Motu OctaLite

The Motu OctaLite is a half-rack USB-C audio interface with eight mic preamps, 16 inputs and 12 outputs, and a built-in DSP mixer with effects. It can record into a computer or iOS device, run as a standalone mixer without a computer, or act as an 8-channel optical expander for another interface or mixer. It suits home and project studios, live rigs, and streaming or podcast setups.

• Eight preamps: mic/line/hi-Z guitar inputs on XLR/TRS combo jacks, each with +74 dB of gain, a -20 dB pad and individual 48V phantom power
• Optical expansion: ADAT or TOSLink in and out, plus a second optical out that carries channels 5–8 as SMUX at 88.2 or 96 kHz
• DSP mixing and effects: separate phones and monitor mixes, three virtual mix buses, reverb, 4-band parametric EQ and dynamics
• Low latency: 2 ms round trip over USB at 96 kHz with a 32-sample buffer using MOTU's driver
• ESS converters: ES9026PRO DAC on the main outputs, with ESS conversion on the headphone output too
• Loopback: sends computer playback mixed with the live inputs back to the computer for streaming and podcasting

As an expander, the OctaLite adds eight preamps to interfaces such as MOTU's UltraLite-mk5, 828 and 16A, and its mic input circuitry matches the UltraLite-mk5. With the optional coupler kit, two OctaLites, or an OctaLite and an UltraLite-mk5, fit side by side in one rack space. Two OctaLites give 16 mic inputs in that space. A half-rack mounting kit is also available separately.

The front panel has two of the combo inputs, the headphone output, and controls for volume, gain and channel selection. A white OLED display handles metering and status. Effects can be applied to the headphone mix, to the recorded signal, or to both. The CueMix 5 app controls the mixer from Mac, Windows or iOS, and several mobile devices can connect over Wi-Fi through a computer on the same network.

The outputs are DC-coupled, so they can send CV from a DAW to a modular synth. Guitar re-amping uses a near-zero-latency loop-thru. The unit is class compliant, and MOTU's optional Mac driver adds the low-latency mode and loopback. MOTU Performer Lite comes with the interface.