MOTU 828x 28x30 Thunderbolt / USB 2.0 Audio Interface Reviews

I've used this interface for 7 years, and I've never had a problem with it. The inputs aren't the nicest, but they're above average quality. This thing is built to take a beating.

Like all MOTU products, 828x is a great machine. But I think it is not complete because of its mixer, CueMix.

These are my cons:

It is not possible to move faders and knobs with the wheel of the mouse. This feature should be there for a fine tuning of any parameter.

I have been testing Studio 192 from Presonus and its graphical way to compress or equalize is a very good and easy way to work.

I think many users should be happy with this feature in CueMix: a graphical interface and to be able to move faders and knobs with the wheel of the mouse.

Regards,

Arrived very quickly. Attached and started up about 2 weeks later. Enclosed CD was useless, Laptop Mac has not CD reader and Desktop Mac does but driver on disk was out of date. Went online with both Macd and downloaded driver and all worked very well. Use laptop on Thunderbolt and USB with IMac. Both are excellent. Has exactly the types of I.O i needed and then a few.

works great!

Yes, I was trepidatious. I had two of the Digi's and was reluctant to leave them behind.

But this was a happy change. It set up easily, and though I had trouble for a while getting my bearings with the 828 and my new software (I also left ProTools after many years) I did find what I needed and my studio back in working order.

Great product. Easy to use and great sound.

MOTU is pushing the envelop as usual! This new MOTU 828x is smooth! No audio dropouts! Finally, this MOTU can keep up with the processing power of the fastest macs!

Gives me everything I need in a single rackspace and expandable to boot. The included software and ipad control round it out perfectly.

This is an update to a prior review. I've owned the 828x for since it was released. It does a great job in my project studio, sounds clean and offers all the in/outs needed for my outboard gear. Over 4 years, the original unit started to have hardware issues like a bad LCD and popping speaker outputs. Even though I was well out of the standard warrant period,, MOTU came through and sent me a replacement unit free of charge.

Had to replace my MOTU 828mkII which finally faltered and failed - after over 12 years constant use... talking with MOTU Tech support they indicated the 828x would be a great replacement.... and the 828x is a great replacement - simply popped it into my rack plugged in via USB and was up and running in about 15 minutes. The added features are a great 'plus' especially with live recording and obviously a 'sweet' paring with Digital Performer.

The only down side is the lack of a third interface option - it would have been nice to still have a FW800 connection available along with the USB 2 and Thunderbolt 2.

You simply cannot beat this interface for the amount of features it has for the price! I use the analog ins and outs to connect my board to my DAW, which currently is Protools. The Thunderbolt connection is unbeatable if you are using a Mac. It works perfectly, and has nearly any type of connection type you could ask for. The only fault i can find with the 828x is that unless you are eye-level or higher to the screen, the information on it becomes illegible. Other than that, the 828x is perfect, especially at such a great price! I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a new interface.

First, I don't agree with Kenny Crimewave's review. The 828x has 8 internal buses. I use one for my main out, another for an effects send, which leaves a potential for 6 artist mixes out any TRS, optical or the S/PDIF output.

It would be easy to agree with the other positive reviews. Lots of pure sound can be thrown around.

I did buy a demo unit which crashes and loses clock sync. Sweetwater tried to debug an intermittent, and gave a positive spin on an otherwise troublesome experience. They are providing a swap with no hassle and an upgrade from a demo to a new unit. Hopefully the glitch will be cleared...

Cause most of the time the unit is sweet.

As a long-time MOTU interface user, I was hesitant about purchasing this. My last MOTU interface, an 828mkII, had numerous issues after I updated my operating system to snow leopard. After the update, it just wouldn't work. It took MOTU over a year to get the new hardware drivers working correctly.

The new 828x thunderbolt works perfectly, with a few snags. The included CD was scratched from the factory, so I had to visit the MOTU site to download the latest installer. I recommend doing this anyway, as the version supplied in my box was outdated to begin with.

After installing the MOTU Cuemix software, I plugged the unit in and turned it on. It works perfectly. No pops or clicks when connected to my three year old MacBook Pro.

There is a ton of connectivity on this unit... I hooked it up to my Dangerous Audio Dbox, Lavry Converters, and Antelope audio clock with no issues.

I daisy-chained a thunderbolt hard drive as well, with no issues.

The built in converters and sound quality are O.K., but not in the same league as the RME interfaces. Much better than the M-Audio and Presonus interfaces tho.

The built in mic pres are O.K. at best. I'd recommend that those who purchase this look into a good preamp for recording microphones, like an API 512c or A Designs Pacifica.

The DSP effects are quite good. Using the DSP with the 828x as a stand-alone mixer worked great for jam sessions. Build quality is also very good.

I give the 828x 4 stars. The build quality, DSP, connectivity, stand alone option, and CueMix make this unit a bargain. As your needs grow, this interface will easily accommodate pro-level converters, clocks, etc.

If motu got the stuff together with windows and the drivers i would easierly give this unit a 5 star rating. Great sound, Smooth Interface. But on the flip side. the drivers are shocking. it took me 5-10 hours of stuffing around with my pc, calling & Emailing Motu. In the end i had to figure it out myself. Constantly tells me the interface isn't connected when it is. Seen a few post with the same problems.

I want to recommend it for the great interface it is, but it seems to be roulette in regards to if it will work with your computer or not.

I've had this one for over a year now.

Pros:

1. Competitive features and sound quality. It's not on par with RME, Apogee, Burl, etc... but definitely better than most similarly priced/spec'd gear.
2. Easy to use. Thunderbolt works well.

3. Great metering and audio tools built in.

Cons.

1. No mirrored outputs. If you want to send the computer system output to more than one set of stereo TRS outputs on the back.... you can't. There are workarounds, but they either use up a headphone out, or require you to use up a bus 1/2 as master... this takes away from the unit's ease of use.

2. DSP effects don't sound very good. The built-in effects are nowhere near the quality of good outboard... or most plugins.

I've had my 828x for over 4 years now. The unit sounds great, has plenty of inputs and has very clean sounding preamps. My issue is about long-term reliability. Currently, in year 4, the LCD screen no longer lights up. Also, the left speaker output will go out intermittently, which is very annoying when mixing. The speaker then comes back on after a minute or two.

I've had nonstop issues with this interface. I'm running Win10 on two laptops and a desktop. I've tried a number of different USB cables with and without ferrite cores. To get it to work at all on a laptop, I've had to disable all my power management settings for USB, which has put my computer in a mode where it drains battery pretty quickly while asleep. Pretty unacceptable. On my desktop, I get constant stutters, underruns, and in a few specific (but very common) situations, all of my audio is pitched down by a semitone. Sometimes this pitch shifting happens on playback, sometimes on record. I get constant laughs on discord because my voice is so low, if it's not completely stuttering and glitching out. I've followed MOTU's instructions for getting this interface to work on Win10, which involves some registry edit hackery, and I've changed all the settings available to me, one by one, to see what makes a difference, and it seems to shift the problem around but not resolve it.

Additionally, audio will frequently totally cut out, and restarting my computer and the device do not resolve it. I will have to do both of these several times in order to get it to finally start working again.

I've been reading on forums what people are doing, and it seems that MOTU has stopped supporting new driver development for this interface. Which means unless you're running an older version of Win10 (pre-Spectre exploit fix) with all updates turned off, you're not going to be able to use this device for what I'd consider normal operation. However, you can use Asio4All in your DAW. But you will not be able to use it for system sounds, such as watching Youtube or Netflix, or any other number of common computer things.

I had really high hopes for this device, as it has so many DC-coupled outs. I wanted to use it as a portable interface to my modular, but that is absolutely out of the question due to the USB power settings.

Won't work most of the time...My PC wont recognize the 828x about 60% of the times and will not always hold sample rates. To get it to recognize when it malfunctions, I have to either go to device manager and disable the "MOTU Audio" device and then "Enable" it again... this trick works Most of the times.
I have went back an forth with tech support @ MOTU but they wont take responsibility.
This frustration has made me seriously consider retiring from creating music...
I have seen other commenters saying the same thing about reliability and MOTU tech support issues but I thought that MOTU was more trustworthy than that and didn't think it would happen to me.
MOTU really let me down with this unit.
They did replace my initial unit in the 1st month that I bought it but the replacement unit had the same problems. This is when I knew that this is either a brick line of interfaces, MOTU doesn't care to update the software, or both.
The problems are real and they are significant. You can't run a studio with this unit.
DO NOT BUY THE 828X, PLEASE....
I am a real person, I do not work for MOTU or any other company that makes interfaces... I am actually a Nurse Practitioner that has loved making music for over 25 years. I loved my MOTU 828mk2 but got a new PC without the firewire so I had to upgrade. I thought that I was upgrading with the 828x but have only been very frustrated and disappointed since I bought it...
I get random pops and clicks, the sound "drags" as if the sample rate is not locked in, it doesn't connect to the pc often.
This negativity really takes the motivation out of creativity.
MOTU hasn't updated this software since Oct 28, 2015, and they don't seem to have a desire or plan to any time soon. It is Aug 21, 2021!!!!
And MOTU has to know that people are having problems but do not acknowledge it in any form...

I've had my 828x for years (probably 2016 or earlier). The USB port never worked (on Mac or PC), so no upgrading the firmware. The display crapped out about a year into use. These issues with the mysterious pops are all over forums. Customer service is not easy to get in contact with or prompt. You'll see other reviews where they sent replacements to out of warranty units with issues for free. Now they charge $100 (then there was the additional $60 for shipping, tracking, and insurance). They promise that they will send a replacement immediately upon delivery receipt of your defective unit to minimize downtime. They've had my unit for almost 2 months. You can follow up every week and they'll thank you for your patience. Then at around a month and a half, they'll finally tell you that they don't have replacement units. Your studio will be completely shut down by their negligence. If that sounds nice to you and enjoy being thanked for your patience while you can no longer provide for you family, then it's money well spent. Because I can't do any work right now, I can look at how easily I could buy one from Sweetwater and finally get to review the one that has been the most frustrating and unreliable piece of gear I have ever owned.

I've had my 828x for 4 years, sitting in a rack in my studio. I started having issues with it two years ago when the left monitor channel would randomly turn off for about 5 minutes at a time before turning back on. About 3 months ago the LCD display completely went dark. When I stream music through Tidal, I often can't hear anything through the streamer until I restart the 828x. I've thought about reseting or updating firmware, but that requires seeing what is on the display. This thing is a total piece of junk at this point. I'm sending the unit in for repairs and will likely eat a large shipping charge.

I bought my MOTU 828x back in 2016. It was AMAZING when I first got it and it was recommended to me by my sales rep. Within the first 6 months I started to notice major issues, half the time the interface wouldn't be recognized by my PC. The driver's weren't ever working, I would re-install them ALL the time and still nothing worked. My interface had the most recent firmware update (I believe the most recent firmware update was from 2014, really shows how much MOTU cares). I'm 2 years into using my interface and still to this day, about 40% of the time my PC recognizes my interface, the software drivers randomly decide what my sample rate should be, even after I manually change it. I constantly have crackling noises coming from my monitors, due to the interface changing the sample rate automatically. No forum boards have an answer as to how to fix this. However, I've heard rumors that Windows 10 is the cause to all of the MOTU issues. MOTU has it in their head that they have the most dominant drivers from OVER 4 YEARS AGO AND NOTHING NEEDS TO CHANGE. Because of this, they won't update MOTU drivers to work with Windows 10. If you have Windows 10, DO NOT GET THE 828X. Spend your money wisely and throw an extra $100 at something that will ACTUALLY last... I will never ever by a single thing from MOTU ever again. I really, really, really recommend that you spend your money elsewhere.

I bought the MOTU 828x after reading that (1) had DSP for the on board Reverb, EQ and Compression, (2) ability to send several distinct cue mixes to the musicians in my studio, (3) 2 on board Mic Pres, (4) SMUX and (5) jThunderbolt. Once I get it in The studio, I find out that the Reverb (the only effect that uses a lot of DSP) is non-functional above 48K which only amateurs use; I only get a single cue mix , which mirrors the main output when recording above 48K; the mic pres are the worst I have ever heard on any audio interface. The SMUX works fine. Thunderbolt connectivity works. I connect the SMUX outs of my Audient 880 with it's great mic pres and Burr-Brown convertors and fortunately the 828x doesn't ruin or deteriorate the sonic quality. I also have an Aphex 2ch Tube mic pre connected to 2 analog inputs and it's quality is maintained by the MOTU.
But the fact that the on board Reverb w/DSP and Multiple Cue Mixes when recording at 96k (like 99% of pros do) are disabled really ****** me off. No where in their advertising or on their web site does MOTU point this out. I had to buy the unit, set it up in my studio and try the features before finding out they didn't work and then finding out why in the User's Manual. Total bullshit, in my opinion. I can live without the MOTU reverb with it's useless DSP and the two lousy mic pres but I cannot operate a professional recording studio without multiple distinct cue mixes tailored to each artist. So now I have to either dump the MOTU 828and find another Thunderbolt audio interface with the ability to accept 8 Channels of SMUX or spend who knows how much to get me multiple separate cue mixes if that's even possible.