MOTU 8pre 16x12 USB Audio Interface Reviews

I really like this interface. It's super robustly built and easy to use. The CueMix DSP is fantastic; I like that I can use that rather than the knobs on the front of the interface.

I"ve been using this for almost two years, and between my own thoughts and the remarks made by others who have used mine for various projects, it"s one of the best sounding preamps I"ve had.
It"s clean and clear, easy to set up, and easy to use.
I have various things running into and use it as my primary audio source for my computer via the USB Connection.
Plug it into your computer via USB, set the output to Main Out, plug your monitor speakers into the output, and you"re set. Super easy. Super clean and clear. Couldn"t be happier with the purchase!

8 clean, open sounding preamps and a rock-solid USB interface for a really reasonable price! I use a MOTU Traveler (bought at Sweetwater maybe 7 years ago, still going strong) for home & remote recording, but needed more pres to track a full band.

The 8pre doesn't do 'color' – there's a good bit of headroom before clipping, but then it distorts unpleasantly. If you're looking for warm/saturated tone, you'll need to look elsewhere (and pay more like $300+ per channel). But if you're happy capturing what's in the room, this is a good choice, matching the quality of the Traveler or Apogee One to my ears.

Like other MOTU interfaces, you get low latency as well as the option to run a no-latency monitor mix; pad and phantom on each channel; and useful metering. The layout is very ergonomic and just works. And the option to output up to 96KHz over ADAT means it won't gather dust even if I wind up expanding again. I've been recording for about 20 years now and look for reliable & sustainable gear. Very happy with this box, especially for the price!

I recently ordered the MOTU 8pre, I'm a recent graduate of The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences. I wanted to upgrade my digital interface to something that's affordable, dependable, and has 8 inputs. My instructor recommended the MOTU 8pre and I love it, I think the pre's in it sound really clear and the a/d d/a conversion is really good as well. for the price of the MOTU it's unbeatable. Before I bought this product I read a lot of crazy reviews on how it sounds "to clean" or how "it doesn't have enough features and only 1 main out." well in my opinion, if you can't get the right sound out of it or if you can't figure out a way to hook up multiple reference monitors along with an external headphone amp then you might want to choose a different field other than audio recording! thanks!

I was very impressed with the ease of setup. I am using 2 units with Protools 12.8 and experienced no issues at all. Form the download to setting up the hardware I encountered no problems. Using the ADAT/Tosink between the units was a breeze.

The sound is clear and separated and controls very precise. I am using headphones only at this point and had much better quality sound than the previous unit I had from another manufacturer.

All in all I would recommend this product, wholeheartedly.

Sounds great. Great expansion device for a reasonable price. Good headroom. Plugs into my other interface via adat seamlessly (or could be it's own just as easily). Compact and light.

-i was disappointed to find that the inputs feature rotary encoders with the gain shown off to the right on an led display instead of a physical potentiometer with a "dot". Pictures of the FireWire version of this device show pots (BTW it's the same name and everything, look out...I was reading the wrong manual from their website for 30 minutes). No sure why anyone would prefer rotary instead, but ok.

-interface only works in converter mode (8 preamps ADAT into your other interface) if it's not plugged into your computer. I'm sure there's a good reason but I wanted to change the headphone and aux outs while using it as just a pre and I can't. This should just be a setting that can be changed, not automatic!

Overall, I'm keeping it but only because I don't really need to mess with the gain of what's plugged into it.

I purchased a MOTU 16A that had 16 analog inputs and outputs. I needed 24 total so I purchased the 8pre. I used the ADAT I/O for the connection and everything worked just fine. I even like the old style LED meters on the 8pre much better than blue screen on the 16A. Great sounding addition to my studio.

Nice interface with good sound and very easy to use.

This thing checks all of the boxes in terms of functionality and hardware quality, but I have struggled to get it to work with both Windows 10 and 11, and now it is a rack-mountable paperweight. With 10, it would often not work as my default, and I'd have to manually re-assign it in Sound Settings. Sometimes it wouldn't even be discoverable without a full reboot of my PC. I often get a weird warbly sound like the sound is skipping, then rushing to catch up (in my headphones, not in actual rendered recordings). Since upgrading to 11, these problems have become more frequent until yesterday when it went off the deep end. Now it will work for a few minutes before cutting out, usually whenever a new webpage is loaded or a new app opens, or even sometimes mid-session when recording or editing. Note: direct monitoring and all forms of recording still work. The device appears to be working, but not communicating back and forth fully with my PC. I can often record things into Reaper, but can't always use my mic over Zoom or Discord. Audio output of any kind flat out fails under basically every context.

With Windows 10, I had to troubleshoot it every couple of months. Once debugged, it would still sometimes require a couple of power cycles to work reliably on any given day. Just recently, a couple months after getting Windows 11, it just stopped working altogether. I went through an absolutely laborious and exhaustive debugging process, checking every single box except the first most important one: drivers. MOTU does not have drivers supporting Windows 11 (as of today, 7/19/2023). Their website acknowledges this, and suggests that their Windows 10 drivers kinda-sorta-maybe still works and that they are working on proper drivers for Windows 11.

Music is the second most important thing in my life besides my family, so I can't just sit around and hope for some dubious solution which may or may not work as unreliably as before. I'm giving a half score for this since it's basically the ideal hardware configuration for my needs, but rendered unusable due to software issues. No discredit to Sweetwater, since I doubt they could have predicted this, and to their credit they did suggest a similar Focusrite product which I turned down due to nitpicky reasons. You were right Jake, and now I'm probably going to buy the 18i20 you originally suggested lol.

After a week of trying to get the Audio setup window to remember that I needed the optical i/o to be set to none and many calls with MOTU and screenshares with Sweetwater Ihad to return this unit in exchange for a more expensive Apollo twin x.