New Music Gear Monday: MOTU 1248 Audio Interface

For many musicians, bands and artists with home studios, it's a struggle to find a computer interface with enough I/O at a reasonable price. On top of that, many of the popular ones currently available don't have enough of the features needed for a home studio. The new MOTU 1248 is different though, hitting the criteria required for many small studios on multiple levels.

To start with, the MOTU 1248 has a lot of I/O for such a small package in that there's 8 rear panel analog inputs and 12 analog outputs, along with 4 mic inputs complete with front panel trim, phantom power and pad controls, and two front panel instrument inputs. The 12 outputs are divided into 8 channel outs, 2 main and 2 monitor, plus there are 2 dedicated front panel headphone outputs with level controls.

There's also 2 ADAT inputs and outputs that allows for up to 16 more inputs if you have one of the many 8 channel mic preamps available with ADAT outs. Keeping on the digital side, you'll also find a SPIDF input and output. All this combines for up to a potential 32 inputs and 34 outputs, quite a lot from a single rack space box.

The 1248 can also interface with the computer in multiple ways in that there's both Thunderbolt 2 and USB connectors. Plus there's also an AVB Ethernet connection for connecting the unit to a network, which could include a number of additional 1248's for expanded capabilities.

The front panel also contains master volume controls for the Main and Monitor outputs, and a large display that can show the various functions or act as level indicators for all the inputs and outputs. That said, the unit also comes with a software mixer capable of up to 48 channels, each with its own EQ, filter set, gate and compressor, with up to 7 aux sends and 4 groups. This mixer can be loaded not only onto a desktop computer, but also on an iPad or iPhone for remote control of the unit, something which musicians and engineers are demanding more and more.

The 1248 is capable of operating at sample rates up to 192kHz, although that will limit the I/O capabilities. That said, the unit is deep in functionality, has some excellent audio specs, and in general is a huge bang for the buck at a street price of $1495. Check out the video below or go to the MOTU website for more details.

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Rush/Dream Theater Engineer Richard Chycki On My Latest Inner Circle Podcast

This week I'm really pleased to have engineer/mixer Richard Chycki as a guest on my podcast.

Richard has a ton of credits, but those of you into prog rock know that he's worked extensively with both Rush and Dream Theater. 

On the show we discuss miking Neil Peart and Mike Mangini's drum kits (and avoiding phase shift when using 40 mics!), a great guitar recording trick, and surround sound mixing, among other things.

On the intro I'll talk about how 1% of artists make 80% of the money, the introduction of Spotify Touch Preview, the significance of Apple buying Symmetric, as well as the new MIDI HD and the upcoming AVB standards.

Remember that you can find the podcast either at BobbyOInnerCircle.com, or on iTunes or Stitcher. 

New Music Gear Monday: MOTU Monitor 8

One of the things that's lagged behind in digital audio has been monitoring, but that's becoming a priority more and more when it comes to digital interfaces. In fact, there are now quite a few great dedicated monitoring alternatives now available. Case in point, the new MOTU Monitor 8.

The Monitor 8 is unique in that it can do so many things and fit into so many situations. It can be a control room monitor controller, a live monitor mixer, a multi-channel headphone amplifier, or a computer audio interface right out of the box.

Built-in you'll find a 24x16x8 monitor mixer, a 6 channel headphone amp and a 48 channel USB/AVB audio interface, plus a very nice metering package. For control room monitoring, it has two stereo pairs allowing for main and secondary monitors, but you can also dial up 6 additional cue mixes (which can be individually controlled from an iPhone app) as well.

The unit has the latest ESS Sabre32 Ultra D/A convertors with 123dB dynamic range, and features as little as 32 samples of latency from input to output. It also features a 48 channel software mixer that can take its signal from either a host DAW or the Monitor 8's analog inputs or dual ADAT optical ports, and provides EQ and LA-2 style compression on each channel. The AVB port allows Monitor 8 to connect with a wide variety of hardware using the latest audio networking via CAT-5 or CAT-6 Ethernet cables.

Monitor 8 can work as an interface or a stand alone unit, and it can easily connect to MOTU's other AVB products like the 1248, 8M, 16A, 24Ai or 24Ao, and utilize quick setup presets to get you rolling right away.

MOTU's Monitor 8 is an extremely versatile unit that will find itself in a lot of monitoring situations given its versatility and price point. The unit retails for $995.