MOTU M2 Review, Test, and Comparison!

hey everyone it's me Carlo today we're going to not only review but we're going to test and compare the mark of the unicorn m2 USBC audio interface now I'm a little bit excited about this particular little unit here why because at the recent NAMM event in Anaheim named 2020 I got to preview this and take a tour with some of the good folks there marking the unicorn and it's pretty excited about this turns out that this little device and its counterpart the m4 are making quite a bit buzz in the industry right now because of its audio quality now I'm kind of not surprised so what we're gonna do though is find out for ourselves and we're going to unbox this unit right now set it up I'm going to get it registered and download some of the included software and get going now for some of you who don't know what this is I'll explain really briefly it's an audio interface it'll connect to your computer via USB which is included the cables included with the device and allow you to record high quality audio but this particular unit does a couple things that is a little bit exceptional for example it includes something called loopback recording to allow you to record audio coming out from your computer and mix that with say a microphone for podcasting or live streaming let's see on Facebook or YouTube so if you're into that genre of audio production if you're creative like that a little device like this could really help you plus the audio quality does supposedly sound amazing and I'm sure it will because it uses something called the ESS zebra 32 DAC converter and that's why I am super excited about this because that converter that little chip that's in this little unit is the same one that's in my moto a 280s here in my office my home office it's C it's the best audio converter I've ever used the quality coming out of my production since I upgraded has doubled literally I'm really excited about that but how's that converter going to work in a smaller unit like the m2 well we're about to find out for example I've got my favorite pair of stereo low 120 L a 120 microphones here Matt stereo set and we're gonna do a little experimenting I'm gonna mic up one of my studio monitors here we'll play back some audio we're gonna compare the m2 with my 808 using the same DAC now a couple things to keep in mind here about these USB units is that they are USB powered so you do want to use the included cable that comes with it or one that you know it's reliable and certified it's gonna give you the proper voltage because they're bus powered which makes it handy for when you're traveling you don't have to plug it into the wall it's gonna get all of its power from the computer itself and here it is let's open up for the first time all right take a little bit of tape off so with my favorite part of doing this and there it is my mo 2 m2 check it out alright now on the back here you got your power button and your classic 5 pin MIDI cables and as I mentioned earlier there's a a counterpart to this called the m4 which has four inputs the m2 has two RCA and quarter inch TRS jacks for your monitors it's got a nice volume control here in a super-large monitor control knob so this will make for a nice monitor control unit on your on your desktop and it's got to high quality preamps here these are combo jacks so you've got XLR and line input what's quarter inch and say you want to plug directly in with your guitar because keep in mind when you're using a high-speed like USB C connection here you'll get almost no latency when you're recording and that's the advantage of today's power with computers so you also got a monitor button I noticed here now if you use these monitor buttons what you're going to do is allow you to monitor the audio directly from the headphones here so you can hear audio in real time if you have some processing going on in your computer may incur a latency and delay and what you're hearing and what you're playing so that's really handy plus it's got phantom volt power for either microphone preamp so sometimes you have a global one that turn all on well this has individual phantom power and then your input gain knobs here for each preamp so it's really easy to use so basically what you want to do to get going is to register your product from what I understand from reading the box here got some really cool information right here but by registering the product you're gonna get access to not only the unit and support but lots of content for example it comes with digital performer light and lots of loops and samples for you to get started with music creation so you know you get a lot of value for your money especially when you're doing business with a company like Mark of the unicorn here so you get reliable hardware we're gonna test it out see what it sounds like and let's get started so after registering my product and downloading the correct drivers we're going to connect the USB C cable one in the back and one to my computer and now we're gonna power on the MOTU m2 for the first time switches in the back and the first thing you'll notice is how beautiful the liquid crystal display is and just like that it'll be automatically recognized those play some audio through it what a beautiful display smooth and colourful I really love that and we're up and running as quickly and easily as that alright so far so good so remember as I mentioned you get a lot of bundled software when you buy some o2 hardware and performer light what you're looking at right here is included with the m2 which adds a lot of value to this product now let's open up this session that I created the first WAV file here at the top is the m2 and the next one down here is the a2 80s now the a2 80s is a thunderbolt unit again it cost about $1000 and the m2 retails for well under $200 and bundled that with the included software you got yourself a really good deal but I want to know how those preamps compare to the much more expensive counterparts and what we're gonna do is take a listen right now so remember this was recorded with an identical pair of uh well a stereo pair of microphones from the same audio source at the same time so let's take a listen to the m2 first this is my group and we want to hear how similar they sound [Music] all right so that's the MTU let me take that out of so low now let's solo the a to 80s and let's take a listen to this one let's compare [Music] okay so right off the bat I gotta tell you that's really interesting they sound well nearly identical the waveforms are a little bit different I can see there are some very slight very very slight sonic differences but while I'm really impressed let's take a listen to the m2 again from that same section right there with the singer comes in [Music] all right now let's take a listen to the same part here through the 80s [Music] okay you know what I'm super impressed here on one hand at the m2 we've got a bus powered USB interface and we're comparing it with a thunderbolt interface that is five times as expensive Wow those prints do match super well okay I think I'll leave that up to you to be the judge and it's a little hard with the YouTube compression but really take time to put some headphones on and critically listen to this and see what you think okay so far we've unboxed the mo to m2 which is again very similar to its counterpart the m4 and we did a product comparison with something costing five times more than what you get in this little box and so far I'm really impressed I really am but I do a lot of singing a song writing recording and we're gonna record a little guitar right now and I'm also going to be recording directly into performer light which is included with the m2 so the signal chain is pretty simple acoustic guitar Louden la 1:20 microphone cardioid capsule into my preamp number one I turned a phantom power on if you need that for your microphone adjust the preamp gain level and let's do some recording alright so just again trick it down just a little bit and let's play a little bit here we go [Music] okay so what we're looking at here now is the comparison waveforms and here's the acoustic guitar just recorded let's take a listen to this [Music] okay not bad I've got a beautiful waveform there I think these preamps sound amazing for such a small and really affordable device like this alright let's wrap this up okay so there you have it what did we do we unbox the m2 downloaded some drivers got it up and running keep in mind it does work flawlessly on a Mac and on a Windows environment so there drivers for both another thing that I've always really appreciated about MOTU devices that they work on both platforms equally without any issues so if your Windows user all set if your Mac user you're all set - no worries we unboxed it downloaded some drivers we also installs some of the bundle software performer light which the more and more I use more I seem to really enjoy again if you're a podcaster and you're you really wanna maybe up the quality of your work then a device like this is perfect for you even if you're a musician like myself I gotta tell you the preamps really impressed me on this I don't know how well that came across to you in YouTube world but here on my end I gotta tell you that the combination of not only the preamps but the onboard world-class conversion of that digital chip in there same one that's on a unit that costs five times as much here and in my rack I'm really impressed with that and I think you would be too a couple of things I would change well I think the buttons are a little small but you know what the whole unit is a little small it's not that big it is rugged made out of metal and the knobs feel really good but keep in mind this unit is well under $200 with the included software and what more can you ask for you know it's like I always say we live in really good times where was this when I was you know 20 years ago right stuff like this is amazing today so what I always say is the best way to find out is for yourself so stay busy stay creative this was my first experience review of the boat to m2 and I hope you enjoyed it have a great day and thanks for watching

Channel: Carlo Libertini

Views: 55,685

Rating: 4.7989416 out of 5

Keywords: MOTU, M2, M4, Audio Interface, USB Audio Interface, USB 3 Audio Interface, Podcasting Interface, Podcasting Audio Interface, Live streaming audio interface, Live audio interface, Performer Lite, Lauten Audio LA120, Audio Recording, Sabre DAC, Sabre ESS DAC, Best Audio Interface, desktop audio interface, MOTU M2, MOTU M4, MOTU 828es, Carlo Libertini

Id: jpc0Wqf8QDg

Length: 13min 33sec (813 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 03 2020