I have not knowingly heard the MOTU unit, but the Saffire Pro range gives good sound and is reasonable value for money. Do you really need the DSP version?

However, rather than just inviting us to comment on your choice of interface units, perhaps you could give us an outline of what the "features I need" are (number of channels, type of microphones you want to use, budget etc), and we may be able to suggest other makes and models of interface that you could also be considering.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I am looking for an interface that can give me 4 analog ins (2 of which are pres), ADAT or spdif ins, 6 analog outputs, midi i/o, decent software mixer capable of 4+ separate headphone mixes with monitoring reverb and compression (for headphone mixes).
I will be using condenser mics with the pres built into the interface and have a few outboard pres for more demanding tasks.

Effects (such as reverb and compression) do not really fit in a quality I/O interface, even among the few that could internally generate that number of independent headphone mixes. You could use external effects units, but it's not clear from your post whether you would want each mix to have separate effect settings. Would your budget stretch to an RME FireFace800 or UFX? One of those plus external effect units would get you there.

If you really need effect-loaded headphone mixes, the alternatives may be to look at (a) channel strips that have the mic pre-amps, EQ and effect units built-in together with simple headphone mixers or (b) a genuine live sound mixer that has a multi-channel computer interface such as the A+H Zed-R16 or the Mackie i-series.

Boswell, post: 376646 wrote: If you really need effect-loaded headphone mixes, the alternatives may be to look at (a) channel strips that have the mic pre-amps, EQ and effect units built-in together with simple headphone mixers or (b) a genuine live sound mixer that has a multi-channel computer interface such as the A+H Zed-R16 or the Mackie i-series.

I think he's talking about using compression and reverb just for monitoring purposes (e. g. for a singer). The focusrite does that pretty well. The quality of the DSP reverb isn't very good, but just for monitoring it's more than enough. You can record the dry signal while giving the singer a compressed and wet monitor.

The preamps are quite good as well. Nothing like Apogee or RME, but very clean.

ouzo77, post: 376648 wrote: I think he's talking about using compression and reverb just for monitoring purposes (e. g. for a singer). The focusrite does that pretty well. The quality of the DSP reverb isn't very good, but just for monitoring it's more than enough. You can record the dry signal while giving the singer a compressed and wet monitor.

Yes this is what I'm talking about!

You can use the DSP effects only on the first 2 channels, though.