The MOTU 8D interface is a smart USB solution when you need digital connectivity for your DAW, and a compact-yet-powerful way to add I/O to your AVB audio network. It’s equipped with two stereo pairs of AES3 digital I/O, plus two stereo pairs of RCA S/PDIF I/O. You also have access to 64 channels of USB I/O, as well as 32 channels of AVB network I/O. Built-in DSP processing allows you to add spot-on emulations of vintage EQs, compressors, reverb, and more, without taxing your host computer and with ultra-low latency. The MOTU 8D can even operate as a standalone mixer, and can be controlled wirelessly via Wi-Fi (router not included).
Audio Quality
Professional digital I/O with SRC
The 8D provides universal connectivity to your Mac or PC through USB or AVB/TSN. Renowned drivers deliver industry-leading ultra-low latency and proven, rock solid performance.
High-performance computer connectivity
New, optimized drivers for both Mac and PC deliver ultra-low latency performance. With a high-performance DAW such as Digital Performer, the 8D delivers an astonishing round trip latency (RTL) of 1.70 ms (milliseconds) on OS X and 1.71 ms on Windows over USB (at 96 kHz with a 32-sample host buffer).
USB 2 audio class compliant
USB 3 and iOS compatible
A Flexible Digital converter, router, and splitter
Send any input to any output, or split to multiple output channels. Convert any format to any other (AES3, S/PDIF, AVB-TSN and USB). Includes routing to and from the computer, plus any devices on the AVB-TSN network.
DSP mixing and effects processing
The 8D’s 48-input digital mixer delivers 7 stereo aux busses, 3 groups, access to 64 network inputs, and DSP effects, including classic reverb, EQ modeled after British analog console EQs and compression modeled after the legendary LA-2A compressor. If you know your way around a large-format mixing console, you’ll feel right at home. With 32-bit floating point processing, the 8D’s DSP engine delivers virtually unlimited headroom and the utmost in sound quality.
Stand-alone operation with wireless control
Connect an Apple® Airport™ or other Wi-Fi router with a standard Ethernet cable for wireless control of device settings, powerful 48-channel mixing and DSP effects.
Web app control from any device
Control everything from your laptop, tablet and smartphone
The software that you use to control the 8D doesn’t reside on your hard drive. It’s a web app served from the hardware itself. This means you can control the 8D on-board DSP, mixing, device settings, and network audio routing from your favorite web browser on a laptop, tablet or smartphone connected by wire or Wi-Fi to your local area network. Use any web client on any platform – Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android – as long as it shares the same network.
Touch Console
The art of the mix on your touchscreen
Designed specifically for touchscreen operation, Touch Console™ delivers a whole new mixing experience. Access Touch Console from your tablet or smartphone to effortlessly control the powerful 48-channel mixer and effects in the 8D. With large targets for your fingers, multi-touch operation and intuitive design, you can tap, swipe and pinch your way to a perfect mix, every time.
Comprehensive metering
The full color LCD lets you view all signal activity at a glance with detailed metering for all I/O. Access hardware settings from a simple and convenient menu.
Word Clock
Standard word clock input and output allows you to resolve the 8D to other digital audio gear or house sync.
Convenient headphone monitoring
Use the assignable front-panel headphone output with volume control to monitor any stereo channel pair.
Mix and match with other MOTU gear
An included mounting bracket kit joins the 8D side-by-side with any other MOTU half-rack unit to create a single rack-space configuration consisting of customized analog, digital and/or MIDI I/O configuration tailored just for you.
System expansion / networking
Add a 2nd MOTU AVB-equipped interface with a simple CAT-5e ethernet cable.
Connect up to five MOTU interfaces using a MOTU AVB/TSN Switch (sold separately).
Build a network with multiple interfaces and computers using standard AVB/TSN switches and network cabling, with ultra-low network latency, even over long cable runs (100 meters point to point). Stream hundreds of audio channels among devices and computers on the network.
Audio Analysis tools
Analyze and scope your audio with advanced diagnostic tools, including a full-screen real-time FFT display, spectrogram “water- fall” display, full-featured oscilloscope, X-Y plot and phase analyzer.
AudioDesk
Includes AudioDesk workstation software for Mac and Windows with 24-bit recording, sample-accurate editing and 32-bit mixing and mastering
