A lot of different audio interfaces make their way through my studio, and they all have great features and capabilities to recommend them. But I've always found 's interfaces to be among my favorites for their intelligent blend of features, price, usability, and sound quality. Recently, I've been using the new desktop interface and it absolutely lives up to all the great things I've come to expect from MOTU!

The Track16 is a compact unit that's designed to sit on your desktop within easy reach. It's a hybrid interface (USB 2.0 or FireWire) with up to 16 inputs and 14 outputs. The Track16 has 10 front-panel buttons and a single large knob for controlling all the basic parameters you might need to access: monitor level, headphone level, mic gain, phantom power, and so on. The front panel also sports eight nice LED meters. The unit itself has a guitar in, two headphone outs, a stereo line input, and optical I/O (eight-channel ADAT or stereo S/DPIF). The rest of the connections are on the included breakout cable: mic inputs, line outputs, MIDI I/O, another guitar in, and more.

MOTU's CueMix software is included, which takes advantage of the Track16's hidden secret: onboard DSP. CueMix allows for latency-free monitoring with effects during tracking: EQ, dynamics, even reverb. You can set up a variety of mixes for your monitors and headphones, and it's all easy to configure and operate.

In use, the Track16 sounds great. Pristine but not sterile. It has two pro-level mic preamps, plus you can run your external preamps into the line inputs for more mic channels. There are separate monitor, stereo line, and headphone outs for routing at mixdown. And it's all a snap to control from either the front panel or CueMix. Whatever software I chose to use (Track16 is Mac and Windows compatible) the interface was rock solid and performed perfectly.

I like the Track16 a lot, and it has become one my go-to interfaces. The form factor is great, and the quality and compatibility are spot on. Highly recommended!