Review: MOTU Traveler

With laptop computers being as capable as they are these days, there’s been a strong move toward ‘portable’ audio interfaces. And why not! If we can cram a ‘studio’ into our backpacks then jamming while we wait for a plane, train or bus is no longer a fantasy. Truly ‘portable’ implies you can run the unit without the aid of a 240V power outlet. Some interfaces may well be ‘transportable’ – such as the original Firewire-connected MOTU 828 – but don’t reach full portability status until they can run from either a Firewire or USB bus, or indeed batteries. MOTU’s latest recording gadget, the Traveler, is just such a device – it can be powered via your laptop’s Firewire bus, a typical domestic wall outlet, or indeed industry standard external battery packs (a 12V, 1A battery should give you about an hour’s operation). Bear in mind that a top-notch professional battery pack and NiMh battery will set you back approximately $1500 in Australia – the price you pay for professional kit.

Having realised a marketable and well-received design in the 828MkII, MOTU has reorganised the bells and whistles while slimming down the overall weight to come up with the Traveler. Weighing in at well under 2kg the Traveler is extremely light. The casing seems to be aluminium, manufactured to the usual high standard you’d expect from MOTU. The unit occupies a single rack-space and comes with rack ears should they be required. It’s just the right size to sit a 14-inch iBook on top. In PC land, users should make sure their Firewire PCI card uses the Texas Instruments or Lucent chipset and is directly powered from the computer’s power supply. PCMCIA cards must be powered – typically using a wall-wart power supply. Connection is via a six-pin Firewire cable (the smaller four-pin format doesn’t support bus power) and MOTU supplies a sturdy 15-foot long number. The supplied cable is of a high quality but I seriously didn’t like the force this hefty piece of wire put on the Firewire port of the iBook. Grab yourself a shorter one to save inadvertently damaging a port or two. Not a fault of Traveler at all, but best to be safe than sorry.

NOT EVERYONE’S BAG

I was hoping to see the Traveler arrive with the travel bag shown on the box. It’s a rugged cyber-friendly design featuring plenty of room for your laptop, Traveler interface and microphones. Sturdy brushed alloy clips and zippers are used throughout, as is a padded shoulder strap, all finished in a water resistant sky blue with an externally padded mobile phone pouch. Sporting myriad compartments and accessory pockets, the MOTU ‘session bag’ is simply marvellous – if you don’t mind being a walking MOTU billboard. But, alas, the bag is an extra 149 bucks. Really… for a bag? I’m sure it’s delightful but shouldn’t it be included? After all, the Traveler is for travelling with isn’t it? Perhaps your super-friendly local high-tech music shop will understand the travesty unfolding here and will be more than happy to take a further battering on price and chuck the bag in for free.

Traveler is, of course, a further generation of the 828 lineage and consequently offers a higher sampling rate than its MkII predecessor. The actual I/O count remains the same as the 828MkII but with a prudent rearrangement of interfacing. Consequently the system’s analogue I/O is reduced to eight rather than 10, thus gaining an extra digital I/O in the form of an AES/EBU port. The Traveler will clock at speeds of up to 192k via the eight analogue outputs and the eight analogue inputs. At this rate, however, all digital I/O (including the wordclock I/O) is disabled – which is fair enough. The Adat I/O won’t handle 192k of course and will inevitably revert to four channels at 88.2/96k. The remaining coaxial S/PDIF and XLR AES/EBU ports both function at up to 96k. With some carefully chosen A/D units this arrangement can still provide 16 channels of input at 96k, 14 using the Adat input as a TOSLink S/PDIF input only. Missing from the typical MOTU topology is a dedicated SMPTE or LTC I/O. It just wouldn’t be MOTU not to offer sync to tape, consequently analogue timecode can be read from any analogue input. Additionally, being the MOTU unit it is, the Traveler can generate wordclock and timecode while syncing to LTC, allowing further digital systems to be kept in step. Nine-pin Adat sync connectors still grace the Traveler. Multiple MOTU Firewire units can be daisy-chained or connected via hubs to a maximum of four units per bus. Bus powering must be forfeited in these instances.

HAVE TRAVELER WILL TRAVEL

So what does the Traveler do when it’s immediately whipped straight out of the bag and plugged into the laptop? Eight simultaneous analogue inputs and outputs, all at 24-bit and 192k if needs require. However, in practice, a lot depends on the machine driving the unit. Here’s a few results with a 1.33GHz iBook and using the internal 4200rpm drive and an external drive daisy-chained to the Traveler. At 96k the internal drive spacked out when recording 16 x 24-bit tracks, but the same process succeeded when recording to an external 7200rpm Firewire PATA drive. The unit managed six simultaneous record tracks at 176k to the internal drive before the ‘disk is too slow’ errors appeared. At 192k the count went down to four. If you’re after eight-track recording at the highest available sample rate I’d be grabbing the best Powerbook available with a 5400rpm drive if possible. With four not-to-be-sniffed-at mic or instrument preamps (each with switchable phantom power) you can get some stunning results at 96k. These, I felt, were of the standard I’m accustomed to with MOTU devices – they’re clean and more than usable in the studio or indeed in the field.

The Traveler provides complete front panel control over its mixing parameters with the same backlit LCD display and operation system found in the 828MkII. Via this section you can set up input levels and bus sends, stereo pairing, panning, solo and mute functions, to the point where the unit can be used as a stand-alone mixer – no computer required.

Overall there’s little I can fault with the Traveler. Essentially it’s a portable version of the 828MkII that can and will record at super-high sample rates. It’s a very good choice for a capable bedroom setup and can do quite a lot when you’re out of a power extension cord’s reach. I’m a little bemused as to why there isn’t an extra headphone output – even a mirror of the front panel headphone output would have been prudent considering the situations the Traveler is designed for. Apart from that, this is a very capable and cost effective device.