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Post by indiehouse on Mar 13, 2021 18:51:49 GMT -6
You can totally combine two 828ES's. You would get a total of 16 AD/DA I/O, plus 4 mic pre AD ins, plus all the digital I/O, and stereo outs on each and 4 x headphones. You see, it's really hard to deny the flexibility of the Motu ES interfaces at the prices they sell for. Dag. That's good to know. But I thought the 828es had 2 mic/line inputs plus 8 TRS line inputs = 10 inputs, so combining two 828es = 20 inputs (4 mic, 16 line), no? I looked in the manual, and the example screen capture of the mixer matrix shows the two mic inputs and 8 additional analog inputs as separately assignable channels. Or are saying, like the Apollo, the 2 mic inputs and 2 of the TRS line inputs are sharing the same A/D channels? Right. I think that’s what I said as well. 16+4 total.
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Post by notneeson on Mar 13, 2021 18:52:06 GMT -6
Thanks notneeson and jcoutu1. I built six CAPI preamps a while back and they are wonderful. I could build more, but it requires time, money, and investing in more chassis space to put them in. I've looked at prebuilt 4-channel preamps but none seem to hit the right price-for-quality mark. Iron Age 4 channel is 1200 bucks or something I think and should be pretty rad. That’s a banging deal. I should sell my vintage Spectra Sonics rack and get two of those.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 19:36:37 GMT -6
Thanks notneeson and jcoutu1. I built six CAPI preamps a while back and they are wonderful. I could build more, but it requires time, money, and investing in more chassis space to put them in. I've looked at prebuilt 4-channel preamps but none seem to hit the right price-for-quality mark. Iron Age 4 channel is 1200 bucks or something I think and should be pretty rad. Alas, up here in Canada it is $1550, plus shipping/taxes/etc. But I'll keep IAA in mind, looks like good stuff.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 19:46:35 GMT -6
That's good to know. But I thought the 828es had 2 mic/line inputs plus 8 TRS line inputs = 10 inputs, so combining two 828es = 20 inputs (4 mic, 16 line), no? I looked in the manual, and the example screen capture of the mixer matrix shows the two mic inputs and 8 additional analog inputs as separately assignable channels. Or are saying, like the Apollo, the 2 mic inputs and 2 of the TRS line inputs are sharing the same A/D channels? Right. I think that’s what I said as well. 16+4 total. Ah, sorry, I reread your post... thanks, all clear now. And yes that might be the perfect combination for me. Combined with my 11 outboard preamps, that would give me enough mic inputs. If not, I could combine the 828es and 828pre-es for a few hundred more $. The 16A is not really an option, due to it's higher price and the fact I don't need all those extra mic preamps. Again, thanks for these tips, it's great to know somebody that has gone the MOTU route with good results. Not sure how soon I'll need to follow - it depends on how long my Tascam DM-3200 driver stays compatible with my Mac Pro (2013) as I transition to Mac OS Catalina, then Big Sur eventually. Same holds true for potentially upgrading to an Apple M2 silicon machine (hoping Apple announces later this year an M2-based Mini with more RAM, and/or an 'affordable' new Mac Pro).
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 13, 2021 19:53:54 GMT -6
Right. I think that’s what I said as well. 16+4 total. Ah, sorry, I reread your post... thanks, all clear now. And yes that might be the perfect combination for me. Combined with my 11 outboard preamps, that would give me enough mic inputs. If not, I could combine the 828es and 828pre-es for a few hundred more $. The 16A is not really an option, due to it's higher price and the fact I don't need all those extra mic preamps. Again, thanks for these tips, it's great to know somebody that has gone the MOTU route with good results. Not sure how soon I'll need to follow - it depends on how long my Tascam DM-3200 driver stays compatible with my Mac Pro (2013) as I transition to Mac OS Catalina, then Big Sur eventually. Same holds true for potentially upgrading to an Apple M2 silicon machine (hoping Apple announces later this year an M2-based Mini with more RAM, and/or an 'affordable' new Mac Pro). FYI, the 16a doesn’t have any mic preamps.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 20:00:13 GMT -6
Thanks, at this point it does seem the A16 might be the best option. But it requires me to buy or build 3 to 5 more external mic preamps (e.g. CAPI kits plus 500 series rack, or an ADAT interface like Focusrite), so the total cost will also be higher than if there were a single interface solution with a few more inputs. So I might need to wait this out a bit to see if MOTU or Focusrite announce new expanded models, or if UA announces a more affordable alternative to the x8p (unlikely). At that point, it seems work it to have just a line in converter and get some additional pres. Are you recording 16 inputs often? Sorry drumsound, forgot to respond to your question. I currently have 14 mics on my drum kit (kick in/out, snare top/bottom, 5 toms + mini timbales, HH, ride, 2 OH). Crazy, I know. And that doesn't include adding a room mic, and of course mics/lines for other musicians if recording a band live off the floor. So really, 16 inputs is the minimum I need. As you'll see from my other recent reply to indiehouse, a combo of two MOTU 828es would give me 4 additional preamps, plus 16 line ins. Perfect. No, the MOTU preamps won't be the quality of CAPI, but I can just assign them to HH, ride, etc. where they'll be fine. If I need to eventually build a few more preamps, I'll have the extra line inputs to plug them into. At this point, that seems a good strategy.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 20:02:31 GMT -6
Ah, sorry, I reread your post... thanks, all clear now. And yes that might be the perfect combination for me. Combined with my 11 outboard preamps, that would give me enough mic inputs. If not, I could combine the 828es and 828pre-es for a few hundred more $. The 16A is not really an option, due to it's higher price and the fact I don't need all those extra mic preamps. Again, thanks for these tips, it's great to know somebody that has gone the MOTU route with good results. Not sure how soon I'll need to follow - it depends on how long my Tascam DM-3200 driver stays compatible with my Mac Pro (2013) as I transition to Mac OS Catalina, then Big Sur eventually. Same holds true for potentially upgrading to an Apple M2 silicon machine (hoping Apple announces later this year an M2-based Mini with more RAM, and/or an 'affordable' new Mac Pro). FYI, the 16a doesn’t have any mic preamps. Ha! Sorry, I meant all those additional line ins.
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Post by Guitar on Mar 13, 2021 20:23:52 GMT -6
If you poke around, there's a ton of MOTU users on RGO, people seem really happy with them. MOTU and RME are the next two brands I will try when I expand/change, they're on my list, too. I'm sure I could easily be running any of them right now and be happy, I would guess.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 21:18:11 GMT -6
If you poke around, there's a ton of MOTU users on RGO, people seem really happy with them. MOTU and RME are the next two brands I will try when I expand/change, they're on my list, too. I'm sure I could easily be running any of them right now and be happy, I would guess. Thanks, yes, I am finding more and more folks on RGO (and GS) showing lots of love for MOTU these days. And RME's reliability is legendary of course, just out of my price range. Found quite a few people talking about quality of converters and putting MOTU near the level of Apogee. I am not familiar with either, but if the MOTU 828es gives me better sonics than my old Tascam DM-3200, while giving me the same level of reliability over 10 to 15 years, of course I will be delighted and will not worry about any minor differences with more expensive choices. By the way, what I am also finding interesting is the very obvious lack of mentions for Focusrite (other than adding an OctoPre for expansion). A friend of mine has had good success with Clarett 8Pre and OctoPre. But I really wanted something with TB2/3 and onboard DSP (to feed the artist some 'verb), thus my extended search. Anyway, given the things I've heard, I'm happy to go with MOTU when the time comes, unless something else more interesting comes out.
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Post by jacobamerritt on Mar 13, 2021 21:22:34 GMT -6
MOTU 16a kicks butt, with ADAT Im running 20 channels. Stable, sounds great.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 13, 2021 21:31:45 GMT -6
MOTU 16a kicks butt, with ADAT Im running 20 channels. Stable, sounds great. Excellent, that's another vote of confidence for MOTU.
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Post by Guitar on Mar 14, 2021 4:47:29 GMT -6
If you poke around, there's a ton of MOTU users on RGO, people seem really happy with them. MOTU and RME are the next two brands I will try when I expand/change, they're on my list, too. I'm sure I could easily be running any of them right now and be happy, I would guess. Thanks, yes, I am finding more and more folks on RGO (and GS) showing lots of love for MOTU these days. And RME's reliability is legendary of course, just out of my price range. Found quite a few people talking about quality of converters and putting MOTU near the level of Apogee. I am not familiar with either, but if the MOTU 828es gives me better sonics than my old Tascam DM-3200, while giving me the same level of reliability over 10 to 15 years, of course I will be delighted and will not worry about any minor differences with more expensive choices. By the way, what I am also finding interesting is the very obvious lack of mentions for Focusrite (other than adding an OctoPre for expansion). A friend of mine has had good success with Clarett 8Pre and OctoPre. But I really wanted something with TB2/3 and onboard DSP (to feed the artist some 'verb), thus my extended search. Anyway, given the things I've heard, I'm happy to go with MOTU when the time comes, unless something else more interesting comes out. I would have recommended the Clarett interfaces about 4 or so years ago but they're a little out of date now, IMO. These other brands are using ESS chips and so on, and seem to have more features, or special features. Like some of the MOTU have ethernet, and some of the Presonus have super low latency, and so on. The Clarett is totally middle of the road. A jack of all trades, it does almost everything reasonably well. So it's not a bad buy but I moved on from Clarett other than OctoPre that I keep still like you said, I like the conversion sound quite a bit.
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Post by nick8801 on Mar 14, 2021 5:53:13 GMT -6
I went through the interface hunt a few months back. Ended up with a Lynx n cause I’m ocd about sound quality, but the next choice on my list was the 828es. Totally would have been happy with both. Before that I had an Apollo 16. It really was a solid interface. Stereo out, rock solid performance, great latency specs. I had no issues with console. I guess you either love it or you hate it. As far as multichannel preamps, I think CAPI is the way to go! A drummer friend of mine contacted one of the more popular builders on Reverb and he was offered a great deal for 8 channels with a lunchbox. I don’t think you can find anything of that quality for anywhere near the price of CAPI!
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Post by subspace on Mar 14, 2021 7:11:36 GMT -6
MOTU 16a kicks butt, with ADAT Im running 20 channels. Stable, sounds great. Excellent, that's another vote of confidence for MOTU. I ran a 16A from 2015 until this year via a CalDigit TB2 dock connected to my 2014 MBP. Rock solid rig. Moved on to Pro Tools Carbon but still use the 16A as a stand-alone converter box connected over adat. While the 16A's built-in DSP was convenient, I wouldn't sweat it for monitor reverb. Having sub-ms plug-in reverb available all the time now, I realized there was no reason to suffer MOTU's fugly reverb algo. I far prefer a choice reverb running native with the latency acting as pre-delay.
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Post by kcatthedog on Mar 14, 2021 8:16:44 GMT -6
Do you know you like the motu I/O GUI, not everyone gets on with it?
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 14, 2021 13:06:01 GMT -6
Thanks, yes, I am finding more and more folks on RGO (and GS) showing lots of love for MOTU these days. And RME's reliability is legendary of course, just out of my price range. Found quite a few people talking about quality of converters and putting MOTU near the level of Apogee. I am not familiar with either, but if the MOTU 828es gives me better sonics than my old Tascam DM-3200, while giving me the same level of reliability over 10 to 15 years, of course I will be delighted and will not worry about any minor differences with more expensive choices. By the way, what I am also finding interesting is the very obvious lack of mentions for Focusrite (other than adding an OctoPre for expansion). A friend of mine has had good success with Clarett 8Pre and OctoPre. But I really wanted something with TB2/3 and onboard DSP (to feed the artist some 'verb), thus my extended search. Anyway, given the things I've heard, I'm happy to go with MOTU when the time comes, unless something else more interesting comes out. I would have recommended the Clarett interfaces about 4 or so years ago but they're a little out of date now, IMO. These other brands are using ESS chips and so on, and seem to have more features, or special features. Like some of the MOTU have ethernet, and some of the Presonus have super low latency, and so on. The Clarett is totally middle of the road. A jack of all trades, it does almost everything reasonably well. So it's not a bad buy but I moved on from Clarett other than OctoPre that I keep still like you said, I like the conversion sound quite a bit. Yes, that's my understanding... Clarett series is very good preamps and good conversion, so the Octopre would make a good expansion option. The fact it only has USB connectivity, and no onboard DSP beyond internal mixer, is what started me looking for other options.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 14, 2021 13:23:53 GMT -6
I went through the interface hunt a few months back. Ended up with a Lynx n cause I’m ocd about sound quality, but the next choice on my list was the 828es. Totally would have been happy with both. Before that I had an Apollo 16. It really was a solid interface. Stereo out, rock solid performance, great latency specs. I had no issues with console. I guess you either love it or you hate it. As far as multichannel preamps, I think CAPI is the way to go! A drummer friend of mine contacted one of the more popular builders on Reverb and he was offered a great deal for 8 channels with a lunchbox. I don’t think you can find anything of that quality for anywhere near the price of CAPI! Well, Lynx would be wonderful, if not for being beyond my price ceiling. So much great technology and quality out there to choose from, I just have to hit my price-performance target. So I'm glad to hear you had the MOTU 828es in your sights also. Apollo is excellent without argument, I have a friend with a Twin and loves it due to sound, UAD DSP, Unison, and the ability to use Luna DAW. In terms of conversion, he knows someone that recently connected a large high-end console to both an Apollo and MOTU to compare conversion. They said the Apollo had a 'warmer' sound, but the MOTU fared well ... not sure what model though. I love my six CAPI preamps (4 x VP26, 2 x VP25 with Litz transformers). Though challenging, especially eye-straining soldering those little GAR op amps (note you can optionally buy them preassembled), they were fun to put together. Definitely need good soldering chops, but I was an electronics technologist in a former life. They were very satisfying when I plugged them in and they worked first time! Great kits with great design and very clear instructions. And the sound is perfect for my drums, and for guitar cab, etc. I agree that, bang-for-buck, they are one of the best ways to get the API sound... oh, and WITH output trims! I actually started by ordering a single channel of Seventh Circle Audio A12 (another boutique API clone) prebuilt in an enclosure with power supply. I would hazard to say that it sounds a wee bit better than the CAPI units (a bit more upper mid definition), with the bonus of having a built-in D.I. However SCA modules are not compliant with 500-series standard (higher voltage rails that requires a bespoke chassis and power supply) and do not include an output trim. So I decided to go the CAPI route.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 14, 2021 13:28:08 GMT -6
Excellent, that's another vote of confidence for MOTU. I ran a 16A from 2015 until this year via a CalDigit TB2 dock connected to my 2014 MBP. Rock solid rig. Moved on to Pro Tools Carbon but still use the 16A as a stand-alone converter box connected over adat. While the 16A's built-in DSP was convenient, I wouldn't sweat it for monitor reverb. Having sub-ms plug-in reverb available all the time now, I realized there was no reason to suffer MOTU's fugly reverb algo. I far prefer a choice reverb running native with the latency acting as pre-delay. Thanks, it's great to know how solid the MOTU stuff is over a longer time frame... it gives me confidence in choosing one of the newer units. Interesting what you say about the DSP reverb. I have not heard it, and I would only use it to feed the artist some 'verb during tracking. But I agree that with low latency, especially over TB, there's not much reason to shy away from using DAW plug in reverb. I certainly have a lot of those to choose from, and a bit of natural predelay is a good thing anyway!
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 14, 2021 13:49:07 GMT -6
Do you know you like the motu I/O GUI, not everyone gets on with it? That's a good point. However, from all of the reviews and forum comments I have read, the bottom line seems to be: the mixer GUI is extremely flexible and thus complex, not all that intuitive to the point of confusing for some, but ultimately users have figured it out (on their own or with MOTU support), and been able to set up the configuration they needed. And once set up, it works reliably. As most of us have, I have had to deal with a lot of really crappy GUIs in my time.... even many plug ins (especially some skeuomorphic ones) are ridiculously non-intuitive. So I expect to spend a good deal of time with the learning curve of the MOTU stuff. My goal is to get just a very few configurations that I can save as presets. On the other hand, the fact that the MOTU stuff is so configurable and customizable is a benefit. It may open possibilities I have not even thought of. With my current Tascam DM-3200 mixer, I send out a stereo backing tracks mix from Logic, plus four direct 'live' sends (e.g. guitar, vocal, bass...) from the board. All of these feeds go to a headphone mixer, an old Oz Audio / Mackie, which enables up to 6 musicians to each customize their headphone mix by dialing in "how much me" they want in their cans. So I wanted an interface that allowed me to do similar routing, and with the MOTU I can see easily setting up such routing to the Line Outs, and even making each built-in Headphone output customized in this way. In fact, with the mobile app, it seems each musician can directly control their own monitor mix inside the interface? That would make it unnecessary to use something like the Oz Audio HP mixer (but would still need individual headphone amps). Then, of course, there's the possibility of outboard processor send/returns, surround mixing, etc. I have no idea what some people use up to 16 line outputs for, but it's nice to know there is so much routing flexibility.
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Post by kcatthedog on Mar 14, 2021 14:46:55 GMT -6
Maybe other motu users will chime in ? I know some capable people who didn’t gel with motu .
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Post by Guitar on Mar 14, 2021 17:15:51 GMT -6
That's one thing I like about the Presonus and Focusrite ones, the either non-existant or minimal software mixer. To me, that's a plus, I don't like dealing with that stuff either.
I would assume there would be some set and forget thing in the MOTU you could work up though, if you don't change your configuration that often.
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Post by rowmat on Mar 14, 2021 17:59:33 GMT -6
When we looked to expand our track count back in 2014 after I partnered up with my producer friend there was no budget to go Protools and the associated hardware so we went Reaper and an Alexis HD24XR as an AD/AD via an ageing Presonus ADAT to Firewire interface then adding a second HD24XR and configuring one as a dedicated AD and the other as a dedicated DA.
This meant each HD24XR was set and forget with all the recording, monitoring and playback functions done via Reaper in conjunction with an analog console. It also overcame the restrictions of the HD24’s track pairing idiosyncrasies when overdubbing which was especially annoying when having to shuffle things around.
This worked out to around $2k AUD (about $1400 USD) for 24 tracks. I also modded the HD24XR’s.
I never felt they were lacking in quality.
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Post by fusionhead on Mar 14, 2021 18:03:14 GMT -6
That's one thing I like about the Presonus and Focusrite ones, the either non-existant or minimal software mixer. To me, that's a plus, I don't like dealing with that stuff either. I would assume there would be some set and forget thing in the MOTU you could work up though, if you don't change your configuration that often. I agree, over-complexity is pointless. I don't see the value of having a fully featured onboard mixer emulation when the goal is to simply get audio through the device into the DAW, with some simple routing for latency-free monitoring. And yes, my goal is to get basic configuration set up and save as a preset, then maybe have a few variations of that template to adapt to different types of sessions. I have an outboard hardware patchbay for patching in outboard compressors, for example, so I don't really need a bunch of internal routing for that... though, again, it's nice to have that option.
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Post by phantom on Mar 14, 2021 18:36:38 GMT -6
That's one thing I like about the Presonus and Focusrite ones, the either non-existant or minimal software mixer. To me, that's a plus, I don't like dealing with that stuff either. I would assume there would be some set and forget thing in the MOTU you could work up though, if you don't change your configuration that often. I work in a place with a MOTU AVB system. 828es and 16A. The setup is fine. I disabled all the mixer stuff, and just got around the grid for half an hour. Once you understand the "From Computer" and "To Computer" lines, you are good to go. I like the Monitor A/B option and the Mono button on the from of the 828. And you can configure all of them to any output. Even the Headphones, 2 on the 828es, you can configure to have the same or different outputs from the DAW. Anyway, it's a fine system imo. I think I lost more time on TotalMix the first time I used it.
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Post by indiehouse on Mar 14, 2021 19:13:09 GMT -6
That’s another thing you can’t overlook about the Motu stuff, all the monitor controlling options! A/B speaker selection, talkback, mono, etc.
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