Recording - September 2013 - 34

B Y M I K E M E T L AY

MOTU Track16

back of the tabletop chassis with a DB-25 connector. The snake is as
heavy as the Track16 itself, and you’ll want to make sure you can
attach the far end to something that can bear its weight; if it moves
or twists, it can take the Track16 with it! (An aluminum breakout box
with DB-25 cable is an available option.)
The Track16 itself is a sleek aluminum tabletop box adorned with
a select set of I/O ports, a single huge push-click knob, ten buttons
with multicolor LEDs, and a set of four stereo 7-step LED meters, three
of which do double duty for inputs and outputs and the fourth dedicated to Main Out level. There’s Guitar Input 1 (unbalanced 1/4") and
Line Inputs 3 and 4 (stereo minijack) and Phones 1 and 2 (1/4" and
mini TRS) on the front, and Optical In and Out on the rear. The two
Phones outputs share the same signal at all times.
The breakout snake offers Mic Inputs 1 and 2 (XLR), Line Inputs 1
and 2 (balanced 1/4" TRS), Guitar Input 2 (unbalanced 1/4"), Main
Outs 1 and 2 (balanced 1/4" TRS), Line Outs 1 and 2 (unbalanced
1
/4"), MIDI In and Out, and DC Power.
The Track16 is a hybrid interface; it can operate over FireWire
400 or USB 2.0, and works with Mac OS X 10.5.8 or better and
Windows Vista (SP2 or better)/7/8. In an unusual and in our opinion brilliant move, the FireWire port uses the 1394b type connector
usually reserved for FireWire 800; these plugs are much sturdier and
more reliable than the usual 1394a plugs used on most FireWire
devices. The FW800 and USB ports are on the back of the unit, next
to the snake connector.
While the Track16 is largely agnostic as to platform, there are admittedly one or two advantages to using it with a FireWire-equipped computer, the main one being bus power. FireWire delivers a lot of power
to peripherals; the Track16 can be bus-powered if it’s your only FireWire
device. The external wall-wart power supply that connects over the
snake is required for FireWire daisy-chaining, for any USB operation,

This compact interface packs a serious wallop
MOTU’s new Track16 is unique in its layout and
onboard controls; it’s a far cry from the company’s venerable and well-respected line of rack-style interfaces like the
UltraLite-mk3 (reviewed March 2011) and the 4pre
(reviewed December 2012). But peek inside and you’re
met with the hardware and software that made MOTU
famous: a full-on DSP engine that provides complete flexibility in signal routing, great-quality effects, all manner of
useful software utilities, simple-to-use programmability,
standalone operation... all with impeccable sound quality.
The Track16 offers up to 16 inputs and 14 outputs, 8 x 6
analog and 8 x 8 digital, not to mention various virtual signal
paths used by your DAW. It’s a 24-bit interface that offers A/D
and D/A operation at up to 192 kHz; the optical digital connectors can act as stereo optical S/PDIF (Toslink), or as 8channel ADAT optical (sample rates of 44.1 or 48 kHz) or 4channel SMUX (sample rates of 88.2 or 96 kHz), with the
input and output set to differing formats if needed.
“Serious dreadlocks”
That was my first thought as I set up the Track16 in my
studio... in order to provide a wide variety of I/O connectivity in a relatively compact format, most of the unit’s
jacks live in a huge bundle at the far end of a thick and
heavily shielded 4' breakout snake that attaches to the
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RECORDING September 2013

and might come in handy if your computer is old enough to be a bit anemic in its FireWire power handling (like my ancient PowerBook G4,
which according to MOTU will happily run the Track16!).
On my Macs, I not only found FireWire bus-powered operation to
be flawless, but I also discovered a small but important perk: you can
disconnect the snake and leave it behind, turning the Track16 into a
fairly portable little interface with internal DSP, three inputs, headphone output, and optical digital I/O... handy for some on-the-go
uses when you don’t want to drag the snake around with you.
On the software side
As is customary for MOTU interfaces, installation involves not only drivers for your particular operating system, but also a set of applications that
let you work with the DSP hardware inside the box. On the Windows side,
you get your choice of ASIO, WDM, and WaveRT drivers, plus MOTU
Audio Console, MOTU SMPTE Console, MOTU MIDI Driver, and CueMix
FX applications. Macs get a Core Audio driver, CoreMIDI driver (accessed
through Audio MIDI Setup), MOTU Audio Setup, MOTU SMPTE Setup,
and CueMix FX, plus the Mac-only Audiodesk DAW software.
These various applications have roughly the same set of features:
they let you set up buffer sizes, choose a sample rate, assign various
software channels to different hardware ins and outs, route MIDI,
work with SMPTE time code (brought in as an audio signal over an
input of your choice), and so forth. CueMix FX offers comprehensive
control of the DSP architecture of the interface; we’ll discuss it below.
Recording - September 2013

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