Motu M4 Interface: Unexpectedly Decent AIO

When I last looked, Lynx, and the Hilo, where Linux-just-say-no; not even basic usb-audio compliance. Not that I could have afforded one.

I'm sure I can script connection of alsa to 3&4. The alsa connection, which will persist, would be no problem, but some other software like my Deadbeef audio player makes it's own connection, and drops and remakes it at the, errm, drop of a hat.

Still, there may be options to determine that it connects to 3&4, not 1&2. aj-snapshot and jack_control commands are there to explore. I've used aj-snapshot to set up scripted configurations in the past.

Well, this is a all Linux-land. JACK is not restricted to Linux, but I just checked it's IOS status, which seems to be permanently screwed by Apple.

 

I tried to get sophisticated. My old firewire device is still connected, so aim was...

JACK runs connected to Firewire Echo Audio

Motu turned on? JACK reconfigures and connects to Motu.
Motu turned off? JACK reconfigures and reconnects to Echo Audio.​

Damn it, I almost had it working, but it broke down on trying repeated on/off/on/off.

 

Reading this again...

...I must try it again. It was one of the first things I tried, and didn't return to it after initial negative impression. However, kernel upgrades got rid of glitchiness, and possibly improved sound overall. So I must try the HP out again.

I had been hoping to use it for casual/speech listening: one box, one switch.

 

Maybe it's better to distinguish amp thing from dac thing. M4 dac has its own shortcomings (for this price, I do think it unavoidable). And the built in amp mitigates them and makes hps quite workable. But this only applies to easier to drive, highly efficient transducers. Again, for this price, I don't think this requirement too much.

I still use and enjoy the pairing with Vmoda M200 as all the components (m4 dac, m4 amp, m200) harmonize well. I am using it for sound checking and mixing experiments.

 

What’s your least favorite thing about the M4 DAC? I’ve done a bit of casual testing and it sounds pretty good to me, but I wonder if there’s something specific I should listen for.

 

OK, yes... I'm trying again, and it is a different experience.

Still, with HD600, hp volume has to be on what I'd call the wrong side of 12-O'clock, but this time, and there is not much headroom, I'm listening to Mahler, noticing that at least some of the instruments sound very nice and I'm able to enjoy the music. It may not be super smooth but it certainly isn't strident, and I'm not in a great hurry to stop! Added: Now JJ Cale is sounding good.

Objective differences made by the kernel upgrades: no x-runs/dropouts, even though I'm not fixing the processor speed; sub 1% DSP load (was never sure exactly what that indicates) which was running to several with 5.8, the lowest kernel version said to work properly with M4.

Edit: Whoa! The gentleman's name is not JJ Cake!

 

Picked up an M4 this week, runs out of the box with Linux 6.0.2 & pipewire. Other than a brief moment of confusion where I had it plugged into an unpowered usb hub & got some dropouts, I've had zero issues on Linux.

I am, however, having some issues using it with my work PC running Windows-- I'm curious if anyone's dealt with this.

I'd like to have the same input behavior that I get on Linux, where input 1, input 2, and input 1-2 (and so on for 3, 4, 3-4) each appear as selectable input devices. By selecting only input 1, I can use a single microphone to get a centered recording with input 1 mirrored on L and R. On Windows I only see options for input 1-2 and 3-4, and I can only get stereo recordings with a dead channel. Zoom downmixes this to a mono recording at half volume, which gets pretty quiet even with all the gains at max.

Does anyone know if there's a settings tweak I need to make?

 

Do you have the motu driver installed on windows?

 

Yeah, I had to install the MOTU M-Series driver for windows to detect the M4 at all. I don't have anything else (i.e. ASIO4ALL), though.