MOTU M4 & M2 USB-C Audio Interfaces Overview

hi I'm Mitch Gallagher welcome to Sweetwater sound check this time out new state-of-the-art studio quality audio interfaces from o to the M series to learn more about these interfaces or the complete line of MOTU products visit Sweetwater comm today we're checking out the m2 and the m4 the latest audio interfaces for MOTU now these are both USB bus powered audio interfaces and they offer some unique features that really set them apart from the competition not least of which is outstanding audio specifications the m2 is a two in two out audio interface while the m4 is a four in four out audio interface the circuitry the specs are identical between the two units the difference is just a number of inputs and outputs both feature midi i/o in the back panel and as I mentioned both are USB bus powered there's a USB C connection on the back so it's compatible with newer USB C computers but also is backward compatible with older USB computers as well one nice feature with the M series audio interfaces is they do feature power switches which you rarely find on devices with bus power this means that you can turn them off when you're not running the interfaces and say battery power in your computer speaking of computers the M series is compatible with both PC and Mac and it's USB audio class compliant so it is also compatible with iOS devices the M series audio interfaces utilize the ESS Sabre 32 ultra converters now this gives them outstanding specifications for example the line outputs feature 120 DB of dynamic range in the THD plus noise rating is a minus 110 DB spec very low for an audio interface the microphone preamplifiers feature 115 DB dynamic range THD plus noises minus 97 DB and ein is an incredible minus 120 9.5 DB you and we have 60 DB of gain with those microphone preamps the headphone output gives us 115 DB of dynamic range THD plus noise a point zero zero zero three percent and up to plus 12.5 DB U of output level the M series audio interface is also excel when it comes to latency as low as two point five milliseconds round-trip which means into the interface through the computer and software and back out to the interface in 2.5 milliseconds that's extremely fast many audio interfaces in this class feature very basic metering maybe they might have just an LED that indicates overload or a single ring or a ladder of LEDs that show you the level with the m-series audio interfaces we have continuous LCD metering which gives us a great readout of what's happening with our signal levels let's take a tour of the front and back panels of the m-series audio interfaces we have two microphone line and instrument level inputs with associated gain controls now one of the nice features here is that we have individually switchable 48 volt phantom power which you don't often see it interfaces at these price points this allows you to have a condenser microphone plugged into say the first channel and a passive ribbon microphone plugged into the second channel we also have flexible near zero latency monitoring capability here this means that the signal coming in goes directly out of the audio outputs and into your monitors or headphones while simultaneously feeding into the computer this eliminates any latency concerns you engage this by pressing the button one nice feature as far as monitoring goes as you can monitor in either mono or stereo with two inputs of course you could record stereo signals and it'd be nice to be able to pan those left and right when you're monitoring you can do that by simply pressing and holding the monitor switch to go back to Mono monitoring simply press and hold the button again in the center of the front panel we have our LCD metering master volume control for the line outputs on the back panel and an independent volume control for the headphone output on the back panel we have the power switch that we discussed earlier the USB C connection and midi i/o we also have two sets of audio outputs one set is DC coupled PRS balanced quarter-inch outputs and the other are RCA line outputs those duplicate each other so the same signal feeds out of both of those so you could for example route one set two monitors and one set to another audio device when we move down to the m4 we had two more inputs and two more outputs you can monitor those extra inputs here with this switch in the center you also have a control that allows you to balance between the incoming signal and playback that's coming from your computer so if your overdubbing you want to hear more of yourself you can adjust this control to affect that balance on the back panel we have two stereo sets of line outputs again TRS balanced DC coupled quarter-inch as well as RCA outs one of the great things about the m-series audio interfaces is how easy they are to use as I mentioned the USB audio class compliant and in fact the instructions are right inside the cover of the box when you open it up to get you started a suite of software is included with your interface one of these you'll definitely want to check out is performer light now this gives you many of the features of digital performer 10 but with a streamlined user interface you can record audio you can record MIDI we also have clips that are available here so if you prefer to work in that style you can we have a complete mixer a wide range of plugins are included and of course it's also compatible with audio units and VST - and VST 3 we also can display as notation for your MIDI data and we have complete audio editing as well just like digital performer 10 chunks are supported so you can quickly switch among different sequences you have loaded into performer light performer light also comes with more than 100 virtual instruments and these are multi sampled virtual instruments plenty there to get you started but there's more than that because it also comes with more than 6 gigabytes of loops and samples that you can use in your productions as well so you've really got a complete suite with performer light but if you prefer you can also work with Ableton lite which is included with the interfaces as well if you're doing live streaming or podcasting or even just for recording your mix downs there's a loopback feature with the m-series audio interfaces that allows the computer's output to be recorded direct into tracks this makes it very easy so again stream do podcasts or to capture your mix downs right back into your software if you're looking for an audio interface to serve as a centerpiece for your studio for podcasting for live streaming or for recording on the go you're definitely gonna want to check out the m-series from o to the M 2 with 2 ins and 2 outs and the M 4 with 4 ends and 4 outs offer incredible sound quality with a lot of unique features that set them apart in the competition definitely check these out thanks for joining me for Sweetwater soundcheck I'm Mitch Gallagher you

Channel: Sweetwater

Views: 106,126

Keywords: itemid:m2, itemid:m4, cat:recording, cat:computer, man:motu, mitch gallagher

Id: OsJip1JbvQc

Length: 6min 15sec (375 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019