Good eye there Simon. Yep, that's a MOTU 828MK3 on the left. I had the same issues with Firewire. Had to get a special Firewire card for my computer that was supposed to correct all the FW issues. Worked ok, but it was still hit and miss many times. Gave up and went USB, no problems since.

Buried further down in the pic, behind the Montage is a Yammy TX802 on the right and a MOTU MIDI Express XT on the left. Using the MIDI Express I can hook all of my synths up once and use them all as needed without playing with MIDI wires all the time. All audio feeds into the MK3.

The system is much more capable than I'll ever be...but such is the life of a hardware junkie!

Jeff

Win11, Intel i7 7700K 4.2Ghz, 32Gb RAM, 2x1Tb HD, 500Gb NVMe, BIAB/RB 2025, MOTU 828MK3 audio, MOTU Midi Express, Yamaha Montage 7, DX7II, TX802, Motif XS Rack, Roland Fantom XR Rack, Oberheim Matrix 1000, VoiceLive3 Extreme, Kontakt 6, SampleTank 4.3