Mac M1 working audio interfaces - any recommendations?

[Chromeman]

Just got a refurbed Mac Mini M1 and am on the hunt for an audio interface known to work with Big Sur. Any suggestions? Seems class compliant units are likely to work but would prefer recommendations from somebody who actually uses one with an M1 Mac. I need at least 4 inputs. Budget up to about £500. Thanks in advance.

[fatbenelton]

I think plenty now have working drivers so perhaps pick the one you really want but then check it works - more than likely it will.
For what it’s worth, my Quantum 2 & Quantum 4848 working fine on a MacBook air m1.

[Macca_25387]

Audient id44. I’m using one with a M1 currently.

[Dave Rowles]

Focusrite stuff should work, or RME, though Focusrite is more in your price bracket.

[Murray B]

Audient id44. I’m using one with a M1 currently.

Not the right amount of inputs for you, but my older MK1 Audient ID4 also works fine with via a plug in hub with Logic on my M1 MacBook Air.

[Kypresso]

Mac Mini M1 with a Focusrite Clarett 4pre works fine. Its class compliant and its control software was updated to work on M1's a short while ago. I Haven't tried the software yet as i set up the routing when it was connected to my pc and everything appeared to work when connected to the Mac.

[neubop]

My MOTU M4 works fantastically well with M1 MacBook Air (and also my 2020 iMac). In my opinion it is the best small 4 channel interface for a lot of reasons but the one standout is the excellent metering which although critical for live music recording, almost all other small interface lack.

Very quiet preamps and robust potentiometers also add to the high quality feel of the package. I used this interface to perform three times last weekend with a guitar and a mic into the two XLR inputs and outputting both a stereo pair from MainStage running various soft soft synths and monitoring the two analog inputs into several Bose Systems.

The M4 also works very well as a 4 in stand-alone mixer even without a computer. It also came with a ton of software I have not gotten around to using.

By the way I also own Presonus and Tascam interfaces and used to use dedicated ProTools hardware interfaces and the MOTU M4 is now my interface of choice by so much that I have not even tried the others with my M1 Mac.

This is a very impressive piece of gear especially for the price.

[Chromeman]

Thanks for the suggestions. In the end I went for an Audient ID14 - only 2 inputs but I decided to keep my Yamaha N12 mixer as well so the N12 stereo outputs simply feed the Audient when I need to record a few hardware synths which are permanently plugged into the mixer. Eventually the N12 will go but as the Audient has ADAT in I'll just get a Behringer ADA8200 or something similar. I looked at the Motu M4 but they are all on back-order ATM and there is no ADAT.

[taildragger221]

A question for @neubop or anyone else using the MOTU M4 with a Mac...
Just got my M4 yesterday and indeed I am impressed with its build quality, lovely meters and quiet pre-amps when used with my MacBook Pro M1 14" (running Monterey 12.0.1).

However well it functions, it doesn't show up as expected in MacOS and thus Logic Pro. The docs that came in the box say that it should appear as a device named "M4", but in Apple -> System Preferences -> Sound it just shows up as "Audio Out". This naming is reflected in Logic's Preferences -> Audio -> Devices where it is also called just "Audio Out". All four inputs and outputs are selectable in the channel strip settings for each track OK (e.g. "Output 3" for a mono output, or "Outputs 3+4" for a stereo output), so thus the device if definitely usable and doing its job correctly.

It's just the generic naming that gets me, as I don't know what will happen if I added a second USB audio interface if it was also generically named. I'm used to running an older MacBook with a 10-in/10-out Firewire interface, where the actual name of the hardware was carried through the OS and into Logic. That made setting up easy when, as one time, I was using two Firewire interfaces chained together. The MOTU docs gave me hope that the M4 would look very similar to this, but the reality is that the names "MOTU" or "M4" don't appear anywhere useful in the software.

Is this just the new Monterey way of doing things, or have I made some kind of mistake with my setup?

[taildragger221]

Just answering my own question in case it helps anybody else...
So after after a bit more searching, it turns out that MOTU have a support document that covers this called "Enabling MOTU drivers in macOS 11 Big Sur" at...
https://motu.com/techsupport/technotes/ ... rs-big-sur

Although the interface will function perfectly well without any "drivers" (as you'd expect on a Mac, and indeed that's what the docs that came with the unit says), there is actually an "installer" package that sorts out the very issues I mentioned in my last post. So I downloaded it from MOTU's Downloads page, and after a reboot the interface is named correctly in System Preferences and Audio MIDI Setup. And within Logic, the Input Device and Output Device is now also correctly shown as "M4". So it all looks neat and lovely and I have some confidence that if I add another USB interface, I'll be able to see what's what when setting up a new session.

[Eddy Deegan]

Thank you for taking the time to update with the solution taildragger! It's always good to see when people do that

[MarkOne]

We’re well over a year into the world of M-series macs. Pretty much everything will be compatible. I can certainly attest to Focusrite being rock solid. And as others have said RME, Audient, Motu all work fine.

[Bob Bickerton]

Well UAD don't 'officially' support Monterey, but I've just upgraded to a new 16" MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip and everything appears to work fine.

Bob

[ef37a]

Not a mac person but another big whoop for the M4 here.

To add to everything said about it I checked the USB current consumption yesterday (X-Dragon device) and it was a very reasonable 420mA even with 32 Ohms phones being driven close to max.

The voltage was 4.99V and that current draw is well within USB 2.0 specc' of 500mA and way below USB 3.0 which is 900mA. I was running from a 3.0 port but it works equally well from 2.0.

Dave.

[resistorman]

I've been using an XR18 with my M1 Mac Air for live recording into Reaper. OS Monterey, Reaper still a few versions back and beta. Works flawlessly.

[adamburgess]

Looks like the Core Audio drivers are ok for me on M1 and Monterey. Behringer X32 and XR18, iConnectivity stuff, Focusrite 2i2.

Also Roland Integra, Korg stuff, Behringer Deepmind working fine over USB.

[ef37a]

I would also be very surprised if the Native Instruments KA6 did not work perfectly. I have tried mine on 4 Windows platforms and not read of any others that do not work.

Dave.

[S2]

Somewhat late in the day but for anyone considering it, I use a Steinberg UR22C with a Macbook Air M1 (Big Sur) and it works flawlessly.

[Barows]

Also very late to this party, but my old Fireface 400 works great on M1 Macbook Pro - albeit with an ugly chain of Apple's adapters. (TB3-TB2 and then TB2-Firewire.)

From the RME forums, it seems RME initially said "no" regarding M1, but then the software monkeys got busy and managed it. Not for the first time, I'm really happy with RME support for old products.

[Arpangel]

Behringer UMC's, I’ve two of them, and both work fine with my M1 Mac running Big Sur, plug and play.

[MarkOne]

Also very late to this party, but my old Fireface 400 works great on M1 Macbook Pro - albeit with an ugly chain of Apple's adapters. (TB3-TB2 and then TB2-Firewire.)

From the RME forums, it seems RME initially said "no" regarding M1, but then the software monkeys got busy and managed it. Not for the first time, I'm really happy with RME support for old products.

If only the guys and gals at Focusrite were equally as software monkeyish. Their management said no to FireWire devices on M1. And no it is.

So for better or worse my lovely Liquid Saffire 56 is currently garnering a little interest on the Bay.

PS. Ping me if you want the link.

[Chromeman]

If only the guys and gals at Focusrite were equally as software monkeyish. Their management said no to FireWire devices on M1. And no it is.

I started the topic for the same reason as I have a Yamaha N12 Firewire mixer, which is also a great audio interface, but Yamaha/Steinberg have declined to provide drivers since OSX Mojave.

[Arpangel]

You can’t really blame the interface manufacturers for not keeping up with OS updates, it’s not there responsibility, just don't update the OS.
But as I always say, they’ve got us all on a never ending treadmill, that I refuse to be part of.

[MarkOne]

You can’t really blame the interface manufacturers for not keeping up with OS updates, it’s not there responsibility, just don't update the OS.
But as I always say, they’ve got us all on a never ending treadmill, that I refuse to be part of.

I think sometimes, they think they can do better than the native class compliant drivers in some way so with the best intentions they develop something bespoke, only to find that a critical feature they rely on gets deprecated somewhere down the line.