Direct monitoring?

[harmonicaman]

Guys

How to enable direct monitoring in Motu 4 ?

[CharlzS]

From Chapter 4 the M4 manual:

Monitoring through the M2 or M4
If you don’t need to process a live input with
plug-ins, the easiest way to avoid monitoring
latency is to disable your DAW’s live monitoring
feature and instead engage the MON (monitor)
switch on the front panel of your M Series
interface. Visit motu.com/m2-start (or /m4-start)
to watch a video about this feature.

Also, adding your DAW, interface, computer and OS level, etc. to your signature will help with responses.

[harmonicaman]

Thanks you mean as long as I am not using a plugin it is better to disable to DAW monitoring and instead use direct monitor on Motu ?

[mikehalloran]

Thanks you mean as long as I am not using a plugin it is better to disable to DAW monitoring and instead use direct monitor on Motu ?

Better is subjective but the only way to hear plugins is though your DAW. If not an issue, you might find it preferable to use direct monitoring. For most of us, the RTL (round trip latency) over Fast USB 2 isn't enough to be noticeable — that is what's advertised.

My computer is fast enough that I don't really hear the difference unless I am monitoring through DP and I set the Input Monitor Mix control at the center. Because there's no such thing as true zero latency, the resulting 50/50 blend induces phase cancellation for a comb filtering effect. Setting that control to 55/45 or 45/55 (my preferred setting) eliminates it. Disabling the track monitor won't cause this issue, of course. This doesn't affect the recorded audio, only how you hear it while tracking.

BTW, this can depend on the plugin, too. Plugs with "look ahead" functionality and some others can introduce a considerable amount of latency and cannot be used when tracking—playback, mixdown and mastering only.

One last thing. The drivers are not optional for Windows but are on the Mac. They enable Loopback and decrease the RTL about the same as moving your studio monitors a foot closer to your ears (I did the math—speed of sound is pretty slow). Buffer size and sample rate have a much greater effect on RTL. Because I don't need Loopback, I didn't bother with the Mac drivers.