The 896mk3 audio interface delivers advanced design, high-end performance, superb sound, and universal "hybrid" FireWire/USB2 connectivity to your Mac or Windows computer.

The all new 896mk3 FireWire audio interface delivers high-end performance, superb sound, innovative new features and enhanced standard features that remain unique.

The 896mk3 provides eight channels of pristine 24-bit 192 kHz analog recording and playback, combined with sixteen channels of optical digital I/O, stereo AES/EBU, S/PDIF and separate analog main outs. Expand your system by connecting the 8pre mic input expander or other MOTU audio interfaces.

Hybrid FireWire / USB2 connectivity

As a hybrid audio interface, the 896mk3 provides flexible connectivity to any Mac or PC via FireWire or high-speed USB 2.0, with eight channels of pristine 24-bit 192 kHz analog recording and playback, combined with sixteen channels of optical digital I/O, stereo AES/EBU, S/PDIF and separate analog main outs. Expand your system by connecting the 8pre mic input expander or other MOTU audio interfaces.

flexible operation

The 896mk3 is equally well-suited for studio and stage, with or without a computer. As an interface or standalone mixer, the 896mk3 provides 28 separate inputs and 32 separate outputs, including dedicated main outs on XLRs and two front panel headphone outs.

On-board digital mixer with effects for monitoring and live mixing

Connect all of your studio gear, including microphones, guitars, synths, keyboards, drum machines and even effects processors. Record, monitor, route and process all of these live inputs using the professional on-board CueMix FX digital mixer – with no latency and no processor strain on your computer. Apply hardware DSP-driven effects processing to inputs, outputs, and busses independent of your host computer. Add Classic Reverb™ with lengths up to 60 seconds. Further sculpt your sound with 7-band parametric EQ featuring filter types carefully modeled after British analog console EQs. Choose between two forms of compression: a conventional compressor and the Leveler™, an accurate model of the legendary LA-2A™ optical compressor that provides vintage, musical automatic gain control.

When recording from the mic/guitar inputs, the 896mk3’s signal overload protection gives you an extra 12 dB of headroom above zero with no clipping or harsh artifacts.

Stand-alone operation as a mixer

After programming the on-board mixing in the studio, unplug the 896mk3 from the computer and take it on the road for operation as a stand-alone mixer with effects. All mixing and effects parameters are adjustable using the front panel backlit LCD.

Across-the-board compatibility

The 896mk3 provides cross-platform compatibility with Mac and Windows and all of your favorite audio software and host-based effects via WDM/ASIO/Core Audio drivers. Or you can use the included AudioDesk workstation software for Mac, with 24-bit recording/editing and 32-bit mixing/processing/mastering.

Eight inputs are equipped with high quality preamps, plus overload protection and all the features you need to simultaneously record up to eight mic/instrument inputs with excellent sound quality.

Each input is equipped with its own trim pot, 48V phantom power switch and 20 dB pad switch conveniently located on the front panel for easy access. The preamp on each input provides over 60 dB of boost.

V-Limit™ hardware limiter

All analog inputs are equipped with V-Limit™, a hardware limiter that helps prevent digital clipping from overloaded input signals. With V-Limit enabled, signals can go above zero dB (where limiting kicks in) to as high as +12 dB above zero with no distortion due to digital clipping.

Soft Clip™

Additional protection can be applied to the mic/guitar inputs by enabling the 896mk3's Soft Clip™ feature, which engages just before clipping occurs and helps reduce perceptible distortion.

The 896mk3 allows you to connect a wide variety of studio gear, including microphones, guitars, synths, keyboards, drum machines, effects processors and more.

Front panel I/O

In addition to the eight analog inputs, the 896mk3 provides two independent headphone jacks with independent volume knobs, one of which also controls the XLR main outs on the rear panel. Alternately, this "Master Vol" knob can be programmed to control any combination of outputs (analog and/or digital). For example, it can control monitor output for an entire 5.1 or 7.1 surround mix.
Discrete inputs and outputs

The phone jack below the MASTER VOL knob labeled "(MAIN OUT)" is hard-wired to (mirrors) the XLR main outs. In all other cases, inputs and outputs are discrete. For example, the main outs do not "steal" an output pair from the bank of eight XLR analog outputs. Even the second headphone jack operates as an independent output with its own volume control, although you can program it to mirror any other output pair.

Rear panel I/O

Eight 24-bit analog "combo jack" inputs and ten XLR outputs can operate at sample rates up to 192 kHz. Two optical banks provide 16 channels of ADAT optical at 48 kHz, 8 channels of S/MUX optical I/O at 96 kHz or two banks of stereo TOSLink at rates up to 96 kHz. The banks operate independently, allowing you to mix and match any optical formats. RCA S/PDIF connectors also supply independent stereo digital I/O. XLR AES/EBU connectors provide another independent stereo digital I/O.

* The phone jack below the MASTER VOL knob is hard-wired to (mirrors) the XLR main outs. The other phone jack operates as an independent stereo pair.

† The two optical banks provide 16 channels of ADAT optical at 48 kHz, 8 channels of S/MUX optical I/O at 96 kHz or two banks of stereo TOSLink at rates up to 96 kHz. The banks operate independently, allowing you to mix and match any optical formats.

Control room monitoring

Powered monitors can be plugged directly into the outputs of the 896mk3 and you can attenuate the output from the software or the front-panel MASTER VOL control. Main out volume is not limited to stereo operation: quad, 5.1, 7.1 and even user-defined configurations are available. You can even program the 896mk3 to control all 32 outputs with the MASTER VOL knob.

The 896mk3 is an audio interface, but it's also a 16-bus digital mixer, complete with EQ, compression and reverb.

The 896mk3 is really two devices in one: an audio interface plus a 28 x 16 digital mixer. In fact, you could even think of the 896mk3 as a digital mixer in a double rack-space form factor.

Operating as either a computer interface or stand-alone, the 896mk3 provides DSP-driven digital mixing with effects processing (reverb, EQ and compression) for all 28 inputs. You can connect all your gear and then mix, process and monitor everything from the 896mk3’s main outs or headphone jacks.

A 28 input by 16 bus digital mixer with effects

All I/O is routed to the on-board 16-bus (8 stereo) digital mixer driven by hardware-based DSP with 32-bit floating point precision. The mixer allows you to apply no-latency effects processing to inputs, outputs or busses directly in the 896mk3 hardware, independent of the computer. Effects can be applied when the 896mk3 is operating stand-alone (without a computer) as a complete rack-mounted mixer. Input signals to the computer can be recorded wet, dry, or dry with a wet monitor mix (for musicians during recording, for example).

Complete mixing at your fingertips

All of the mixer settings in the 896mk3 are accessible from the programmable front-panel backlit LCD. You can also launch the CueMix FX™ control software for Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows Vista. CueMix FX provides complete on-screen access to the 896mk3's on-board, hardware-based mixing environment.

• CueMix FX software for Mac and Windows
• Classic Reverb
• 7-band Parameteric EQ
• Vintage Compression

CueMix FX gives you comprehensive graphic control over your mix.

CueMix FX is a completely new software front-end with attractive graphic mixing, graphic editing of parametric EQ and a convenient tabbed interface for quick access to all 896mk3 mixing features, digitally controlled trims and other settings.

CueMix FX can be operated side by side with any host audio software for Mac or Windows, and it can be controlled from the Mackie Control Universal Pro automated worksurface.

One window with convenient tabs

Three separate tabs show inputs, mix busses and outputs. Click the "Focus" button on any channel or bus to edit its settings in the area on the right-hand side, which provides separate tabs for graphic editing of parametric EQ, compression and other effects. Each channel strip displays a graphic thumbnail of EQ curves, compressor settings and other channel specific parameters. There is also a section for talkback and listenback.

Eight stereo buses

The 896mk3 supports up to eight separate stereo mixes assigned to any eight digital or analog output pairs. For example, you could set up separate monitor mixes for the main outs and headphone outs, while two additional stereo buses could be used for send/return loops to reverb units or other outboard gear. Each mix can support all 28 inputs (8 analog, 16 ADAT optical digital, stereo SPDIF and stereo AES/EBU digital).

DSP resources for mixing and effects

The 896mk3's flexible effects architecture allows you to apply EQ and compression on every input and output (a total of 60 channels), with enough DSP resources for at least one band of parametric EQ and compression on every channel at 48 kHz. However, DSP resources are allocated dynamically and a DSP meter allows you to keep tabs on the 896mk3's processing resources.

Each input, output and mix bus provides a send to the Classic Reverb processor, which then feeds reverb returns to mix buses and outputs, with a selectable split point between them to prevent send/return feedback loops.

Talkback and Listenback

CueMix FX provides Talkback and Listenback features. Talkback allows an engineer in the control room to temporarily dim all audio and talk to musicians in the live room. Conversely, Listenback allows musicians to talk to the control room. For Talkback, you can set up a dedicated mic in your control room and connect it to a mic input on your 896mk3. For Listenback, you can set up a dedicated listenback mic in the live room for the musicians and connect it to another mic input.

Stereo operation

Two channels can be grouped to a single fader for stereo operation. Two stereo panning modes are available: balance and width. Balance mode works much like a normal stereo balance control, one channel fades in and the other fades out. Width mode collapses the stereo image to mono by adjusting the relative pans of each channel gradually to center.

For stereo inputs, an optional M/S (mid-side) decoder can be enabled with adjustable width control and software-swappable inputs.

Software metering

Signal activity of all inputs, busses and outputs can be monitored via the meters pane. In addition to the meters present on individual channels, a high-resolution meter and output bus activity associated with that channel can be displayed in the primary status window.

Effects programming

The EQ, compression and reverb tabs give you complete access to the 896mk3's on-board effects, and because they are driven by hardware DSP inside the 896mk3, they won't tax your host computer's CPU. You can even use the effects without a computer connected.

The tabs shown above let you focus on one channel at a time and edit its settings using the high-resolution graphic display. But EQ and dynamics settings can also be edited on all channels in line (within each channel strip), where you can compare critical settings side-by-side, as shown below.

Front-panel LCD access to all mix settings

All of the mixing features described on these pages are available during stand-alone operation, and all of them can be accessed from the front panel LCD. This means you can program your mixes with the CueMix FX software in the studio and then take the 896mk3 on the road as a stand-alone digital mixer. Tweak your mix on location from the front panel.

Apply smooth, detailed reverb with several room models, three independent frequency bands and length up to 60 seconds.

The 896mk3's Classic Reverb™ provides five different room types, three frequency bands with adjustable crossover points, shelf filtering and reverb lengths up to 60-seconds.

Each input, output and mix bus provides a send to the Classic Reverb processor, which then feeds reverb returns to mix buses and outputs, with a selectable split point between them to prevent send/return feedback loops.

Modeled after analog British console EQ's, known for their highly musical gain/Q settings, the 896mk3's EQ provides a high pass filter, low pass filter, two shelving or parametric filters and five parametric bands.

The 896mk3's EQ section provides 7-band parametric EQ modeled after British analog console EQ's, featuring 4 filter styles (gain/Q profiles) to effectively cover a wide range of audio material. LP and HP filters are also supplied with slopes that range from 6 to 36 dB per octave.

EQ settings can be adjusted graphically by dragging control points on the large graph in the main EQ tab, as shown above, or using the knobs for individual bands in each channel strip, demonstrated below:

The 896mk3's flexible dynamics processing includes a high-quality conventional compressor, plus a leveling amplifier modeled after the legendary LA-2A™ optical compressor.

Conventional compressor

The 896mk3 offers a conventional compressor with standard controls for threshold, ratio, attack, release and gain.

Adjust the threshold graphically while viewing accurate, long-throw metering in the compressor section of the CueMix FX software.

Leveler (automatic gain control)

The 896mk3 Leveler™ is an accurate model of the legendary Teletronix™ LA-2A™ optical leveling amplifier, known for its unique and highly sought-after Automatic Gain Control (AGC) characteristics.

Conventional compression and limiting with threshold, attack, ratio, release, etc. do not apply here: the heart of the LA-2A is the T4 opto-coupler, a photoelectric device with almost magical (signal dependent) self-adjusting behavior that makes optical compressors the tool of choice for smoothing out just about any audio material, from vocals to bass guitar to full-program mixes, without destroying perceived dynamics.

The 896mk3 Leveler faithfully models the LA-2A using the on-board DSP with 32-bit floating point precision. Its controls match the front panel of the original LA-2A: Gain Reduction and Makeup Gain knobs, along with Limiter/Compressor buttons.

The 896mk3 uses extremely accurate Direct Digital Synthesis™ for internal clocking and for resolving to external word clock or SMPTE time code sources. The 896mk3 can resolve directly to time code, with no additional sychronizer required.

Direct Digital Synthesis™ clock

The 896mk3 is equipped with Direct Digital Synthesis™ (DDS), a DSP-driven phase lock engine and very high frequency digital clock source that produces imperceptibly low jitter characteristics (well below the overall noise floor), even when the 896mk3 is resolved to an external clock source via either word clock or SMPTE time code. This technology represents the very latest in extremely high-performance, yet cost-effective digital audio clocking. DDS also allows the 896mk3 to maintain an extremely stable clock while resolved to incoming clock sources that have substantially more jitter than the 896mk3 itself.

On-board SMPTE time code synchronization

You can slave your 896mk3 system directly to SMPTE time code, without a dedicated synchronizer, via one of the 896mk3's analog input jacks. The 896mk3 provides a DSP-driven phase-lock engine with sophisticated filtering that provides fast lockup times and sub-frame accuracy.

SMPTE Console software

The included MOTU SMPTE Console™ software (for Mac OS X, Windows XP and Windows Vista) provides a complete set of tools to generate SMPTE for striping, regenerating or slaving other devices to the computer. Like CueMix FX, the synchronization features are cross-platform and compatible with all audio sequencer software that supports the ASIO2 sample-accurate sync protocol.

Expand your 896mk3 system and run it with all your favorite audio software.

Adding more I/O to your 896mk3 system

As with other MOTU FireWire interfaces, the 896mk3 supplies two FireWire jacks so it can be daisy-chained with additional MOTU FireWire audio interfaces or other devices.

The 896mk3 is also fully compatible with the 8pre, a single rack MOTU interface that adds 8 mic preamp inputs to the 896mk3. Because the 8pre connects to the 896mk3 via ADAT optical, its mic inputs are fully integrated into the 896mk3's on-board CueMix FX digital mixer.

Drivers and AudioDesk workstation software

The 896mk3 provides CueMix FX and drivers for Mac (OS X) and Windows (XP and Vista) for cross-platform compatibility with virtually all audio software via WDM/ASIO/Core Audio drivers.

The 896mk3 includes AudioDesk®, the advanced workstation software for Mac OS X with 24-bit recording and editing, along with 32-bit mixing, processing and mastering.

• CueMix FX™ - flexible 28 input/16 bus mixer with on-board DSP effects, including reverb with sends/returns, plus EQ and compression on every input and output.
  
• 28 inputs / 32 outputs (at 44.1/48 kHz) - there's no channel sharing in the 896mk3; the mic inputs, AES/EBU I/O, S/PDIF I/O, headphone out and main outs are all handled as separate channels.
  
• Front-panel control - access any setting in your entire 896mk3 mix directly from the front panel.
  
• Stand-alone operation - program your mixes at the studio and then bring the 896mk3 to your gig - no computer needed. Need to tweak the mix? Do it on site using the back-lit LCD and front-panel controls.
  
• Multiple CueMix FX mixes - for example, create different monitor mixes for the main outs and headphones. Or add send/return loops for outboard gear - with no latency.
  
• Eight rear panel combo jacks provide 1/4” or XLR mic input with phantom power, pad and plenty of gain.
  
• Clip protection - input limiter prevents digital clipping and distortion from overloaded signal levels up to +12 dB over zero.
  
• Eight 24-bit 192kHz analog inputs and outputs on XLR jacks
  
• Flexible optical I/O - 16 channels of ADAT lightpipe, 8 channels of SMUX (96 kHz) or two pairs of stereo TOSLink. Mix and match formats between the two banks.
  
• Expandable - add additional interfaces for more I/O as your needs grow.
  
• Separate XLR main outs and front-panel headphone jacks, each with independent volume control.
  
• Stereo 24-bit 96kHz AES/EBU in/out
  
• Stereo 24-bit 96kHz S/PDIF in/out
  
• Word clock in and out
  
• Includes drivers for Mac & PC, including ASIO, WDM, Wave, GSIF, Core Audio, and Core MIDI. Supports all popular Macintosh and Windows audio software.
  
• 100% compatible with all host-based effects processing in today's popular audio programs.
  
• Includes AudioDesk full-featured sample-accurate workstation software for the Macintosh with recording, editing, mixing, real-time 32-bit effects processing & sample-accurate sync.
  
• Plug-and-play operation with your Mac or PC via FireWire.
  
• Front panel volume control for monitoring. Stereo, Quad, 6.1, 7.1 and user-defined surround monitoring setups available.
  
• Two front panel headphone jacks with independent volume controls.
  
• Comprehensive front panel metering for all analog and digital audio I/O.
  
• Dedicated front panel clock status LEDs.
  
• International 100-240V, 50-60 Hz autoswitching power supply.