OK. So after a ton of testing I’ve concluded that it is indeed a compatibility issue with MOTUs direct monitoring, which is a bummer since it typically works so well, just not with the control room routing in Nuendo/Cubase I dropped in a borrowed 828 MKIII to see if it was a PCI 424 issue and found the exact same issues with the firewire interface as I did with the PCI stuff.
I switched over to Mac to see if it was a PC/Mac thing and discovered that you can’t do direct monitoring in Mac (it’s a Core Audio thing). That’s a pretty big bummer that you have to monitor with latency on a Mac or use Cue Mix, which is a crummy workaround. Granted working with a buffer of 64 isn’t too bad it’s still sucks to have to deal with latency at all.
I guess I never realized how easy we had it for so many years with rock solid, zero latency, tape machine-stye monitoring integrated with an analog desk/monitoring section. I think the Studio section in Nuendo is brilliant if it would work with direct monitoring, so I’ll have to come up with something else. I teach audio production at our university and am finding it harder and harder to explain and demonstrate how “normal” tape-machine style monitoring is supposed to be set up since most people start at home with low-end interfaces with the “blend” type monitoring or simply deal with latency. I totally understand that it’s not an easy problem to tackle. I just wish it was easier.
If someone has found a way to get this working I’d love to hear it! Thanks!