Motu 24Ai USB Sound Card

General

The Motu 24Ai audio interface is dropped from the astoundingly innovative AVB Series. The backside is equipped with three 25-pin D-sub ports or six 12-pin Euroblock ports, adding up to a mere 24 analogue input channels. Next to that, three sets of optical ADAT and SMUX sockets are lined up, adding a further 24 digital inputs and 24 digital outputs and boosting the total up to a mouth watering 72 channels. This audio brain in a box can be rack mounted as part of a studio or stage setup as a USB interface or powerful network snake.

The Motu 24Ai: Latency, Mixer and Matrix

Since you can never get away from latency, the question will always be, 'how much?' In developing the 24Ai, the hardware latency has been shaved right down to an insane 0.54 ms/26 samples. Meanwhile, the integrated DSP chip is powerful enough to do much of the heavy lifting your PC or Mac would usually have to bear, and this streamlining is carried through by the included software that gives you a supple user interface to control the internal 48-channel mixer (with seven buses, three groups and more); the built-in reverb, British-vintage-style analogue mixer EQ, a classic compressor and an astonishingly accurate Teletronix LA-2A emulation. To cap it off, the matrix can be used to route any incoming signal to any desired output.

Network Communication

By unleashing their AVB interfaces, Motu also introduce their new AVB network standard. This allows the simple coupling of two AVB capable devices via an ethernet cable. Three to five interface can be linked using a Motu AVB Switch (sold separately) with the option to add multiple Switches. Connected devices are able to exchange signals over distances of up to hundreds of metres with extremely low latency. Hook up a standard WiFi router or Apple Airport to the Switch or directly to the 24Ai and you have wireless control from the comfort of your PC, Mac, Linux computer or Android/iOS device.