Mbox2Pro vs. Motu

**SoComSurfing** · #1 02-08-2007, 12:41 PM

Does anyone have experience with the Mbox and Motu's Traveller or Ultralight? I'm going to pick one up soon to go with my new MacBook Pro, and though I have been favoring the Mbox for a while, the Motu's are starting to look more appealing.
Any experiences are greatly appreciated.

thehurlatron · #2 02-08-2007, 01:15 PM

I've been using a ultralite for about 6 months now with my macbook. What do you want to know?

I haven't done any full band recording yet, but so far so good. The pre's in it sound great. (no color to speak of) Very low latency. It's very plug and play friendly. I did a test run with a full drum kit and it sounded good. I ran all the mics into my allen&heath board then used the direct outs for the channels into the ultralite. So 8 ch at a time worked great. It's pretty flexible with routing otions and what not. If you don't have a decent board or lotsa chanel strips (ect) I'd get a MOTU product with more inputs. (8 pre or octopre whatever it's called)

Let me know if you have specific questions.

Oh, and the folks at MOTU are SUPER nice and helpfull as well. I can get a person on the phone in a matter of minutes.

remo · #3 02-08-2007, 03:11 PM

The MBox will allow you to use ProTools while the MOTU won't... You can still use the MBox with other ASIO sequencers though as it has ASIO drivers. Personally I would go for a firewire interface over a USB2, firewire is just a better connection for audio. It really depends on your I/O requierments.. how many in's and out's do you want? Do you want lots of mic preamps or just lots of line in's?

infamousxtopher · #4 02-08-2007, 03:35 PM

unless you want protools, i'd say the ultralite is your best bet.

NJW · #5 02-08-2007, 03:51 PM

although I haven't used the products mentioned, I've found that the quality of MOTU's A->D convertors is great.

**SoComSurfing** · #6 02-08-2007, 06:34 PM

Thanks for the input. I have been considering the MBoxes because of ProTools. This is the only software I have experience with, and having learned it on a Mac, I thought it may be the best way to go with my MacBook Pro. I don't like the idea of always having to have the MBox hooked up, though. I don't need too much in the way of I/O options. It will predominantly for my own use, but would like the option of occasionally being able to record a few tracks if jamming with friends or something of the sort.
The internal pres aren't a huge deal. I plan on mainly using my Avalon 737 in the front-end. Though I do like the packaged software of the MBox2Pro, I could always run through Garageband in the meantime, and upgrade to Logic Express or Logic Pro later.