MOTU M4 4x4 USB-C Audio Interface

I have used MOTU interfaces for decades. I just keep coming back to them? Why? They sound completely transparent and have rock solid drivers for Windows. The preamps are clean and clear, the noise floor and distortion are extremely low, and jitter is non-existent. It does not hurt that they are priced so competitively. My current home studio setup consists of an MOTU M4 and a pair of Neumann KH120II monitors and Luna Pro, and I am very pleased with it. Features that set it apart at this price point are the LED meters and physical direct monitoring mix control. Nothing else has those, and they work very well. My only complaint is the headphone amp's power. It is on the weak side, but that is the price you pay for USB bus power. Headphone amp output requires power, and there simply is not much available after running the rest of the device. The good news is the headphone out can serve as a preamp of an external headphone amp, so the problem is easily solved. I use a Schiit Heresy to drive my cans. Very happy overall. All the stars.

I discovered the MOTU M series of audio interfaces when I was looking to solve a specific problem that I had. I'm using this as my primary audio input and output for my PC, driving both my monitors and headphones with independent volume control is an incredible quality of life enhancement. The LCD display for the levels is extremely helpful when I'm dialing in my gain on my input or trying to confirm that I'm speaking loud enough. The ability to mix between playback and input monitoring when monitoring your input gives a very dialed and natural experience to even normal calls, gaming, or meetings for work. I take advantage of the ASIO drivers in my DAW for low latency audio as well, and this thing fits right in. It has a dedicated loopback output in the software as well, so you can direct loopback to be captured as a source out of the box if that's something you need for your workflow. It has an impressive array of physical inputs and outputs, to the point where I'm not even able to take full advantage of it yet in my setup. One unexpected bonus for this was that the 48V phantom power switch is on the front of the unit, where on my previous audio interface phantom power was running 24/7. With the MOTU M4, I'm able to turn off the mic's power quite easily, leading to a much more efficient setup. It was easy to set up and remains a hassle-free component of my everyday usage of my computer. It's a little expensive but worth every penny for me.

After a fair bit of searching and testing, this is the best audio interface I've found for a home studio. The amazing parts: Usb-c to usb-a 2.0 bus powered! No dealing with an extra power cable Very low noise floor and great sounding preamps Powerful enough for most headphones but also has plenty of outputs for an additional headphone amp Direct monitoring is handy Built in loopback is rare on interfaces of this price and it's very nice to have Very low latency Could be useful depending on use case: The screen is useful and high quality but I tend to just monitor in Ableton so I haven't used it a whole lot. With that being said, it is still a rather nice feature to have. Usb-c is nice to have but I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker if it had a different USB standard. The included software is nice especially if you're just starting out. Bad: Not exactly a negative but more something to bear in mind. The Motu M2 is basically the exact same interface but with fewer inputs and outputs. If you don't think you need the extra inputs and outputs that the M4 has, the M2 is a much better deal for you. Edit after a couple years of ownership: the Motu M4 is still my absolute favorite interface, however there is one quirk that I have found. I'm not sure whether it's MOTU's fault or Windows, but at least partial blame goes to MOTU considering no other interface I've used has had this bug. Occasionally it would output and record sound as if it had been pitch shifted (think Alvin and the Chipmunks). I believe it is some sort of clock sync error with Windows. After getting into contact with their technical support (who deserve props for not just regurgitating the same useless copy-pasted answers and actually problem solving effectively), I was presented with a simple solution: disable fast startup on your PC. Once I did that, the problem was immediately solved and has not occurred again for well over a year. Personally, I still think it's an excellent interface and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it despite that bizarre quirk. Latency is still incredibly impressive and the preamps are still very clean. I've also come to love the monitoring screen, it's become very difficult to go back to an interface without it.

I was a previous FocusRite Scarlett user. I found having to use the software to adjust certain settings was very annoying. The MOTU I like much better because all the controls are on the unit. So much easier to use. Plus, it offers a ton of output options. While I would say the Focusrite might have slightly warmer preamps than the MOTU, the features on the MOTU win. I also love having an On/Off switch on a USB bus powered unit. It allows me so I can keep it plugged into my computer, but turn it off to save its screen. Really well designed. I don't think I'd go back to FocusRite after owning one of these.

Can't ask for better, for the money. Has everything most people could ever need. Handles active guitar pickups easily, a separate headphone amplifier, my studio monitors, and my mic just fine. Prettyy sure I still have two more line inputs after all that as well. I recommend this over both the Focusrite Scarlett and IK Multimedia Axe IO

This is by far the best audio interface I have bought for a windows system. It runs flawlessly and connected directly to the integrated usb-c port on my motherboard. Most medium to high end motherboards have an integrated usb-c port so connect it directly to it rather than using the cable it comes with (usb-c to usb type 'a'). Im currently running at 96Khz with 256 sample buffer. It's overkill but has absolutely no problems at all running at such a high sample rate. Youtube and gaming have no problems at this setting. Even more surprising, I am running with Dolby DTS unbound software encoding downloaded from the microsoft store. Using my reference headphones I get pristine surround sound, studio quality sound which blows away my gaming headphones. For making music with ableton it gets even better with 8ms latency at 48Khz with a 128 sample buffer size. This unit is incredible, probably the next best thing to a thunderbolt 3 UA arrow interface which I also own an use for my Macbook Pro. The display is beautiful and crystal clear. Though not packing the dsp effects of its older brother (motu utltralite hybrid) the unit makes up for in its solid build and knob placements which have a very high quality feel with adequate spacing. Also has a power on/off button in back.

Works great, the sound is excellent, really happy with the quality of the product!

Upgraded from a Focusrite Scarlett to the Motu M4 for a couple reason. I heard that this was an upgrade in terms of audio quality, which is good but it's also just the interface, so it's not going to be a big change. It can also give more gain to the monitoring headphones, which is something I was looking for since my headphones were starting to hit the maximum of what the Scarlett could give. The main feature I was interested in with this upgrade are the two line in inputs on the back. This is mostly meant for instruments, but I was interested in using this for rhythm games. If you've played a rhythm game at home before, you know that you need the lowest latency you can get with your audio. Often times, the best way to make it work is to directly connect speakers to the device or use the device's own speakers. This works great if that's the only thing you're doing, but there are times where that's not the case. I often find myself on my desktop listening to a video in the background if I'm playing casually or talking to my friends along with screensharing the game. In these cases, there are two options for listening to both at once: buy a dedicated mixer or plug the outgoing audio directly to the computer. Using a mixer does work, but I found it to be a hassle to set up. An extra usb port for power, extra wires being looped around my desk, and carefully setting everything up to not introduce any noise (admittedly, that's probably because I went cheap on the mixer). All that just to play one game for an hour did not feel worth it. The easiest alternative is to directly connect the audio to the computer and listen to the playback, but Windows likes to introduce extra latency in the process. It's not enough to ruin every game, but for rhythm games especially, it's easy to notice the difference between this method and directly plugging in headphones. This leads to why I was interested in the Motu M4. The back 3 and 4 inputs are line inputs, exactly like how I had the audio currently connected to the computer. They're similarly passed to the computer as an audio input, so I can bring the audio over for screensharing. The real benefit to having this connected to the audio interface itself is that these inputs can be directly monitored. Just like the microphone on the Scarlett, monitoring these inputs directly has practically no latency. Monitoring these inputs still allows the audio from the computer to go through, which gives the exact setup I was looking for! The main concern I still had before getting this was the volume of this input. Many people were complaining that the gain is a little low and would need an external amplifier to make usable in many situations. However, I could never find anyone discussing it in terms of the use case I was looking for, so I wasn't sure how well it would work. I'm happy to say this this worked very well for me, but I do want to add some details to that. I did find it to be a little low at the start, leading me to raise the volume almost to max while before I had it a little over half. I also had to mess around a bit with the volume of everything involved. There's a knob that balances between the computer audio and the direct monitored audio, so as long as you have some leeway in headphone volume or computer volume, you should be able to make it work. That doesn't affect the recorded volume though, so you'll want to make sure that other's listening through a screenshare can hear the game fine. Lastly I'm used to listening to things at a bit of a lower volume than others, so if you like to have things loud and would want both of these sources to do that, this setup may not be perfect for you. At the end of the day, the Motu M4 gave me exactly the setup I was looking for without all the extra clutter of a mixer with my previous audio interface. If you have been looking for a setup like this for a similarly specific reason, I think this is worth trying out.