MOTU AVB interfaces. Thoughts?

[SamuelBLupowitz]

I posted about this over in Dr. Mike's forum, but I thought I could benefit from the brain trust here as well (KuruPrionz, of course, has already read my ramblings about this...).

 

I've been looking for an interface to put at the center of my new home studio. Unlike a lot of project studios, the focus is really going to be on full band tracking, as well as regular rehearsing and livestreaming (once Covid settles down and we can all get in a room together again, of course). That means I need a lot of I/O, to mic up a full band and to send everyone individual mixes for their headphones or IEMs. Really, I want to keep the studio workflow similar to the live shows we're doing with our drummer's Behringer XR18. Since we'll be operating the DAW from behind keyboards or drums other than the very rare occasion we bring in an outside engineer, tablet or phone control over all the mixes is ideal, rather than having to jump up and run to an interface to tweak gain settings or turn phantom power on or off. Something that will function as a standalone, low-latency mixer with effects will be great for individual monitoring, for live streaming, and for rehearsing, and a workflow that easily switches over to recording multitrack in Logic is exactly the "self-sustaining creative music space" vibe I'm trying to foster.

 

But most of those digital rack mixers, even the higher-end ones, aren't really meant as studio devices. Even though most of them will function as an interface, even the schmancy Yamaha TF Rack caps out at 48k. I often record my multitrack sessions at 48k, but I also often overdub on other people's sessions, and getting tracks recorded at 96k or above is pretty common.

 

So there's always ADAT for stringing together a bunch of interfaces, and purchasing further devices to get the physical outputs I need for full-band monitoring. But I found one single product on the market that works like a digital rack mixer, but is also designed to be a studio interface (with sample rates up to 192k): the MOTU Stage-B16.

 

At this point I'm pretty well settled on this device, since it's expandable if I ever need more I/O, it's got a browser-accessible mixer app the whole band can use, and the dearth of quarter inch inputs or outputs, while annoying, is manageable. I've used MOTU gear to make records in the past and not had any issues. But I'm curious about other folks' experiences. There's the voice in my head that says "if you don't spend the extra dough on Universal Audio or Apogee gear, everyone will know that you're a hack whose records don't sound good." I tend to be of the mind that it's the music and the musicians, not the gear the record is made on, but I don't want gear that's going to get in the way of me making great sounding records. I have a feeling the preamps and converters in the MOTU will be as good as anything I've worked on in the past, other than maybe the Apogee Element I have at work, but like I said, I'd love to hear others' experiences since I'm not super familiar with this product line and have no way to really test it.

 

So tell me why I should (or shouldn't, I guess) pull the trigger and start friggin' tracking!

[Anderton]

Well, you kinda can't go wrong with MOTU. Their stuff is rock-solid and designed for the real world. PreSonus is also on the AVB bandwagon and has stage boxes (with combo inputs, so you have your 1/4" option) and mixers, but their stage boxes top out at 48 kHz so that's probably a deal-breaker for you. It seems that something like QSC's TouchMix-30 Pro would be an ideal candidate with 32 inputs and the live mixing+studio orientation, but it also tops out at 48 kHz.

 

My only caution is that higher sample rates reduce the available I/O, which of course is to be expected. I suspect these limitations won't matter given your needs, but I'd check anyway just so you know what to expect. If you want to run lots of channels at 96 or 192 kHz, you may need to factor in the cost of an additional expander.

 

That said, all my experience with MOTU hardware has more than met expectations. When Apple dropped the price of Logic to $199, removed it from stores, and kneecapped the companies that made Mac-only software, I was concerned MOTU would have real problems. But, the loyalty of Performer users, and the quality of their hardware, seems to have enabled MOTU to weather the storm.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Thanks Craig! This is the sort of feedback I needed. The internet is full of people saying 'this is garbage' and 'this is the best thing ever,' and neither extreme is really helpful.

 

Thanks for pointing out the limitations at higher sample rates, too â noted, and shouldn"t be an issue for my needs at this time. I think I should follow my gut and pull the trigger on the MOTU (and maybe a couple of XLR male to TRS female adapters if I need to run a keyboard submix in or something).

[Markyboard]

I"m not up on all these MOTU interfaces. However forum member Husker brought this to my attention very recently. It looks very impressive but I"m not sure if it lacks specific features you"re looking for. My initial impression is the AVB looks more live oriented whereas this looks like a better fit for the studio.

 

I believe Husker also got a 24 Chn expansion unit. Can"t remember the model #.

[Mike Rivers]

PreSonus is also on the AVB bandwagon and has stage boxes (with combo inputs, so you have your 1/4" option) and mixers, but their stage boxes top out at 48 kHz so that's probably a deal-breaker for you. It seems that something like QSC's TouchMix-30 Pro would be an ideal candidate with 32 inputs and the live mixing+studio orientation, but it also tops out at 48 kHz.

 

I think I may have suggested a mixer, but as I said in another post, all of these modestly priced digital mixers, while they have plenty of inputs and outputs, aren't configured for recording use.

 

My only caution is that higher sample rates reduce the available I/O, which of course is to be expected. I suspect these limitations won't matter given your needs, but I'd check anyway just so you know what to expect.

 

From the MOTU specs:

 

Total I/O 16 in and 12 out (28 total) at 1x sample rates

16 in and 12 out (28 total) at 2x sample rates

16 in and 8 out (24 total) at 4x sample rates

Computer I/O 1 x USB 2.0 audio class compliant

USB 3.0 and iOS compatible

1 x AVB Ethernet (requires OS X Yosemite)

Computer I/O channels USB 2.0 (44.1 to 48 kHz): 64 in/out

USB 2.0 (88.2 to 96 kHz): 32 in/out

USB 2.0 (176.4 to 192 kHz): 24 in/out

AVB Ethernet: 16 to 128 in/out, depending on

host computer speed

 

It looks like you have plenty of USB channels at the higher sample rates. If the job is to mix a project that comes in at 96 kHz, that would be loaded on to the computer and at 96 kHz, you still have 32 inputs and outputs (I think that means 16 of each), which should be plenty, and plenty of analog channels at 2x sample rate.