Yeah, I too am a MOTU user for decades now. I really like thoses interfaces, I have several of them and they never have let me down. We even get driver updates for gear that’s almost 15-20 years old, it’s quite exceptional indeed! But I was talking about physical hardware inputs… there’s a difference between what we can potentially do and what we can actually do… 
It seems in my setup both the OT and the mixer are “the mixer” 
, the mixer is both pre and post OT, it kinda seems like one thing…
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That’s how it should be, a well coordinated system
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I can dig what yer saying…but once I dumped the mixer. I was freed.
I do SO much more. less mucking about with wiring…and just producing.
great for live. space and time taker at home.
Once I dumped my PC, I was freed too! No more hassle with mouse and keyboard, tiny buttons on Hi-Res screens… well, everyone has it’s own way and it’s all fine.
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don’t need the mouse and computer once yer all rigged up. just turn it on and go. same as yer mixer. its kinda useless without power.
this whole fallacy of being one way or another is funny. you can’t beat the combo of comp and hardware.
the computer is just a glorified tape recorder with unlimited routing possibilities.
why would you sacrifice that. sure, too many options is bad…yet people will have 30 boxes in front of them. wanna talk about too many options. sit there starring at gear wondering where to start. or how I wanna set this up…AGAIN.
id rather have the flexibility of connectivity in the box, with production outside the box.
I never use my computer…only to hit BOUNCE. all transport etc is external. the monitor doesn’t even need to be on.
I just feel bad for all the time lost screwing around with wiring up a mixer. if it hadn’t sold…it was gonna take a trip out the 10th floor window.
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This isn’t lost time, but training for modular
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I don’t get your point, but never mind. I didn’t want to start a flame war, I just said there are several ways of doing things and that’s just fine. I’m happy with a mixer, you’re happy without, so we’re both happy. This started when we were talking about many sources to connect to a mixer device. Whatever that is… you still need to physically connect them!
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OH GOD…dont get me started on that crap HA HA HA. DONE WITH IT.
yet here you are trying to talk people out of using mixers with their hardware haha
all good though, I understand what you´re saying.
long time MOTU user here as well, by the way - great pieces of equipment! 
great, I´ll chew through that in my next break, thanks
as far as “direct outs” go (assuming you mean the insert points that can be used as DOs on Ch1-Ch6 ?), I´m currently trying to figure out if it would be feasible to have those first 6 channels routed directly to my MOTU Ultralite Interface…
That has “zero latency monitoring” by essentially interally routing inputs straight back to a physical output.
So my thought process here is, get 6x insert cables and hook up the “send” of ch1-6 to the MOTU inputs 1-6 and get the “return” back from MOTU outs 1-6 and route that internally in the MOTU software.
(@phaelam made me think about that ^^)
That way I could multitrack ch1-6 and also record a stereo sum. More than enough for my way of working.
… now I only need to test if it actually WORKS 
Basically today’s audio interfaces are just the DSP part of a digital mixer. Or in other words, a modern digital mixer is a audio I/O interface with a built in control surface (or a control surface with an integrated audio I/O interface). Many digital mixers are available in two versions: 1 with the control surface (aka “mixer”) and one rackable version without the faders and knobs, controllable via a software app. It’s just all the same thing. In the end you still need to physically connect the sources with cables. And it’s not because you don’t have faders and knobs, that you “go direct”. That’s not how digital works. You still have AD/DA’s, mixing algorithms, you still have summing etc etc. If you want 128 physical inputs, you still need to add as many I/O boxes and A/D’s and DSP’s as necessary.
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Ah…now yer talkin digi mixer.
I was talking analog mixer. Thats what i was using and it just sucks. Pointless in a home studio.
Going out my VLZ1640 had two out my soundcard. A couple more with sub out giving me 2 more. WTF would you want that at home.
Looks neat…introduces an intermediate noise source plus an extra sets of cables.
Thing looks super cool, but was WAY underutilized, and wasted SO much space.
Never…NEVER going back.
Yes, said so in the beginning of the thread
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Yes you can do that, I have used a Soundcraft 19" 8 channel mic preamp this way with a MOTU 2408MkIII interface for years when I did duo gigs. In my case I routed it back into the preamp physically (meaning I wired the insert out back into the insert in, I juste tapped the insert out path to go into the MOTU). Worked perfectly fine. You must use the line inputs, not the XLR mic inputs. I didn’t use the MOTU CuemixFX inline with the preamp, but I think you can with the new MOTU DSP. What you are doing then is basically using your mixer as a rack of preamps and doing the actual mix in Cuemix. Note that" zero latency" doesn’t exist in the digital world: once you use AD/DA conversion and routing there’s SOME minimum latency added. That latency is unnoticable when monitoring, but you might want to measure it and compensate when summing. Otherwise you’ll get phase issues. Typically it’s below or around 1ms, which is considered “zero latency” but will definitely be noticable when summed with the direct sound, especially on percussive sounds. MOTU doesn’t mention “zero latency” either if I recall, they rather say “performance similar to a digital mixer”
Zero latency is not possible going thru anything.
But 1.9ms is basically non existant. You wont notice it at all.
With Overbridge enabled i get 24ms of lat…dont notice it
When im not using OB its around 3ms…unnoticable
Ok, let’s stop ruffling feathers over this, after all we’re on a Elektron forum dedicated to hardware configurations, so we’re drifting off-topic dicussing latency issues with DAW’s and other brand’s gear.
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I’m not feeling confortable in this thread anymore. Please stop.
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I like to have three mixers and the OT! Seriously… But I do love mixers.
Latency is a pain when recombining signals and using howl around feedback. Hate that fixed phase.