MOTU M4 5-stars Reviews

Good interface, low latency

Very well made interface, good and useful controls from the front panel and the display level indicator is very accurate and responsive. A peak memory indicator would be nice in a future firmware upgrade. The monitor mix potentiometer lacks a very useful center detent. Unfortunately lots of products have gained a 10/15% price increase lately which is now considered normal… but this is a no-frill simple audio interface and there is no rocket science inside to justify completely its price against its real value. I appreciate that it works straight away on MacOS and the driver are very fast (starting from 96kHz SR and more) and they don’t come with bloatware. MOTU seems to me very serious about respecting artists and they offer bloatware in form of plugins loops and demo software, but if you are already covered, just steer away from it and don’t waste time, make music instead!

Great quality for the price!

Great build quality. I like the knobs and the meters looks great. The best in this price range I guess. The sound quality is the main reason I got this one and I am not let down at all. Great sound quality in the output and the headphones preamp also. It worked great plug’n’play straight from the box with my macbook pro, and it seems to be working fine in windows also till now.

Excellent Desktop Interface

The MOTU M4 finds a good balance between portability and durability. Nice solid metal casing with enough ins and outs for location work. The lights on the digital display and on the physical switches allow you to see what functions are enabled at any time. Excellent quality in this price range.

Nothing better in the price range

So much better than my old Steinberg UR22mkII and anything else in this price-range.

I use it for mics and guitars.

I can't recommend it high enough.

Better than some audiophile DACs that cost thousands...

This audio card is a great solution also in case one needs a four channels DAC and its measures are excellent.

Very solid , for its price. Thank you

1 year later, Still Amazing

The m4 is definitely worth its price.

Build quality is really good, Encoders feel smooth, buttons clicky and responsive.

The connections aren't wiggly and usb c is perfect.

The outputs are solid too especially have 1/4" jacks for both 1&2 and 3&4 outputs.

Inputs are crisp and low latency, good enough for me to play guitar.

The screens are helpful and the headphone jack drives my headphones very well.

The asio is simple to use as well as the loopback feature.

To use this for music production/podcasts is a no brainer this fits the bill across the board.

My only issue is that loopback, line in (3&4) monitoring, volume knob and headphones all only work through 1&2 output channels. If you use your computer for a multitude of tasks, I imagine gaming or DJing would be under it- I like to route my game audio through my speakers and have voice chat through my headphones and would furthermore like to use my headphone output for cueing when Djing. However you can't have the headphones use 3&4 output channels. I have instead been using 3&4 outputs as my main audio from my computer. This basically means I can't use the volume knob which becomes another unneeded issue to make sure all my software is turned down as, again, I can't control the incoming volume on the m4. It would be good is motu allows users to pick which outputs channels are for monitoring and headphones.

All in all this device is still one of the audio interfaces out there at the moment in its price range and would recommend to anyone.

IMO Rolls Royce of audio interfaces

Only audio card I could find with a choice between phono or balanced TRS for outputs, which makes it really versatile.

Generally I really like the features: clear vu-meter, extra loopbacks with MOTU's driver, super low latency, solid build, direct monitoring, volume knob...

These features make that audio interface very versatile: can do instrument recording but also DJing, podcasting, audiophile playback, MIDI interface and more.

The audio quality is pristine as far as I can tell for what I do with it.

The price seems good value for the quality and the breadth of what can be done with it.

Amazing audio interface in the price range

Bought this to replace my old 2in/out roland quad-capture

Easy to install and works without any problem. (PC, WIN10)

The latency is incredible: input:1.2ms / ouput:4.5ms

(DAW: Cubase 10 -48KHz /24 bit - buffer size = 64)

The large and bright monitor is a big plus for recording.

Volume is loud enough and very clear ( beyerdynamic DT 770 PRO 250 )

Great Sound for the price

Absolutely amazed by the sound and build quality.

Have already for a year+ and no complaints.

Am using it with Yamahas HS5 and upgrading to Dynaudio LYD 7

Amazing for this price

Pros. Check Julian Krause on youtube and your questions will be answered.

Cons. 3 and 4 inputs are not powered enough. I was willing to insert there synth, and use the front ones for instruments recording, however it is imposible to use these inputs for this kind of purpose, I don't know for what purpose they made these inputs.

Good home studio interface

In my opinion of best in terms of features/price interfaces. Has good converter. Monitor mix is nice feature. Recording sound from internal programs (Youtube in browser) is cool. Very handy and portable.

I gave 1 star less for features: it would be great to have 2 headphone outputs. Would require more space , but would be very useful to record somebody's else vocals.

one of the best choices in this price range

Very good for home studios. After driver update soundcard works correctly.

Unbelievable Value

Great sound, great headphone preamp, great metering, great construction, theres not a thing to complain. Watch Julian Krause's youtube review to get all the info.

I would pay a bit more for adat in/out, but the value as it is right now is OVER 9000.

9.9/10

Good stuff for the price

It's a bargain for the price. Sound is clear, build is very good. I understand perfectly why it's almost always out of stock, everyone wants a piece.

Great soundcard!

I went from my Scarlett 2i2 to this. This is miles ahead. The drivers are much better and stable. Cant recommend it enough.

great sound

good sounding dac and preamps. My only slight downside is it is powered off the laptop, means that it is a battery drain live.

Great built quality

I use it primarily for podcast recording. Works really smooth with Windows 10.

Pros>

-solid metal body

-on/off power switch

-input monitor mix

-USB C power only

-quality knobs

-separated headphones amp

Cons>

-VU meters seems to be slow

Overall>

Great quality/price ratio for a budget studio.

Great U.S quality built

At this price range it's hard to beat the M4, especially for a device coming from an U.S. manufacturer (this is not a Made in China product!).

My full review can be read here: >

Pros:

- 60dB of gain is more than enough, even the SM7B should work fine;

- pre-amp noise is quite low, maybe not as low as the Clarett 2Pre, but definitely not something that can be heard with ease;

- the ESS DAC chip really shines, so who needs a rather cheap audio interface without noise on its outputs and with a very low THD then this should be the one;

- the OLED VU-meters are a great addition here, probably the only interface adding such VU-meters on this price range;

- case and all knobs are metallic/aluminum, so quite nice to touch;

- all input gain & output volume is digitally controlled, this means there's perfect channel matching;

- no pops in the speakers when powering ON/OFF the interface;

- power button on the back;

- needs no external power supply, it just relies on computer USB power (tested on Win and MacOS and works flawless);

- powerful dedicated headphones amplifier (works even with AKG K701);

- full-scale TRS input plugs that bypasses the gain controls (directly connected to ADC).

- loopback virtual interfaces (made by the Windows drivers) really helps when need to record what you're listening to your computer (could be anything from a Whatsup call to listening music or to audio dubbing a video recording).

Cons:

- VU-meters are a bit slow, but the upper red light peaks are helping a lot when clipping occurs;

- 48V buttons are too close to the XLR mic plugs, when unplugging the mics I tend to press the 48V buttons with my big rounded fingers.