So check it out this is the Neumann MT 48 audio interface and in this video I'll tell you why it's
so special and the surprising things I discovered while using it in the last few weeks including the
touchscreen workflow that is a real game changer so why is the MT 48 so important two reasons first
Neumann partnered with a company called Merging Technologies to build this now I hadn't heard
about Merging Technologies until I interviewed Warren Huart and asked him what his dream audio
interface was and he named Merging Technologies and when I got the MT 48 I understood why the
sound quality of this interface is topnotch most notably the highquality converters which
Merging Technologies is known for more about that later now you've probably heard people say your
recording is only as good as the weakest link in your chain so nman has now ensured that there's
no weak link by releasing an interface that as they put it matches the quality of their other
gear everyone knows this mic every Pro Studio has it yeah so that brings us to the second reason the
MT 48 is so important it completes the Neumann studio chain as far as I know Neumann is the only Pro Audio
company that has products from start to finish for your recording studio microphones we all know
Neumann for their mics they've had studio monitors for a while now and more recently headphones and
preamps the only device that was missing until now was the audio interface so here it is and now
they have everything end to end and yeah I think the MT 48 lives up to the Neumann reputation Neumann
has a reputation a good one and I think it was a really good move for them to introduce a premium
interface like this so let's put it to the test right away now Neumann is sponsoring this video so
this is not really a review but I'm going to add my opinions anyway so here are a couple recordings
I did with the MT 48 we were for a moment in time and it seemed everlasting that you would always
be mine now you want to be free so I'm letting you fly cuz I know in my heart baby oh love will never
die we were as [Music] one for a moment in time and it seemed Everlasting that you would always
be mine now you want to be free so I'm letting you fly cuz I know in my heart babe love will never
die now don't get me wrong budget interfaces these days sound pretty good and for home production
they may be good enough for you but the MT 48 definitely takes things up a bunch of notches I'll
share some more audio examples later in the video and this cool touchscreen and the onboard effects
as well but first here's what makes this interface sound so good and by the way I've put together an
all Neumann studio right here if you'd like me to do a video about this setup let me know in the
comments I'll put everything you see in this video in the description and the first comment below if
you're new around here I'm Sanjay C I've got lots of videos about music production and the latest gear
on my channel consider subscribing if you haven't already I'll be sure to make it worth your while
there are two things that impact the sound of an interface the most the preamps and the converters
the preamps is an easy one that's the thing that takes your mic level signal and boosts it to a
line level signal that the interface can then pass on to your computer when you record your
vocals or guitar the preamps on the MT 48 are like wow they've got 78 DB of gain so you can plug in
pretty much any kind of mic including ribbon mics and it's going to give you a strong signal now
once the preamp captures the mic's audio it needs to convert that into digital language that your
computer can understand and that's done by the ad converter the converters they put into this
interface exceed what other interfaces can do I'll give you some numbers but I'll also explain what
they mean the dynamic range for this interface is 136 DB which means this can actually capture
everything this microphone can put out even very loud sounds and even the TLM 103 microphone with
its 131 DB of dynamic range most other interfaces even high-end interfaces will give you somewhere
between around 115 and 123 DB at the high end this one 36 which means your fear of clipping is
pretty much gone and well it sounds great so yeah it's starting to make sense why they would come
out with an interface like this something that doesn't compromise their own mic's capabilities
by the way you can of course use this with any other mic dynamic condenser okay so that's the
sound going in what about the output well there was something I was a bit skeptical about they say
that the headphone amps in the MT 48 can power even extremely high impedance headphones and I've had
mixed results with audio interfaces that have that sort of claim so I've reviewed tons of headphones
and one thing I've discovered is even if an audio interface can power high impedance headphones
they don't always sound great there's usually some kind of uncomfortable distortion that they
introduce but the MT48 didn't have that distortion headphones are clear and as loud as I want them
to be I've actually been using a headphone app because I've been so frustrated with the
headphone sound quality and I think I may not need it anymore we'll see depending on the impedance of
your headphones you can select either a plus 8 DBU or plus 16 DBU and here's where the interface goes
the extra mile you can adjust the headphone cross feed which means your left ear will hear a bit
of the right output and vice versa simulating the natural listening environment that studio monitors
give you okay so what else surprised me well it's a little thing actually when I first powered this
on I was a bit overwhelmed there's a lot on the screen so I thought I'd be tapping around a lot
to do everyday stuff but not really the workflow is fairly intuitive and the most important stuff
is super clear let me show you the four buttons at the bottom control two speaker outputs and
two headphone outputs depending on which one is active you can just volume or mute it just having
a mute button for all four of these outputs is so useful and each has its own mix so you can
customize what's being outputed on each so this big knob can control a lot more of course when
you touch a control on the screen you use this knob to change it right here I'm changing the
mic preamp gain you can also use it to adjust EQ stuff like that so yeah this interface has
DSP built in meaning you've got process in EQ gate a compressor limiter and you can use it for
monitoring or recording and check it out you can actually record dry and wet signals simultaneously
using separate driver channels that's for someone who's afraid of commitment for each Channel input
you can select preamp set gain 48v pad dim low cut lots of options and you've got the meter
as well you can also add EQ and dynamics let's try that switch EQ on and adjust the curve on
the screen turn on dynamics set a threshold ratio attack release it's all here let's hear what this
sounds like and it seemed everlasting that you would always be mine and it seemed everlasting
that you would always be mine when you have any of this processing active you'll see these little
colored dots on the channel so you know you're processing the signal oh also you've got reverb
on board as well that's just for monitoring and you have full control of what that sounds
like sometimes a singer may benefit from hearing some reverb in their headphones while recording a
note about the touchcreen it's pretty responsive with just a little short delay when turning some
features on or off tapping dragging all pretty precise one thing to keep in mind is that because
of the DSB chips inside they needed to have fans in it to keep it cool I've noticed the interface
getting warm for sure but I can't ever hear the fans like not at all by the way you also have the
option of managing the touchscreen functions on your computer screen if you prefer that but I've
been fine with the onboard touch screen oh yeah so I updated the startup screen you can put your
studio logo here or your pets picture this is part of the latest firmware update they just pushed
out they added other stuff recently like LED brightness adjustment and mixer feature updates
all right so I've gotten this far in the video with without even giving you a tour around the
interface inputs outputs and stuff like that so up front you've got two headphone outputs great when
you have another person recording in your studio and check it out you've got a talk back button too
you can talk to your artist with the built-in mic and they'll hear you in their headphones also up
front you have two instrument slash line inputs on the back you have two mic/line inputs your main
outs to your monitors and there are two two line outs as well to the left of that you have ins and
outs for MIDI or GPIO it's got ADAT Optical ins and outs and a data jack too so you can expand
this interface add lots more inputs if you want to there are two USBC sockets one for power and
the other that goes to your computer you've got a power button and a kensington lock as well on top
I showed you the monitor and headphone selector buttons the mute button and talk back button the
diamond button here is your home button that will take you to the default homepage on the screen at
any time and because this interface goes above and beyond in every single way there's something even
on the bottom a microphone stand connector so you can put this on a mic stand and have it anywhere
any height any angle you want the build quality of the MT 48 is excellent the build reflects the
price for sure this is an all metal body the large knob has a very satisfying smoothness to it the
the buttons have a soft smooth feel no clicks it's all totally silent this interface is super
compact and would be really easy to travel with it's also just a little over 2lb so yeah this is
a very special interface and everyone seems to be talking about it but here's a secret when I first
researched it I was honestly overwhelmed this does so much and I was like how am I going to
convey all this stuff to you there's certainly a lot to talk about but it turned out to be a
very easy to learn workflow and I think this is one of those devices you're going to see on my
desk a lot in the future if you're interested in checking out the Neumann MT48 I'll add links to it
below the video and hey if you want to hear how this mic sounds compared to the very best in the
industry you can watch the video right here
Make The Music You Love I'll see you in the next video