NEED ADVICE!!!! MOTU 828 MKII questions - thinking of buying

gregwhartley · Post by **gregwhartley** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 9:14 am

Damn, $150! That's pretty slick. Go with an 828 mkI on eBay. I like how the 828 sounds personally. The mkI goes up to 48 kHz, the mkII goes up to 96 kHz. Both do 24 bit. Congrats on the score!

Greg

museic · Post by **museic** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:30 pm

Cool, I'll see if I can make another steal here on eBay on either the MkI or MkII - probably go for the MkI - then I can afford some more RAM and a nice huge harddrive to record all of this onto...

I suppose if I buy the MkI off eBay, I'll also have to find some program that reads the thing, since it wont come with any software presumably; these things wire into Cubase right?

gregwhartley · Post by **gregwhartley** » Fri Aug 04, 2006 1:01 pm

Yea, pretty much any DAW will see the 828. I've used my 828 mkI with Cubase VST5 (PC), Cubase SX3, Nuendo 1-3 (PC), and DP5 (Mac). It's just as versatile in that regard as the mkII. Cubase is really easy to learn if you don't already know it. Good luck and keep us posted!

Greg

museic · Post by **museic** » Tue Aug 08, 2006 9:27 pm

My band jammed last night and it was sooo great!! I really need to start recording this stuff, so I bid a little higher than I would have before, won the auction on a 828 MkI for about $300!!! So I can't wait to get all this stuff hooked up and running!!

I'm wondering about hooking up all of this stuff...

Should I buy splitter cables, so I can run one line to the amp and the other to the 828 for example, or can I just run one line into the 828 and then send that line out to an amp??? If that question makes sense.

gregwhartley · Post by **gregwhartley** » Wed Aug 09, 2006 1:35 pm

$300, not bad at all! Which line are you talking about? The only line level instrument signal I would send into the 828 in a case like yours is from keyboards, turntables, bass and maybe, if I was really really low on mics, from the line out of a clean guitar amp or pod-like device. Use DI boxes for sending the signal to both sources. A lot of DI boxes have a 1/4" through and XLR balanced out. This means you can send signal from, say, your turntables, into the 1/4" input of the DI box and out the 1/4" through to the monitoring amp that you would usually plug right into for live monioring, while you run the XLR out into your recording interface or the ADA 8000. Running the line directly into the 828 and out an output bus will introduce latency that you probably won't want.

Greg

museic · Post by **museic** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 12:09 pm

Thanks again Greg!

I need to know more about DI boxes, I think your right that I should send everything through a DI box and then out to amps for monitoring and Cubase for recording...

sooooooo I've been searching on eBay and I'm finding it hard to understand the features these things have... Do I want an Active or Passive box, and whats the difference? Maybe you could also explain balanced/unbalanced and what impedance matching is?

Do you know of a good DI box that could split the signal and would be cheap? I'm going to need to do this to every channel, so this would get very expensive pretty quick!

Maybe the best route would be a sort of patch bay rackmount that I've seen on eBay with tons of channels? Do you know of any of those that would work for what I'm doing... Hopefully I can find a rackmount style DI box that could split 10 channels for around $100 or is it going to cost me wayyyy more?

Or is there a good cheap mixer that would do the same thing but would have sliders for volume control?

Thanks again!

museic · Post by **museic** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:00 pm

Well, I found one DI box/splitter - A Behringer Ultra DI DI20 which will split 1 channel into 2... THis thing would cost me about $35 - so multiply by 10 = $350!!!! I really need a better way to go here!

I guess thats why origionally I was thinking about using splitter cables going from 1 male 1/4" to two female 1/4" plugs. Those cables are about $10 X 10 = $100 - right in my price range. I'm sure it would be way better to go to DI route though.

Heres the website of the splitter cables Im talking about...

http://cgi.ebay.com/SPLITTER-ADAPTER-Y- ... dZViewItem

museic · Post by **museic** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 1:47 pm

Well I ran into the Behringer UltraLink Pro MX882, which looked promising but if I'm reading the specs right it can only split 2 channels into 8 outputs - disapointing that it can't split all 8 channels into 2 channels each... It seems Behringer would have something to do this...

museic · Post by **museic** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:11 pm

I think I found what I'm looking for!! Of course Behringer would make it!! -----A Behringer Ultra DI Pro - DI800

As far as I can tell the unit will split up to 8 channels of audio - one output is called a LINK that will send unchanged to the amp/monitor while the other output is a balance XLR type output. I can pick one of these up for about $85!!!!.... Otherwise there is the Behringer Ulra DI Pro DI4000 which is a 4 channel version, which seems to go for around $65. So I'm thinking about buying the DI800 with the 8 channels and then maybe buying the ULTRA-DI DI20 for the other channels if we need them...

THis is my last post for the day... I've pretty much spent the whole day looking into this and thats what I've come up with, does it seem to be the right choice??

Thanks again, the UnicorNation.com is a great place!!

gregwhartley · Post by **gregwhartley** » Tue Aug 15, 2006 6:17 pm

Yea, any multichannel DI that will provide two outputs will be a good choice for all your line level signals. If you go with a bunch of single channel DI's it will cost a fortune, as well as space. I'd recommend trying to find one multichannel rack unit that will have TRS outputs for your recording rig, that way you won't take up mic inputs for line level signals - that is, unless you've got enough mic inputs to spare. Have you done any recording yet? Let us hear some if you have!

Greg

museic · Post by **museic** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 8:50 pm

Yeah I'll post some soon, just waiting for my 8 channel DI box so we can hook everything up!!!!

By the way how do you upload a song anyway, I don't see any upload box in this window???

gregwhartley · Post by **gregwhartley** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 7:35 pm

I don't think this site will host the actual audio file, you'll probably have to load it somewhere else and provide a link to that site here. Can anybody else confirm?

museic · Post by **museic** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 11:48 am

I'm wondering about Patch Cords - I'm gonna need to buy like a 10 pack from eBay... Was looking at either some 18" or 3' cables...

But my question is balanced or unbalanced and is it worth it to buy more expensive cables? I've found a 10 pack for about $25 which seems pretty cheap, but I think I'll start with that...

Oh and the Behringer D.I. Box is really awesome, I can't believe how nice it is for $85!!!!!!

Will put up some tunes soon.

museic · Post by **museic** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 11:52 am

oh yeah and stereo or mono cords? I didn't know there was a difference? I think everything I'll be recording is MONO, except the turntables would be stereo. So can I used stereo cables with mono equiptment?

Also I was wondering about the so called 'snake cable' I read about it online, but didn't quite understand what the difference was with a regular cable? The patch cords I was going to buy say they are snake cables...

Mark S · Post by **Mark S** » Sat Sep 02, 2006 8:32 pm

if I had it to do over I would not get the MOTU 896 hd I have. I would find a unit with better support for the PC.