All user reviews for the MOTU 828 Mk2

Interface multi-channel firewire.

10 out analog
1 out ADAT port
1 S / PDIF out
1 phone

Or 22 trips ...

2 preamps
8 inputs "line"
1 ADAT port in
1 S: pdif in

Or 20 inputs

UTILIZATION

Mac OS X, I have NEVER encountered any problem. Optimum stability, installation very simple, always less than 5ms latency. Truly "plug and play" ...

GETTING STARTED

Well, I do not use with my imac, Cubase mainly, but also in logic, and from the moment we say to the computer using its driver, the rest is childish ... I use "linked" to a 828 MKIII, and no worries, you create a mac "Aggregate Device" and I have access to 54 outputs and 44 inputs available ... Note that this driver is the same for ALL MOTU USB / Firewire ... Well done ...

"Clockée" on a bigben, converters are superb dynamics and neutrality ... So, the problems are often VERY reference clock ...

OVERALL OPINION

I am MOTU 6 years now, and without going to say that it is a panacea for the Mac user that I am, this is a brand that is very well work with a quality / price ratio almost unbeatable. I have the chance to use Apogee and RME regularly, and the difference is inaudible (in my config with external clock). Worldclock without a fireface seems slightly more dynamic and "ensemble" sounds more round on the bottom of the spectrum, more "flattering" ... This is very subjective it all ... Let's say we enter the high-end, with all the seriousness and quality that implies, even if some are right to rail against the after sales service which is itself, below the quality standards of the brand . I'm always loyal to the brand, even if the product design begins to date somewhat (no thunderbolt ...). An external clock quality, it's still unbeatable quality / price ratio, so a smart choice for those who can not afford to buy high-end but are sensitive to sound quality. ..

Its a very hot and powerful.
I used connected to a 01V Yamaha Console 96.
A very good sound, impeccable quality.

UTILIZATION

And then down Blaisse! The drivers are particularly unstable, and if it is to work with a PC, go your way. MOTU is for MAC and they claim.
The drivers are not updated for this model, and are particularly poorly developed.

GETTING STARTED

Very easy to install (PC plan to properly install the drivers before connecting) for MAC no problem.
The interface is simple, do not worry particular.

OVERALL OPINION

For cons, I do not know if I'm the only one, and it seems not, but this sound card is particularly fragile. It's simple, I toasted two, and twice they were replaced by me MOTU free even after the warranty. Which is nice, but really leaves they usually presaged the situation. The helpdesk MOTU is a calamity, we must fight for months to get an answer. I had better result in having had the opportunity to contact the French central charge distribution.

I was really excited to part of this card, then suddenly, I bought a 828 MK3 and there my friends! There's no photo! Found the sound quality of the MK2 with many more (24 in total output with adat) a compressor, effects, and solid stability.

You want a 828 MK2, buy without hesitation at least MK3

The front and rear panel of this sound card have motivated my choice, especially his feet and saw his buttons. Bus 4 and its connection back to match.
It was a different connected portable PCs as a hp zv5000, a Sony VAIO vpcF23, a Lenovo T420 And a t400 and the other fixes.seul Sony has had problems with.
Its use was reserved to the music production, recording and playback.

UTILIZATION

The drivers are stable?
They say everything on this card. it depends mainly machinery behind, depending on the chipset driver reacts differently. But mostly here runs well except once or twice in 7 years the driver has undergone a cracking final and had to reinstall it with difficulty. It seems that this card does not like being transported, unplugged. Today she runs a home lenovo T420 i7, and the driver under XP32 really run well, no worries, FireWire can be disconnected and reconnected while playing (= power driver asio) and well rebuke the map almost instantly when it is reconnected. I saw this card reliability increase as a measure of the evolution of PC.

GETTING STARTED

The implementation is quite simple, especially since the release of the single driver package for all their cards under 64/32bit.
J-have kept the old package of drivers to keep the old version of cue MIX (interface on pc).

OVERALL OPINION

For 7 years I used-and all other cards that I have or have had is the only one that is perfect in every way a condition of not carrying around too much.
* What is so special that you like best?
Which produces the sound.
* The least?
S customer service is lost in the sticks in Texas red necks including transportation by ship across the Atlantic (maybe on a freighter Hungarian?) So have at least two months in case of failure, and do not rely on anything troubleshooting of their sav, has less to speak redneck. Seriously they are not always very responsive.
Otherwise info for some series of these cards would be worse than others, but it is a bit old (firmware that cracks for good and apparently also burn out the LCD screen of the card, which made micro crament ...)
With experience I will ever so this choice.

The MOTU 828 MK2 is a 14 x 10 audio and MIDI interface designed for the home studio DAW that will support up to 96 kHz. For such a little unit, it’s actually got a good amount of versatility and options. It’s a firewire based unit, consisting of two ports. There are two microphone preamps, each of which have dual ¼”/XLR jacks and trim knobs, built in phantom power, and a pad for each as well. As far as other connections go, it has six other ¼” inputs, eight ¼” outputs to correspond with each of the inputs, and ¼” main stereo outputs for sending your sound to your monitors. It also has a MIDI input and output and the same for S/PDIF as well. There’s also a ¼” jack for a headphone input and metering is done with the LED screen on the front panel. It’s powered by either your computer via bus power, or with a nine volt power supply. The 828 MK2 is also rackable.


UTILIZATION

As long as you understand the characteristics and features involved here, you’re going to be able to operate the 828 MK2 without any issues. Everything is pretty straight forward and direct once you understand all of the connections and features here. Of course if this is your first audio interface, you might want to have the manual around to help you understand all of the basic components here.


GETTING STARTED

The 828 MK2 is overall a very clean sounding unit, from the preamps to the overall playback quality through the converters. Especially considering that this is meant for portability, the sound is quite sparkling clean. The preamps aren’t necessarily the best sounding in the world, but they do have a decent amount of depth to them and will definitely get the job done for remote recording or for work in a smaller home studio.


OVERALL OPINION

As far as small/portable audio interfaces go, the 828 MK2 has as much flexibility crammed on this little unit as any I’ve used before. It will definitely work in your home studio if you want a little audio interface to run your DAW on, but I think it would work best as a supplemental unit for recording on the go. I don’t own this audio interface myself, but a friend of mine has it for his home studio and uses it all the time for recording on the go, which is really a great thing to be able to do. MOTU has some great audio interfaces in all different price ranges and for different purposes, so if the 828 MK2 doesn’t do it for you, definitely check out the others that they have to offer.

I travel sometimes and help out friends with studio projects. In my travels I sometimes use great gear and sometimes not so great gear. This one is the later in my opinion. I spent two weeks at a friends home studio doing a project with him and he used this interface. He said he bought it at the time because he likes to record at 96khz and this was one of the more affordable units back in '06. We ran this on a PC running protools with an ART Pre Amp and some AKAI condensors and Shure sm57/58s. This was run using the FireWire 400 slot. We recorded single takes using no more than 6 mics at a time (drums).

UTILIZATION

The unit itself was very stable. We never had any serious crashes or glitches. Occasionally his PC would get overloaded in mixing but that was because of the heavy use of Plugins and his computer was a little behind. The latency was OK but was only noticed during mixing as we properly setup his gear to handle the latency during recording. We used Pro Tools for the entire session and everything seemed to run smooth with the occasional CPU spike from CPU hungry mixing plugins. We never did more than 6 tracks during our session but he did say he would run more when sequencing/recording his synthesizers and that it handled the load just fine.

GETTING STARTED

There were no compatibility issues that I experienced. Everything booted up properly and his drivers were up to date so it was all good. I never read the manual. He seemed very confident with the unit and said that he was able to start recording in a matter of minutes after it had been installed. The unit is fairly easy to use. The dsp Mixer that comes with unit makes controlling your ins and outs very easy. I have been using Totalmix with my RME Fireface 800 for awhile and I found them to be similar. With the dsp mixer and the front face of the unit itself, most of all the typical functions are found very easily. A few things are down in some menus and such, but nothing is too hard to find.

OVERALL OPINION

What I liked most about this unit is that it was stable and was able to record and mix our entire project in 96khz which was a stipulation for my friend. What I didn't like was how, in my opinion, the recorded tracks were pretty dull, especially the drums. We spent a lot of time with EQ, Compression and various other effects trying to bring life back into them. I think we did a decent job, but as soon as I was home, I compared our Raw tracks with some raw tracks I recorded with my FireFace and the difference was very noticeable. The Fireface had much better dynamics and clarity and in my opinion, put the MK2 to shame. I have worked with some MK3's briefly and find they don't suffer nearly as bad ad the MK2 does with this dullness.
I don't know what he paid for the MK2, and maybe it was considered good quality back in the day, but I don't recommend it to anyone who wants a competitive quality of sound. The reality is you get what you pay for. If you want top notch AD/DA, then you need to spend some serious cash.

I bought it because I needed at least 8 inputs and an external card must firewire.
The phantom power, the spdif and the possibility of routing tousle sensenstandalone finally made me cracked! (And MIDI). In fact, I needed a good Swiss Army knife ...
I have an athlon 1.7, 512 MB ram, Elite K7S5A motherboard and hard working firewire.

UTILIZATION

The installation nickel! As usual, I spilled coffee j'enaurais for believing that for ages, not! I do not know, 5 minutes, 2 minutes? For fun, I wired in the motu + a buddy, same struggle, known in the noze finger.

No manual in French, but in any case, the card is easy to master.

GETTING STARTED

The drivers are stable (1.0 and 3.0 firmware in software) in sx and samplitude. I pastrop mate latency, I try to work at max live monitoring. For the direct monitoring, I had to do a hack for cubase sequences: I send out in the SPIDF in, and it becomes a starter, that can monitor ... there is nothing I got it, or there is something ... (Thank you stef for hack)

OVERALL OPINION

I recently, some functions have not been tried (ADAT, word clock). It is clear that this is a great card in price / quality ratio, nothing to do with FIREstation I returned illico!
To be careful to monitor. I have a friend whose LCD faitdes jokes, and a member of AF was also around.
it is clearly sorry for what little you want to record multiple tracks at once ...

My choices were long and tedious in the range of cards on the market but I finally map my dreams ... 10 entries - 12 + 8 outputs and 8 in optics and so on ...
I intend to use it to record live my group composed of two singers, two guitarists, a bassist and a drummer. Hardware and style lectroaccoustique trs.
I have a PC Ahlon 2.4 Ghz, ASUS A7N8X Deluxe motherboard, 1GB of RAM and two hard drives of 80 and 40 go
I connect directly to my table mix MACKIE CFX 12 and I go out the sound of Mackie SRM 450

UTILIZATION

Install no problem, no significant incompatibility, but I admit I had trouble making the rounds of the possibility of connection and configuration ... Fully Manual is in English, and fortunately I'm comfortable with that language ... small dtails are enrolled that make many services: example of the posibilit paramtrer rcuprer the map to the sound of a virtual intrument to save it in another software as source ...

GETTING STARTED

Stable drivers, Cubase SX and Samplitude ...
No latency is extra ...
for now, 4-track simultaneous recording and 8 in reading, but I expect the next rpt ...

OVERALL OPINION

Just one short week I have reu of Germany, I waited one month and a half, I have yet to go around, but I am extremely satisfied with dj although I have not had the opportunity to try other models before ...
I no referrer hsiter this choice because its possibilities are almost unlimited and the price seems entirely justified from his CHARACTERISTICS ...

"I had a 24/96 TerraTec ew and I wanted to buy a quality business card to a better recording quality for my acoustic instruments, and above all benefit the routing offered by the card (I n 't have a mixer).
I use a PC P4 2.8 c, 1GB ram, FX 5800, 120GB HDD

UTILIZATION

Less than 2 minutes

You plug the firewire port on the card (I have an ASUS P4P800 deluxe, no problem with the port Intgr), it installs the drivers and you turn the card and it's over ...

Angali manual, but clear

GETTING STARTED

At the moment no problem drivers stable (even with the games ).

With Cubase SX, samplitude the direct monitoring is great especially when working without loop with audio ...

For the synth is the happiness I can play with the impression of having no dcallage. MIDI is Intgr.

I get get a latency infrieurs 5 12 ms with audio tracks ...

With a 01v with optional adat no problem to record 12 tracks at the same time (8 adat, anoligiques 4), but the computer is powerful and we must increase the buffer size.

In any case the dynamics of the sound is incomparable with the sound cards I've heard before (digi 001, 002, terractec, ect ...)

OVERALL OPINION

I use this card for two months now and I have yet to exploit half of the capacity of the bte ...

What I like most is the possibility to use the card as a mixer. The routing is terrible, you can have multiple sources connected at all times just choose.

The sync works well trs. we can synchronize the map with a simple dvd TOS link.

Everything is faade volume control, input level, switch to diet. Everything is available right away without using any software, drivers are all just trs.

qualitprix the report is excellent, I do not know what that can compete with this card right now ..

Hsit I long for budget reasons, but now I could do without

I just bought a laptop (Acer PIV 2.6) and I wanted a FireWire or USB audio catre with low latency for live use
after a test of the presonus not really conclusive I "change" for the motu

UTILIZATION

Easy installation
no incompabilit with my gear (laptop acer)
table mix is ​​CueMix simpa (no more) and effective (not less)
I remember the manual (yen is no need as long as you not touch the facade buttons ...)

GETTING STARTED

I have a latency of 12ms with Live and Reason in rewire when I was 60 ms + the presonus cracquements with ...
it's at least what I wanted ...

OVERALL OPINION

I recently
so for now I'm very happy
it's expensive but it is
I prfrais the presonus pre-amp for the case, the pots, the colors ... but the drivers are ... mLan "terrible "....( not see me)
The motu is "no soucy," he rolls his own

The card is everything, any evidence of FLEXIBILITY. 10 analog inputs (2 mic / Hi-Z line jacks and 8 sym), two shipments (send) to a compressor or EQ in / out ADAT in / out S / PDIF, SMPTE ...
You can configure the internal routing using the console "cue mix" on the PC, or using the physical knob. Can be sent back to the main mix out and phones, send something to the outputs adat, and still be a DLIR on the S / PDIF out ... (4 output buses ...)
I use it with a P4PEL, PIV 2.53, 1024 RAM. It works better than I thought: PERFECTION!
Only regret: no HPF or attnuateur on the Mic / Hi-Z. But hey ... well ...

UTILIZATION

Installation "more-simple-you-die".

Not need the manual ...

GETTING STARTED

Trs low latency.
Drivers stable.
Cracking if rduction radical buffer.

OVERALL OPINION

I've had four months. The pramps are average. Do not push them back, otherwise "strong wind ..." It's two spare wheels ...
Good q / p.
An excellent interface!

The brand (very subjective, I know but it had been years since I expected to be able to offer me a vriae sound card brand and the Unicorn ...), the number of I / O-preamp with simultaneous- order to implement projects consistent, the Cue Mix monitor the quality of mulitiple converters and frequency of sampling, and finally, the legendary compatible with MAC and the choice of Digital Performer 4 (also waited a long time) ... the possibility chain a FireWire external HDD was also decisive Incidentally, the console standalone ....

Above all, the desire to have quality equipment that foncyionne carefree (to make music and not the computer) after passages through a whole bunch of other apps and configs of varying quality, I will not mention the names ...

UTILIZATION

Installation difficulties, but capricious ... 2 / 3 ... reinstalling fairly standard in the brand, I do not think anyone know why ... yet it was very easy, without a manual, it's plug and play if the driver works for more, if not, uninstall / reinstall and it turns ....

I had the opportunity of also installed on a PC and there was direct ... Bravo .... XP

GETTING STARTED

Since the config (MAC OS X.2.8/DP4.1/DD FW/640 ram / G3600) is very stable ... the Update Sontra performed in near real time, much appreciated ....

No latency MONITOR, thank you the Cue Mix, and I have not blocked the beast despite my config mini ... I remember as a test carried out 16 mono audio tracks and 16 stereo read / record ... that could be better?

OVERALL OPINION

I've had 6 months, nothing to say ... except for MIDI which is still unclear to me but hey, I faufdrait plunges me ... Impressive value for money, it's professional equipment within the reach of the amateur ... tomorrow I will resign ...

I t cot sduit by firewire, the multiplicity of inputs + MIDI.
I use is to record live bands, and in any case my battery.
my config is an old athlon 1400, Gigabyte motherboard, via chipset (yes it works all the same) with an Audigy that I use a plug in my motu.
I use the motu alone or sometimes with an adda 8000 from behringer in adat waiting to win at tic tac toe ....

UTILIZATION

So really, but really nothing to say.
done in 3 minutes.
manual in English, was really shit, I was told the same line as suppport to arrive early in March 2004, we are still waiting.

GETTING STARTED

I use cubase sx.
latency of 3ms.
I recorded 16 tracks simultaneously without problemes.a read more, obviously.

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for 2 months.
it's great stuff, great dynamic.
I can even connect directly to the SM57 analog back side, without mixing desk.

One thing I understood not: the virtual console is not used to recording with respect to the volume of recording, and I found a strange ....

frankly, no one can be of this product.
Some excerpts that will be day to your site:
[Http://perso.wanadoo.fr/alexis.damien/pages/page1pag.html]

Audio on firewire connection (cable prvoir a 4 / 6 pin on your laptop if you pc).
I n essence works in Ableton Live (plus plug ins and GRM TOOLS Reaktor FX) and I diffrent hardware interfaces connect.
Jai a sony vaio grt 915m (P4, 2.8 ghz)

UTILIZATION

Problem-free installation (install the drivers think before you connect the box).

GETTING STARTED

Drivers ok, the control panel is simple and ergonomic.
5 ms latency in Ableton Live 2.1.,
On Reaktor 4 is a rgal as the sound is powerful!
No problem report (which turned more than 10 hours without worry daffils).
At the moment I turned fifteen three tracks and two plug ins per track.

OVERALL OPINION

Strengths:

Quality converters and sound gnral
DEnter-number output.
-Possibility of routing
-Being able to operate it in stand-alone
Ease-OF USE
-in/out twelve o'clock
6 db boost it to the analog inputs (AC is a gouache apprciable)

Weaknesses
-Average finish knobs (small and no quality of plastoc fabuleusecompar 410 of the M-Audio is cheap ca)
-The manual in English (not even a pdf in French sniif ..)

In the end, I'm not, I know that this card reputable and I can not tell what nest usurped. It's a fabulous, a precision in frquences the highest and lowest bluffing!
For those looking for sound, I think the Motu 828 MK 2 is currently the must-REFERENCE. I do not regret my investissment and then of course subjective, but jadore cest its mouth.

FireWire completely full rack: 8 inputs and 10 outputs analog jack, 2 XLR microphone input with preamp and phantom power supply, inputs and SPDIF digital outputs (RCA and optical), ADAT, MIDI, SMPTE sync ...
Sampling rate settings.
It's simple: there is all you need!! It's pro gear to see live studio application.

I had an interface with at least 8 inputs to record drums.
The Fire Wire port (Parallel) is faster than USB (series).
I plug in my laptop Packard Bell, AMD Athlon 1.67 GHz, 256 MB of RAM.

I connect two microphones to the XLR inputs, 8 line from my console on the mix between Jack and I also links the SPDIF output of the preamp M-Audio SPDIF Tampa to the MOTU.
I send the sound through the monitors on the main outs and headphones via the headphone output, and other analog outputs to line inputs of my mixing desk for example.

In terms of routing, everything is possible and imaginable, especially thanks to the virtual mixing console accessible from the computer (you can make these adjustments directly with the buttons on the MOTU but less obvious).

UTILIZATION

All the buttons are too small, including the volume that can control the volume of the headphone output or main out.
We can not rely on displays levels because their scale is too vague.

Otherwise the use is very easy and full manual control if the English. Too bad it does not have the specific technical characteristics (distortion, input impedance, signal to noise ratio, etc.).

GETTING STARTED

No problem communicating with the computer and imperceptible latency, you can record or play back a large number of tracks simultaneously: remember, 8 inputs and 10 analog outputs, inputs and outputs SPDIF and ADAT, etc.. (I'm working on Sound Forge and Magix Music Studio Deluxe 2004).

It may possibly be used in mixer: there is everything (mute, solo, pan, volume) except EQ.

OVERALL OPINION

I use it for 4 months and although it's expensive, it is a very powerful tool, very bone quality and especially unlimited.

The two preamps are very good: quiet, neutral and powerful, with a true phantom power.

But beware !!!!!!!!!!!!! There are major defects:
- The buttons are small
- Indicators of levels are unusable
- Microphone gains are difficult to resolve because little progress: going from "too weak" to "too loud".

- But especially the bullet points: the analog amplify the treble, so I got trapped on the equalization in a mix. Say what you're listening via the outputs of the MOTU is more acute than reality. Now that I know, I compensated with a low of 5dB from 8000Hz in the equalization of my software.

I find it odd that this machine is very pro has such defects, especially acute in this exaggeration output unforgivable. The mini jack output of my computer delivers a totally more neutral (but there's breath)!

Bon beh I return to this opinion: I once made several tests and the resulting output is clear: SPDIF coaxial digital outputs and digital deliver sound "normal".
But all the analog outputs sound jack issue too also with a slight acute lmanque in low and lower midrange.
It is not normal, this bike is precisely known for the quality of its converters.
A guy that has the same tells me that he never noticed this at home and mine is probably down. If so, it's balls to a new machine that I paid 1200E!

He will make his own tests to see. To be continued ...

So I come back one last time on this opinion: I sent the MOTU as collateral because there was really a problem: the sound came from a too acute failure of the D / A.
They sent me a new machine! Cool.
on the other hand it was not until two months ... and pay 20 Euros for postage! Not cool.

In any case, the new walk impeccable ', the sound is very good, even for the headphone amplifier.

See data sheet contains the site.

comes with a cable outlet and a long firewire cable (it is not the case with other manufacturer).

very nice rack, the box is of good quality manufacturing (outside ), no fiuriture, look serious / professional.

UTILIZATION

Supra super easy! frankly my ca bleufe (even compared to the m-audio)! Jai laptop compaq Windows 2000 512 meg of ram, SP4, ...

If you have a NEC firewire card, the machine may have issues (everything works, but very LIGHT bugs tps tps in accordance with the documentation motu) ... frankly I have ben sake! I have a FW connection NEC!

I ordered a Belkin FW (Texas Instrument chipset) and of AC works great, quality recording and playback and perfect .. hard disk adds in the back of the sound card ... any concern for perf, quite the contrary! it's really great! What a difference with this new Firewire card!

GETTING STARTED

The drivers seem to me super stable, consolidated 7mega CPU under Windows 2000
little update driver on the MOTU site, it shows the quality of the sound card!

Cubase with no problems at the same 24 tracks and 4 tracks tps register / / the access to external hard disk is very very fast! I AM BLEUFER and yet I have a FW410 card MAUDIO which was already very very good!

The recording that goes really well! converters are excellent! The card does not make noise, and the MOTU support responds very quickly to the phone as by email

I load the machine, the card etc ... full track simultaneous record .. perfect! no prob Perf.

OVERALL OPINION

I wanted to replace my FW410 because I did not have the analog input, a promotion allowed me to buy the MOTU for almost the same price as the FW1814 .... and although I have no regrets! THE SOUND IS! converters quality is good (above the M-audio), the machine makes no noise! The buttons may be a bit small and it is easily lost in the navigation on the small LCD screen ... m'enfin you can also use the soft version of 'console' from your computer and frankly the interface is super simpler, more intuitive than the mixer M-audio.

However, there are far fewer options! So was you! qd was good even mix the table that virutel MAUDIO book and then there's a nice bundle of software with the m-audio not found with MOTU (for PC owners course! because MAC is a very good soft type CUBASE DELIVERED.).

The result of my mix is ​​really impressive, the sound is loud and clear (there are very many different sounds), high frequencies are very very well made! On a synth sound CS 80V is present (in all different frequencies etc ...) with the M-Audio!

The drum track as the drums (after adjustment boosts from the sound card) are very dynamic.

I do not regret this purchase at all!