MOTU 896 as Mic Pre's Only?

promesis

promesis

Black Knights of the 4H.
I have a MOTU 896 just hanging around and need some additional mic pre's. I already have 8 mic pre amps but another 8 channels are going thru my Mackie 32/8's mic pre section - I would much rather not use the Mackie's pre amp section .. I am going into an Alesis HD24 .. I was thinking of using the MOTU 896 as an additional 8 channels of Mic Pres and use the Fibre Optic output of the MOTU to go directly into the fibre optic input for channels 9-16 on the HD24. Last nite I plugged in all of the mics into the MOTU but no levels came thru on the Analog Input level meters.. I did not have the fibre optic cable in - just thought I would check levels .. but like i said - there were none.

Ok.. do I need to have the MOTU hooked up to a computer before the signal will pass from the Mics into the pre-amp section? Or simply - is it possible to use the MOTU just as a mic pre.. without any computer interface? Do I need to have an output connected to the MOTU to get the mic signals into the preamp section.. what's up with this thang? Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
To be honest, the quality of that Mackie consoles pre's is probably better than the MOTU pre's. I used to own an original 896, and never really liked the pre's much - kinda lifeless, dark, whatever you want to call them.

As far as using the 896 as just an eight channel pre, not sure. Seems that the 896HD can be used without a computer, but I'm not sure about the original 896. I'd think that updated firmware and a better implementation of CueMix faired better for the 896HD. Someone else around here I'm sure can shed some light on this for you. But still, I'd use the Mackie myself.
 
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