The MOTU Traveler MKI is a portable smurf tinted interface sporting 4 mic preamps, 4 line ins, ADAT, S/PDIF, TOSlink and AES-EBU digital connections. On top of that it can be powered over Firewire, battery pack, or directly by the mains.
Now I’m quite aware that MOTU is very Linux unfriendly. Hell, you could say down right hostile. Flat-out refusing to release any information that would assist in developing drivers for our beloved OS. Then again, all that accomplished was getting their product stack reverse engineered thanks to the work done by Jonathan and the FFADO team.
All that said, let’s do that thing we do. Take a look at the device, plug it into the penguin, do a quick sound check, and see if we can force some xruns in a live recording session.
Jackbox: Testing setup
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 1700 | ||
| RAM | Corsair LPX 16GB | ||
| Motherboard | MSI B350 Tomahawk | ||
| GPU | Nvidia Quadro 4000 | ||
| SSD | Samsung 840 | ||
| PSU: | EVGA 600 B1 | ||
| Firewire: | Syba SY-PEX30016 | ||
| Network: | Intel i350-T4 | ||
| OS: | Debian Buster | ||
| Kernel: | 5.4.47-rt | ||
| Desktop: | XFCE 4.12 | ||
Disable ALSA firewire drivers: Create the file alsa-nope.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/ and add the following.
blacklist snd-fireworks blacklist snd-bebob blacklist snd-oxfw blacklist snd-dice blacklist snd-firewire-digi00x blacklist snd-firewire-tascam blacklist snd-firewire-lib blacklist snd-firewire-transceiver blacklist snd-fireface blacklist snd-firewire-motu blacklist snd_hda_codec_hdmi blacklist snd_hda_intel
MOTU Traveler MKI: Round-trip latency @44100 HZ
MOTU Traveler MKI: Round-trip latency @48000 HZ
MOTU Traveler MKI: Round-trip latency @96000 HZ
MOTU Traveler MKI: Round-trip latency @192000 HZ
Verdict:
Painfully blue or not this is a feature packed unit that brings the business. 73 dB of gain from the preamps, bus powered, and full ffado-mixer compatibility. The only downside is finding one that hasn’t been smashed to hell.
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MOTU Traveler MKI
Pros
73 dB of gain on tap.
Standalone mode.
Accurate VU meters.
Bus powered.
Cons
Painfully blue.
Confusing front-panel interface.
