alone mixer (without a computer), but I have not tried that. I am wondering if anyone has experience using an Ultralite as a mixer with their HVX200. Will using it in this way improve the quality of audio recorded to the camera (as opposed to using no mixer at all)?

Any feedback gratefully accepted.

Thanks,
Kevin Wolff
 
more of a hassle if you ask me. I have a SD302 and a Ultralite and i just go straight to camera most of the time.
 
Well, I haven't used the ultralight, but I do use a Traveler which should be similar. The audio quality (primarily of the preamps) is definitely much better than with the camera alone... I think the Ultralight will also run off of battery power, no? If so, it could work well and not be a lot less convenient than a production mixer.

In any case, using any decent external preamps will provide a boost in audio quality compared to the camera alone, and the ones on the MOTU units are significantly better than "decent". If you want even better quality, hook up a compact flash device like the MicroTrack to the Ultralight also (so you have a dual-recording system) digitally using S/PDIF... doesn't add much bulk, gets great results if you can deal with the slight hassle.
 
If you have a powerbook, then you might want to look at BoomRecorder, which gives you multi-track ISO recording capabilities and works with the Motu products. I'm using it as my primary recorder now, and it works great. You can check it out at http://www.vosgames.nl

Phil
 
I don't think the ultralite runs off battery power. I'm between getting that and the traveler. If it does I'll get the ultralite. Also, has anyone tried hooking up their traveler to an anton bauer battery system? I see that B&H sells a 4 pin xlr to powertap cable. The Traveler only needs 12 volts and 12 watts. I'm thinking it might work........what do you think?
 
Thanks for the comments everyone.

The Ultralite will run from the firewire bus, but it is not battery powered.

It sounds like the consensus is that I should be using the UltraLite when recording directly to the camera. With respect to using a microtrack, if I were to do dual-system recording, wouldn't the quality be better recording directly to the PowerBook, which will also power the UltraLite without the need for an external power source?

Ptalsky, when recording to my laptop, I currently use Logic Pro, but I recently noticed Boomrecorder. It looks like it may be a simpler solution for field recording. For use with the UltraLite, which has only two preamps, the Lite version should be adequate, and it is very inexpensive. Is there any reason I would want to get the Pro version instead with its 64 track recording capability?

Will Pound, I debated between the UltraLite and the Traveler. If you don't mind the extra size and higher price tag, the two additional preamps on the Traveler look pretty tempting.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Kevin
 
Hey Kevin, thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure if the the laptop can produce a powered firewire connection. I'm a PC guy not a Mac, and I know my laptop (4pin f/w connection) does not provide power. Last time I looked no one is making a card that allows for a 6 pin powered connection for laptops. Can a Mac book pull this off??? If so, I may have to switch teams....
thanks for your input
 
I have an older PowerBook, rather than a MacBook, but both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro (and All Macintoshes, for that matter) also have 6-pin firewire ports that can power appropriate portable devices. I am almost certain that I am remembering correctly that the Traveler can be powered through the firewire port, but I would check the MOTU site to be sure.
 
I think that a MacBook running windows is the only way to get a powered firewire port on a PC laptop. I have seen some FW cards/cables that hava an extra plug for the USB port, and steal power from there to power FW devices... but I wouldn't trust that arrangement for anything critical...
 
Kevin,

If all you're doing right now is two-track recording, then the lite version is perfect (BTW, Take, the author of BR suggested I look at purchasing BR in Euros rather than dollars, and he was right, I ended up saving about $60 on the full version - make sure your CC company doesn't add fees for foreign transactions). You can always upgrade later to the full version.

Phil
 
Thanks for the info, ptalsky. I noticed on the BoomRecorder site that the Lite version won't do stereo with timecode, since it is limited to two tracks and the app uses one track for timecode. So it looks like the full version may be the only real option for video work. I'll have to check out the price in euros.

Kevin
 
And, if you have any questions, you can always email Take. He is another one of those sound vendors that I refer to as a mensch - he takes care of his customers (no pun intended). And he listens to feedback from them and is always adding new features.

Phil
 
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