Has anyone heard of the Motu 828???

  • Thread starter Thread starter Eric917
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Eric917

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Does the 828 suck? It seems like alot of people would want to get there hands on it! I need some honest reviews here.
 
That's the USB audio interface isn't it? I look useful but I would suspect that being MOTO it will be very expensive.
 
Its a firewire interface for $749. But the main cost Im looking at is the computer. Its a Powerbook G4 Titanium for $3,000.
 
828

I cannot figure out why this has not seemingly caught on...the price is competive with older PCI based systems. I guess lack of software included might be an issue, but...come on. It provides a true laptop/notebook solution, in my eyes.

I hope someone who owns one can post, because it interests me as well.
 
828

I cannot figure out why this has not seemingly caught on...the price is competive with older PCI based systems. I guess lack of software included might be an issue, but...come on. It provides a true laptop/notebook solution, in my eyes.

I hope someone who owns one can post, because it interests me as well.
 
Heres a reason...

Alot of people dont like it because you can only monitor 2 channels on input. Its a flaw in the hardware design which has been confirmed by the tech people at MOTU.
 
Well I just met a guy at a Carvin guitar shop that uses the Motu 828 and hes gonna let me see it in action this sunday when he records some vocals in his studio. He says its good but I wanna see what he uses, what it sounds like, how he uses it, anything and everything....He says hes recorded 60 tracks at once with the Motu and some light pipe device at 24 bit and 96hz.
 
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I am very new to the audio recording and editing world but Im jumping into it with both feet and if Im going to do it I wanna do it right. The specs on the Powerbook G4 Im getting are 500mhz, 256 ram, 20 gig HD and DVD drive and a Motu 828 for the ovious reasons. This is a hard to heavy rock band with some acoustic songs as well. The band consists of 1 vocal, 1 electric guitar, 1 bass guitar, 1 keyboard for some intros and sound fx and stuff which the bass guy plays, and 1 drummer with with a standard setup with 2 bass drums and 3 electronic drums going into a mixing board and then to a Roland vs 840 ( I think, which I would like to maybe integrate into the G4/Motu setup [ it has a spdif and optical outs] ) which they are using right now to record and practice with in a small recording studio they are renting. Will this set up be good enough for making an album that doesnt sound like a demo? I plan on learning the ropes from these guys and maybe turning it into a small business or record label ( who knows ). I want to use a laptop for several reasons. 1 I need portability. I will be traveling from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to do recordings with my friends band. 2 I already have a desktop pc. 3 Take it to record other bands (make money to pay for this monster). 4 For fun like watching movies on it. And so on...... Am I wasting my time and money trying to do this or am I going to make an impact worth while? Man, I have so many more questions I need help on but Im to tired to think of them. I just hope theres someone out there that can help. Should I use adiodesk(which comes with the motu), protools, or vegas audio?
 
I realy dont know what Im talking about but cant the software monitor the levels on each channel/track its recording????
 
if you monitor your inputs through your software, thats where you run into latency (delay from sound to hearing it in your headphones)
i was in a session yesterday for a major label artist(christian label) and when i walked in his setup consisted of:
1 - mac g4 titanium
2 - moto 828
3 - firewire club mac external HD
running logic audio.

they decided to track at the studio we were at for the mic selection.
i was playing acoustic and could hear a slight latency on my guitar but not anything that would mess any one up. i was totally impressed. the producer/engineer had to leave for a bit and just unplugged the firewire and power cables and was gone. came back, plugged the two cables back in and powered up and was ready to go in about 5 mins. amazing! and w/ the external drive, there was never a single dropout or hiccup. again, i was blown away!
 
I have read on the web somewhere that if you have a firewire external hard drive and the Motu 828 running at the same time it can cause latency and other problems because the two devices are then sharing the same pathway via the firewire. Thats why the Motu uses the firewire. It needs to be able to use all that bandwith when it wants to. The recording of audio has to be seemless and real time or else its gonna sound like junk. The same reason you wouldnt want to be running other programs while recording. Well thats my theory anyway. I am not a profesional. Im a very new newbie. Heck, I havnt even bought my system yet. Im waiting to see how that guys Motu performs this sunday and hoping the price of the Powerbook G4 Titanium goes down below $3,000(well the model I want at least). Nowing my luck the price will drop the day after I buy it.
 
decent unit

the 828 is very similar to the ultralight it is more of a pro target unit thouhg. you get word clock and some more ins and outs than the ultra light. it was originaly designed to work nicely with an 8 buss console and it does. i have use the original unit way back from when they had rca jacks on them and i still use it today its great. motu makes some dam solid units, they are durable and work great if you are looking at it check out the new one the MKIII its got compresson in it
 
Eric917 said:
I have read on the web somewhere that if you have a firewire external hard drive and the Motu 828 running at the same time it can cause latency and other problems because the two devices are then sharing the same pathway via the firewire.
Click to expand...

Whoever told you that is wrong. FireWire guarantees the MOTU whatever bandwidth its driver requests. That bandwidth is simply unavailable to other devices as long as the MOTU is actively sending/receiving audio data.

Of course, any requests sent to FireWire disks will experience higher latency than they would if the full bandwidth were available to the disk, but reading data from the disk far enough ahead of time is the responsibility of your audio app, and most audio apps do it pretty well these days.
 
I have the 896 HD which is the next one up. Nice. I know some people who have the 828. Great unit. Really decent preamps. Go for it.
 
TerraMortim said:
I have the 896 HD which is the next one up. Nice. I know some people who have the 828. Great unit. Really decent preamps. Go for it.
Click to expand...

Heh, has been on the fence about this purchase for 6 years?....

(look at the date of the original post)
 
pipelineaudio said:
who keeps digging up these ancient threads?
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Lots of people. I've done it myself once or twice by mistake. You follow a link that somebody makes to a thread discussing something and you assume that it is a current thread, so you add a comment into it, and suddenly you've bumped a thread from the Cretaceous period.

It would be nice if the board gave a warning along the lines of "You are about to reply to a very freaking old post. Are you sure you want to do this?" for any thread over 90 days old. :)
 
Darn! I got sucked in by yet another 6 year old post. What's going on around here?!?

timthetortoise, you were 16 years old when eric917 started this thread.
 
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