I don't know which 828 you have, but mine is MK3 and has DSP based Reverb, Leveler, Compressor, 3 section EQ (lo,mid,high), Gate and other stuff available on every channel of the mixer until it runs out of external DSP power. That is all external effects to the computer. If you control it via ethernet or wifi, it has an HTTP panel based software so that your computer does not even need to be online. It functions as a separate external mixer, if you wanted. Which I do not. It is AVB. And these effects are nowhere as good as many UAD offerings.

"Audio Video Bridging (AVB) is the exciting new extension to Ethernet specifically engineered for real-time, low-latency, fully synchronized streaming of audio and video over Ethernet. The MOTU AVB fulfills the promise of a true A/V standard that brings together the worlds of networking technology and professional audio/video. The MOTU AVB Switch provides five 1-Gigabit AVB ports for any AVB devices (even other switches), plus an extra sixth port for bridging to a standard Ethernet network.
Features: Gigabit Ethernet
Number of Ethernet Ports: 5 port, 6 port"

For a musician who wants to record effects printed onto the audio input while it is recorded, external DSP offers a solution to the Latency caused by most (if not nearly all) DAW/Plugin setups. There is no Latency Compensation or Plugin Delay Compensation which will fix that for them. They are recording analog sources, so the latency this way is restricted to almost entirely the digital to audio conversion process being done by the interface. Most people do not need it, like I mentioned already. But if they really do need this, the option is to either pony up the money for an interface with external DSP or to learn how to play better, while monitoring with latency included. That is easier said than done, when it is not your own home setup. You can just "get used to it", but most people buying something do not want to "just get used to this POS".

The small format looks nice. You could put one on your desk and not have it take up the whole thing.

 

Last edited: Feb 11, 2024

2 questions about the MOTU 828 MK 3:
Which is your OS?
Is it possible to use the internal effects for monitoring only?

 

Very interesting product. And a bargain for only a little bit more than 500 Euros.

From their website

The only part that I don't understand is how loading vst works, how do you edit the parameters once loaded?

Also I miss 48v. Alim. But i guess it would be more expensive then.

 

I'm using it with MacOS High Sierra on my tower and Ventura on my Laptop. I've used it on the laptop with most MacOS versions from Mojave to Ventura with no problems. I've skipped some in between. There are lots of Windows users for the 828's, but I think they may use a slightly different model #. Mine is 828ES MK3. The one @Bunford is using the way he mentioned is a PC firewire version, there is a hybrid, etc. You'd just have to check out the correct one.

You can do a ton of more "complex" routing configurations with it, than I use it for. You can apply internal FX to outs, but I'm not sure if you can apply the reverb to your monitoring because I have never done it. I got it more for the connectivity i/o amount, than for DSP features. The one I am using is 2x Optical, 2 SPDIF, 1 word clock, 2 sends, 1x1 5pin Midi, and 2 mic/line preamps on the front. The rest of the analog i/o are on the back.

This is the newest version. https://motu.com/en-us/products/828/ It looks like the Digital I/O are "expansions" on the base model number. You probably need to use a wifi router with it, and by that I just mean an external device like a linksys/cisco kind of deal. It's not an internal upgrade on the model I am using. That's only if you need to use the wifi at all, I do not. You can run a cat-5 ethernet cable to it, and it retains your mixer configuration you setup with your computer powered off. You would have to check all the details, especially if you were considering getting a firewire version because of how inexpensively you can find them priced now on the used market.

 

Thank you very much for your detailed answer.
I'm using Windows, and I had to use Motu interfaces from other musicians for different reasons, they all gave me problems.
I was hoping that you also use Windows.
This interface seems very interesting but, I wont risk to buy it without first trying it, which is unfortunately impossible where I live.

 

Correct

Mine is the older MOTU 828 MkII FW edition. With firewire now pretty much abandoned by everyone and everything, instead of throwing mine out or selling for cheap, I connect via fibre option ADAT cable from ADAT out on it into the ADAT in on my Audient ID14 MkII. I simply use the MOTU as inputs, so set it to MASTER with the bit rate etc, and then set the Audient as the SLAVE receiving info from the MOTU. I can then control all of the inputs in the Audient ID software and its mixer and routing options.

By doing this, my MOTU is now constantly racked with permanent inputs into it from my patchbay, with my hardware synths pre-routed unless I input something else into the patchbay.

This expands my Audient ID14 MkII with another 8 inputs using MOTU grade preamps, and the patchbay allows me to override the pre-routed hardware synth connections if I ever want to connect any other hardware.

Works like a dream for me, and gives me a nice portable interface in my Audient ID14 MkII to take with me and my laptop in a bag if I ever travel, but then works as a home studio 'brain' interface on my studio desktop too.

 

I wouldn't do either one of those. I would continue using it. There are plenty of users of firewire interfaces on here. they are maybe not blazing fast transfer speeds compared to newer thunderbolt 3 units, but so what? firewire is obviously fast enough. people can be so driven by "latest and greatest" in audio, needing faster and faster everything. When back in reality, they only thing that has changed in audio is the software developers making use of the newest stuff available to them, so they can re-sell us stuff we already have. Anyway...

The Mac Pro 5.1 tower I am using with High Sierra for most of my audio work was sold stock with 2 fw 400 and 2 fw 800 ports. I could plug your 828 FW interface in, install the MOTU software and start working with it in about 5 minutes. I might be the outlier on here using a machine so old, but on other mac audio sites using a 5.1 is still rather commonplace, because now they are cheap as hell.

 

Last edited: Feb 12, 2024

you're welcome. I wouldn't just take someone on the internet's recommendation on expensive stuff, either. I call Sweetwater and my "sales engineer" will let me talk to their techs. They don't care what you end up buying and will give you the real story on gear. They would rather sell you the right thing than have to get "it doesn't work" phone calls later on down the road. They might be dumb enough to put ads on tv; but when it comes to the people they hire, that company does not play around at all. In the rare case I buy something stupid without asking, I just send it back. lol. They do not do a billion+ dollars sales a year of this stuff, for no reason.

 

That should just be an 828ES or you're really going to confuse people with MOTU history behind them.
The 828 MK3 was an actual interface right after the MK2 and right before the one I have, the 828x. The MK3 is a firewire, or USB/Firewire hybrid, and is NOTHING like the 828ES that came out years after it. This was years before AVB was invented, and it uses the older CueMix software, not the web based mixer your unit and the rest of the current lineup use..

@Olymoon - I hate to say it but I have nothing but praise for MOTU when it comes to Macs only. I've gone through the entire lineup of 828s, except the ES which was out of production by the time I wanted to trade up, nothing but rock solid performance for over 20 years now. When it comes to Windows, their support has gotten a lot better, but Windows always had issues here and there, whether it was with the interfaces or Digital Performer itself. They started out strictly Mac, and didn't try to play the Windows game until way later, and sometimes it seems like they are still catching up to everybody else. For a PC, I'd be looking at RME, although they're quite a bit more expensive..

 

I think my comment about not buying $1000 of anything on just my say-so, pretty much covers the model numbers. We all know what we are doing here, especially when it comes to shopping research. To suggest that a moderator of this forum needs their hand held to buy an audio interface is kind of funny.

A lot of Mac users are dumping old firewire interfaces on the cheap now, like @Bunford's unit. People who would sell a unit, before they would csrutil-disable SIP or whatever people are doing to add fw functionality back to macOS newer versions. But on Windows, many users are still using them, with some of them utilizing conversion workarounds. I think to say Motu interfaces are not good enough drivers/software for Windows is definitely old hat these days. I wouldn't even hesitate about using one on Windows because I am aware of how excellent their technical support is. That kind of thing sounds like some kind of Steinberg fish story where they blame everyone and everything in the world other than Cubase crashing when they can't figure something out. @Bunford, how old is your Motu? A UAD or RME model of similar i/o will run you about 3x as much as the Motu will.

 

Last edited: Feb 13, 2024

My MOTU is years old. I think it's probably from about early to mid-2000s potentially?! But there's no need for any Windows software, as it's configurable on the device in terms of MASTER/SLAVE, bit depth, bit rate etc, and so whether there's any software available or if it's outdated is kind of irrelevant.

 

I read some rather disturbing infos regarding the usb audio interface, espcially budget range (lets say 100-300$). Apparently they are having a bit of latency going on, is that true in these days? Also is that true that PCI/e cards are not that popular anymore as it is not recommended that audio card is actually inside and that close to motherboard (some sort of radiation of electric field?) as it might interfere somehow? Like how - RME cards are super fine and used inside,

In general I think I would not like to make any downgrade from that julia card if I can't find the 'xte' version for pciexpress. So I still do research and trying to get close to this or a bit better for the buck.
DR AD 114dba / DA 112dba
codec AKM 5385A / 4358
2in and 2outs minimum

Does anyone has any experience with Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6?