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Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU) 828mk3 Firewire Audio Interface

The 828mk3 is a cross-platform 1U-rack mount FireWire audio interface with on-board effects and mixing. Apply hardware-based effects to all 28 inputs and 30 outputs via an on-board DSP-driven 8 stereo bus digital mixer with 32-bit floating point precision. Effects include Classic Reverb with tail lengths up to 60 seconds, 7-band parametric EQ modeled after British analog consoles, and vintage compression (automatic gain control) modeled after the legendary LA-2A optical leveling amplifer. Effects can even be applied when the 828mk3 is operating stand-alone (without a computer) as a complete rack-mounted mixer. Learn More...

    • New $749.00
  • Installment Plan:4 payments of $187.25
    • free ground shipping
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Overall User Ratings

Overall:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * . . . . 6 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Support:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10

Individual User Ratings

Overall:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Value:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * * . 9 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Support:
* * * . . . . . . . 3 out of 10

Feature:
I love the fact that it includes DSP effects built in with convenient software to control it all... I personally don't like the reverb as it is too much and hard to find an ambient middle ground, I use the EQ for a bass roll-off on most tracks and to slightly boost the mid range for vocals.

Quality:
The product broke within one month of having it... The backlight started to blink on and off and it would not stay on. That is very annoying please let me tell you.

Value:
It's a great product and I hope my review does not sway you against the product. If it works - you will be making great music.

Desirability:
Its pretty sexy sitting on my rack next to my JoeMeek OneQ preamp... nice solid look - very heavy... Overall seems stable the software in mine broke.

Sound:
The sound is solid - a good set of preamps built in, and I have yet to take advantage of all the built in DSP effects. I think you get out what you put in - if your running a nice microphone and a good preamp you will have better luck - but overall it is very good. You can listen to my recordings at: www.myspace.com/foundyesterday That's my band.

Ease of Use:
I read through the manually and was having difficulty setting routing the busses to create monitor mixes... I found a fix but it was not what exactly the way it should be.

Support:
Very bad support. Their product broke within one month and I had to pay shipping to get it back to them. Lets keep in mind I just spent 700 dollars on the product, now I am paying an additional $60 dollars to get it back to them. That is not right. So it broke - now what. I have been without my unit for a good 3 weeks - I have contact customer support numerous times to report a complaint - no avail they have no contact with the department that fixes the product... I was outraged that I had to pay for shipping so in compensation they advised they would "overnight" the product back instead of ground shipping... That was great - but it didn't happen. The order was placed on a 3 day ground shipping. And It's on its way to my house now... I pray you have no problems with your device.

Overall:
Overall, I am still pleased with this product - it is better than any digidesign (other than PCI connection ones) and it is MUCH better than my old M-Audio 410...

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Overall:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
Features:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Quality:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Value:
* . . . . . . . . . 1 out of 10
I Want It:
* * * * * * * * * * 10 out of 10
Sound:
* * * * * * * * . . 8 out of 10
Ease of Use:
* * * * * * * . . . 7 out of 10
Support:
* * . . . . . . . . 2 out of 10

Feature:
There are so many great features about this sound card. In this price range, nothing can beat it. You get a ton of I/O, DSP, stand-alone operation, a low-jitter clock and good integration with a computer via the CueMix FX software. You only get 2 mic preamps but that hardly matters if you are just plugging in synths. The metering is very comprehensive.

Quality:
The unit seems well made out of solid metal, and will probably last quite awhile under heavy use. The built-in headphone output has a small amount of noise, though it's far below the noise of any computer's built-in audio output.

Value:
When MOTU fixes the driver problems, it will be a 10. Until then, it is a piece of junk. If they don't fix it before my 30 day return limit, I will return it to send a message to MOTU than using the public as beta testers is unacceptable, and that they really ought to send some test units to real audio professionals for a couple weeks before releasing it.

Desirability:
If it worked well, it would be super sexy. Right now, however, my relationship with it is very dysfunctional.

Sound:
The new DDS clock sounds fantastic! You can really hear the difference between units like this and lower end Edirol and M-Audio interfaces. Very clean definition and detail far beyond previous MOTU 828 interfaces. This thing would work as a great mixer in a pinch, even without a computer! I am using it with a new aluminum iMac Core 2 Duo 24" 2.4GHz.

Ease of Use:
It's pretty easy to use, though it takes some time to learn how it works. The interface is not very intuitive, though very powerful. You get a lot of functionality. The manual is very clear.

Support:
This is unfortunately the worst part about this unit. MOTU seems to have released it without testing the driver reliability on simple factory-built Mac computers. Using the current v1.47 driver and firmware 1.05, the unit is subject to regular but randomly-occurring audio dropouts accompanied by high pitched screeching noises. This happens both on my 24" Intel iMac bought on April 21, 2008 and on my G5 1.8 dual core tower. Very disappointing. MOTU will probably straighten this out in the long term, but for now this unit is not usable in a professional context. This phenomena is being experienced by numerous users and as of April 24, 2008 has not been resolved.

Overall:
Definitely not satisfied with it yet. I could be replacing it with a PreSonus Firestudio or an M-Audio ProFire 2626 if MOTU does not get these driver issues sorted out by early May.

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