M-Audio LightBridge - looking for comments

[dnafe]

Hi all

I'm thinking of straddling the dark side and was wondering if anyone has any experience with the M-Audio Profire Lightbridge, i.e. quality of converters, build, ease of use especially with that program

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFireLightbridge.html


thanks in advance

Don

[Audio~Geek]

DON'T ask David Aurora about this.
you don't want to know the problems he had with it.

I think Bob has some good experience with it.

[dnafe]

I want the good the bad and the ugly.

Basically I'm just looking to fly tracks between two rigs and this seems to be the toy to use with that program...that being said I have read some nightmare situations over on GS and RO so I'm still undecided...hell I don't even know if I want to jump on that bandwagon

[Bob Olhsson]

It uses the new TC Electronics firewire to digital audio chip. There were some big driver problems with everything using that chip at first but I can't imagine they haven't got it sorted out at this point.

Be aware that the reputation of M-Audio did a 180 the second Avid bought them despite the majority of their products having been designed and manufactured prior to that time! The bad-rapping from digi-bashers needs to be taken with a block of salt.

[dnafe]

Seems most of the bitching is about channel assignment that users find irritating and a couple of install problems.

Other than that the thing seems to perform as advertised for most people.

Anxiously awaiting David's horror stories

hehehe

[clicktrack]

I did use it...briefly.

Not a fan.

Now this is coming from someone who used a few of the pre-Avid M-Audio products and never had a problem with them, their drivers or support. (Audiophile 2469...err 2496, Delta 1010).

This device, however, made me think twice.
A couple of odd things with it:
1) If you have a bus powered port, you CANNOT use the included power supply. Apparently this can destroy the device. I was lucky to have read that little tidbit 2 milliseconds before I plugged my unit into the computer with the AC supply plugged in. Apparently M-Audio hasn't fixed this as yet.

2) I was trying to use it with a Logic on a Mac. There was a problem where the first channel (or two?) would not show up in the Audio-Midi config. No matter what you did. As a result, you ended up with assignments being screwed up, and two un-available ports. Because they were the FIRST two, it means that all your port numbering and assignments to other pieces of gear are fully screwed up. (i.e. 1-8 output from your nib nob become mis-aligned, so you loose channel 1, but channel 2 is labelled as channel 1 etc).

I would stay away from this thing. I think in some circumstances it can work, and when it works, it probably works fine. I just couldn't get it there. And any piece of gear you need to dance around to get it working is the totally incorrect piece of gear for me. I have too many self-induced stress situations to need to fight with a piece of gear onsite.

I'm trying to find out some information about the similar (but more expensive) presonus offering. Although, to me, presonus falls into the same level zen-titude of prosumer-ness that M-Audio suffers from, I get the impression that it is a bit more stable than the m-audio offering is.

Hope it helps!

Cheers


P.S. I purposefully kept my usage of explitives to a minimum when referring to this box. Methinks that David Aurora will most likely fill in enough for the both of us ;).

[Audio~Geek]

theres this: http://thewombforums.com/showthread.php?t=7672&highlight=lightbridge

and man it wouldnt surprise me if its my hardware. fucking m-audio profire lightbridge piece of shit, its been nothing but headaches since i bought it.

as far as I know, he's not using one anymore. unless he's a true massochist, which is entirely possible since he did switch to Logic.

[dnafe]

Ya think David's a little unhappy

:icon_eek:

[Bitpusher]

I've had nothing but good experiences with this unit, though the initial firmware update took hours. For what I used it for, it performed pretty well. It seems a lot of folks have issues with the older and newest drivers, but I stayed using Win driver 5.10.0.5043 and never had any hiccups. I've used it on Mac, with Logic and it worked during that brief time. I decided to sell it though, but not because it was a bad unit. I agree with Bob Olhsson's comments, and generally believe most of the horror stories can be dated to it's early release. Maybe a few of us were lucky, or maybe they've ironed out the problems, I'm still not sure. But when it performs badly, it really performs badly it seems.

Speaking of, sorry for not responding to your pm dnafe. The unit was sold.

[Bob Olhsson]

The Presonus stuff uses the same chip as does some recent MOTU stuff. TC probably writes the drivers for all. I've seen very few recent negative reports.

[David Aurora]

Oh man.... what do I have to do to ensure you DON'T buy one? Can I buy you a pony or something in exchange for your promise to stay away from that hunk of shit?? Cause I will.


Let me clear up a couple points I've seen time and time again with this box first.

1. "It's an issue with early releases"
- Not true. Sorry. I've pretty much tested it with every driver I could get my hands on, supported or not. The unit came out YEARS ago now. I bought mine this year. Surely that's not an early release (plus, I tried the replacement 6 months later and it was fucked too)
2. "It's a Digi-bashing issue"
- Maybe for some, but not here. Look, I fucking hate Digi hence switching platforms. BUT.... I wouldn't have bought an M-Audio product only to whine about it. I bought it cause it looked like it would do the job. I knew who the parent company was, but I still bought it.

Here's a simple test to perform. Mine failed this test, and the replacement I was offered failed this test, so unless I'm the unluckiest son of a bitch in the world I'd say it's likely a very common fault, and quite possibly applicable to all units.

Connect unit to another digital piece of equipment via S/PDIF. Either keep an eye on sync displays if you have them, or play music through so you can hear dropouts. Now, turn on a guitar amp or something.

Fail.

My unit (and the replacement) would drop sync if S/PDIF was connected and a bee took a shit on a power line 3 blocks away. Disconnect S/PDIF, no problem with dropping sync.

Now even if you aren't using S/PDIF, say you're clocked via word clock and using ADAT, but the S/PDIF is physically connected the problem will happen. So the only way to reliably use the unit for important sessions is WITHOUT S/PDIF. Which wasn't an option for me, that totally fucks my way of working.

Oh, and the sync on the digital connections was useless. In my setup I do everything via word clock anyway so I didn't notice at first, but when I tried to connect the unit to other digital shit I found out it wasn't possible with some devices. My old 01V for example, just couldn't sync with it. Yet I've sync'd that thing to a billion devices before and never had a problem. I think again the problem came down to S/PDIF. If I recall correctly, opening the Lightbridge control panel and DISABLING S/PDIF allowed ADAT sync (even though that was already supposed to be the clock source).

So yeah, I dunno the problem in medical terms, but in my terms what's going on is the S/PDIF section is hyper sensitive to shit and spews it's wrath all over ALL it's connections somehow. And yes, by the way, the thing was used behind power conditioners (I tried a few), in a bunch of locations, on bus power and also on it's own power, on 2 different computers, both with built in firewire and also with add on cards. Failed in all situations.

Seems like a good time to repeat the point that THE BRAND NEW REPLACEMENT HAD IDENTICAL PROBLEMS.

I can see how in some setups the problems would never present themselves, but it seems like as soon as S/PDIF is involved it's game over.

OK, that aside, let's get to the more known problems.

As of last time I checked, the Leopard drivers (which I was using) were still in beta form and had been there for a long time. Don't hold your breath with their drivers.

Installing firmware updates with this box is VERY hit or miss. Hint- do the EXACT opposite of what their instructions tell you and it will work perfectly. I lost countless hours to this shit until I tried the opposite of the instructions.

Yeah, the "double powering" issue. For some reason, some dumbshit at M-Audio didn't think to create some kind of prevention for double powering. So DO NOT plug the unit into a powered firewire buss with the wall wart connected. I can't even remember the last piece of gear I came across that was this poorly thought out.

Headphone jack = useless. Never tried the monitor outs so I can't speak for those.

Channel ordering is fucking ridiculous. Very poorly organised. Not exactly sure what clicktrack meant about losing channels though, I had access to all mine when the control panel was set in the required way, but yeah it totally warped your channel labelling. I can let this go though, my new interface (a Focusrite) isn't much better in this regard.

I'm getting tired. That's some of my nightmare though. Any questions?

[Bob Olhsson]

FWIW I've had huge issues where I teach with core-audio dropping sync with SPDIF if you breathe on it with several but not all of our 14 Mac Pros.

Since I think we're talking about a PeeCee, just make sure the box can be returned if it doesn't work.

[David Aurora]

FWIW I've had huge issues where I teach with core-audio dropping sync with SPDIF if you breathe on it with several but not all of our 14 Mac Pros.

Since I think we're talking about a PeeCee, just make sure the box can be returned if it doesn't work.


sounds like a major pain in the ass bob. i should point out though for the sake of this thread that the problem in my case was definitely the interface and not core audio problems

[red tape]

I've been using it with no trouble on PC for over a year now.
Great way to use PT without Digi/M-audio converters being involved.

Haven't used the SPDIF, in fact I think I've had it turned off since day one.
Maybe that's why I've had no issues ;)

[Bitpusher]

I never used the SPDIF I/O either. That's shitty David Aurora, M-Audio should really be doing a fucking recall if people are going through that type of trouble with not only old, but new ones.

[Bob Olhsson]

I have a hard time imagining that very many people are having trouble. If they were, the dealers wouldn't be touching it with a ten foot pole.

[David Aurora]

I have a hard time imagining that very many people are having trouble. If they were, the dealers wouldn't be touching it with a ten foot pole.

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

sorry bob but do you remember products like the control 24 or the digi002? i seem to remember quite a few major issues with those when they came out but they were always in stock. not to mention ANYTHING ever made by behringer :lol:

the m-audio box is way less popular than those, so i can see how it could easily slip inder the radar. especially the fact that the problem is the s/pdif, but its marketed mainly as an adat interface. so some users may never have a problem

but also, as much as i would love to be as trusting of dealers as you are in this post man, im not anymore. you know what the guys in the store said when i showed them the problem on two separate units and ended up paying the difference and buying something else? something along the lines of "just box them up again and put them back out on the floor for some other sucker".

[David Aurora]

p.s. theres an easy way to confirm how widespread the problem is- try to recreate the problems ive had. simple. theres a few here with these interfaces.