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MOTU 4pre

Item ID: 4pre

6-channel USB/FireWire Audio Interface with 4 x Microphone Preamplifiers

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From Our Research Team:

Quality Sound Meets Maximum Convenience!

Portability, flexibility, and convenient simplicity - MOTU's 4pre hybrid recording interface gives you all of this and more. Whether you have a FireWire-equipped Mac laptop or a PC tower with USB ports, recording with your MOTU 4pre couldn't be easier. Like the name suggests, the 4pre sports four studio-quality microphone preamplifiers. What's more, each input features a combo jack, giving you inputs for your mics, instruments, and line-level sources. And housed in a handy all-metal half-rack chassis, the MOTU 4pre is ready to go where the music takes you.

MOTU 4pre Hybrid USB/FireWire Interface at a Glance:
  • Total modular flexibility
  • Studio-grade sound
  • Flexible integrated mix engine

Total modular flexibility
Do you prefer a handy desktop interface, or do you need an on-the-go solution for mobile recording? Either way, the MOTU 4pre will easily accommodate your needs. High-speed USB 2.0 lets you connect the 4pre to any computer out there, and if your laptop has FireWire onboard, then you can even bus power it for convenient mobile recording. What's more, the 4pre comes with a complete rackmounting kit, so you can mount it in a half-width rack, or link it with another half-rack-size MOTU piece and rackmount them together.

Studio-grade sound
Of course, no audio interface is worth investing in unless it sounds good. One of the reason Sweetwater stands by MOTU gear is simply this: the customers who buy their products almost always rave about their sound. Specifically, the 4pre comes equipped with (as the name suggests) four of MOTU's top-quality microphone preamplifiers. What's great about these preamps is that their incredibly clear, with extremely low noise or distortion. That lets you records anything from vocals to high-gain guitar amps, and tweak the tone to taste later.

Flexible integrated mix engine
Here's another thing that Sweetwater customers love about MOTU gear. The CueMix FX mixing software lets you fully tweak the 4pre's 8-bus mix engine down at the hardware level - way before the signal reaches your DAW. That's right, we said an 8-bus mix engine. This lets you control the mix volume independently of the input gain, so you can monitor your inputs at the right level, without affecting your recording volume.

MOTU 4pre Hybrid USB/FireWire Interface Features:
  • A great audio interface for desktop and laptop recording rigs
  • Compact and rugged all-metal chassis fits easily in a backpack, but comes with the hardware you need to rackmount it
  • 4 x ultra-clean and highly transparent microphone preamplifiers let you record without coloring your sound
  • All analog inputs are on combo jacks, providing you with the connectivity you need to record 2 x balanced line-level sources as well as 2 x hi-Z instrument sources
  • 2 x channels of S/PDIF I/O
  • 2 x independent headphone outputs make collaboration easy
  • Independent hands-on mixer lets you use the 4pre even without your computer
  • Connects via USB 2.0 or FireWire 400
  • CueMix software lets you control four mixes and 8 buses with simple tabbed interface (includes tuner, oscilloscope, real-time FFT, spectrogram waterfall, X-Y phase analysis, and other tools)
  • Functions as a stand-alone 4-channel mixer, even without a computer
  • Includes AudioDesk recording software

The MOTU 4pre is an audio interface that fits in any rig!

4pre Image Gallery

Specification Detail
Computer Connection Type FireWire/USB
Form Factor Rackmount/Desktop
Simultaneous I/O 6 x 6
A/D Resolution 24-bit/96kHz
Built In DSP/FX DSP Mixer
Number of Audio Inputs 4
Audio Input Types 2 x XLR/TRS combo, 2 x XLR/TS (DI) combo
Number of Audio Outputs 4
Audio Output Types 4 x TRS
Number of Digital Inputs 2
Digital Input Types 1 x S/PDIF
Number of Digital Outputs 2
Digital Output Types 1 x S/PDIF
Number of Mic Preamps 4
Phantom Power Yes
MIDI I/O No MIDI I/O
Clock I/O No Clock I/O
Bus Powered Yes (FireWire only)
Rack Units 1/2U
Depth 7"
Width 8.5"
Height 1.75"
Manufacturer Part Number 8460

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Reviews

based on 4 reviews

Great interface!

by Daniel Lopez from Los Angeles, CA
March 15, 2012
Music Background: Recording engineer
Great piece of gear! love the pre's that it comes with, not much to complain. Only thing I didn't like was the facet that you couldn't 'monitor mute.' Meaning you can't separate your main headphone o... read more [+]utput from the main mix knob. Unless you do it within the box but still a hastle. close [-]

excellent sound

by from
March 2, 2012
Music Background: recording engineer, live sound engineer, hobbyist, student, roadie
this interface is everything promised.
it does its job very well and very smoothly

when it is paired with a good mic, the sound quality is superb.

the controls are... read more [+] a touch confusing and require some getting used to but i imagine with a brief read through of the instructions, the problem would be solved.

all in all, a solid, quality, very nice, well featured interface.
and a decent deal on a motu interface close [-]

Awesome Little Unit!

by Frank from Chicago, IL
February 20, 2012
Music Background: Home Recording, Musician (non-professional), Hobbyist
This thing is chock full of features. I like having the option to use USB or Firewire, and the preamps sound great to me. It was actually more compact than I had expected, which was great. The main re... read more [+]ason I chose this was because I needed something with more than 2 mic pres but I didn't quite need 8 at the moment so this little 4Pre has been just great. I also love that MOTU allows for daisy chaining so that if I find that I need more inputs someday, I can always add them onto this. Also, this was a significant upgrade from my old MBOX2. It runs great with my Pro Tools 9 setup and I have not experienced any issues. However, the only thing that had bothered me was that the Hi-Z inputs are a little unpredictable,so with a guitar that has a very hot signal, the signal cannot be controlled well. Also, the pad does not activate unless you are plugged in via XLR, so in order to solve this issue I just run guitars through a DI box and then I can attenuate accordingly. This has not affected the performance of the inetrface, soI am still very happy with it. I think that anyone who is looking for a high quality interface that is still within a decent price range, I highly recommend it. It will more than get the job done! close [-]

This is a great little audio interface!

by David Newton from Danbury, CT
February 11, 2012
Music Background: Hobbyist
Motu’s 4pre works great for me…being somewhat of a recording novice,
I was hoping for an audio interface that will simply work with my mediocre laptop.
The 4pre has 4 mic preamps with IN... read more [+]DEPENDENT phantom power for each input channe; unlike some other brands clamming to have 4 inputs yet supplying phantom power for only 2 of those. The 4pre then does allow me the freedom to do multitrack recording with all 4 inputs simultaneously. This was a serious consideration when I was searching for the right audio interface. The manual for the 4 pre is straight forward and very useful, which is what one would think since Motu is a much respected audio device manufacturer. I am currently using the 4pre with Reaper DAW software without problems…therefore; I would recommend this audio interface to anyone....

From Dave close [-]

Also popular

See Also: FireWire Interfaces , MOTU , MOTU FireWire Audio Interfaces , MOTU USB Audio Interfaces

MOTU 4pre

Today's Payment: $159.66
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Payment 2: $149.66
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Payment 3: $149.66
In approx. 60 days

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