# How often do you turn your interface off?



## timbit2006 (May 8, 2022)

How often do you turn your audio interface off?
Do you leave it on 24/7?

The main reason for this thread is to determine how many are confident leaving their interface on 24/7. Pretty well that's what I will be doing but I have the feeling long term this may not be the best for thermal buildup in the power supplies.


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## pranic (May 8, 2022)

Yep. Got the MOTU M4 and leave it on 24/7. No issues that I've seen thus far.


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## Nimrod7 (May 8, 2022)

I have a UAD Apollo 8 rack, it's open since 2016! 
However, I turn off the monitors (or rather they turn off themselves when the computer sleeps).


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## creativeforge (May 8, 2022)

There are no power buttons on the Audient card I use, so it's on 24/7 for days at a time. But about once a week I disconnect it because I'm not sure if it's going to damage it if I don't do this from time to time.


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## Bee_Abney (May 8, 2022)

My Scarlet 4i4 3rd Gen has no off button; but when the power cord is disconnected from my laptop, the Scarlet's lights go out and its temperature drops. I though that was probably good enough without unplugging it.

If it had a button, I'd turn it off whenever I was away from it (including breaks); which I'm guessing could be worse for it!


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## PhilA (May 8, 2022)

All of my kit is attached to smart sockets and has automations set up so I can do various scenarios without burning unnecessary power. Electricity costs money (ands it going up big style in the uk) so until I get solar installed at my new home I’m saving my wallet.
Hey Siri make some music everything required powers on.
Hey Siri piano practice just the piano and laptop get powers on etc…


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## ptram (May 8, 2022)

The obvious question is: why wasting power when you are not using it?

Paolo


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## TomislavEP (May 8, 2022)

I tend to power down everything at the end of the session, including PCs, monitors, controllers, screens, mixer, instruments, and interface. Speaking of which, at the moment, my main device is Focusrite 6i6 2nd gen which has an additional power supply and a dedicated power switch. The only thing that I usually don't turn off on a regular basis is a PSU unit on my PCs for the sake of convenience. However, I remember reading that you can actually save some power in the long run by doing so (though not significantly, I imagine).


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## timbit2006 (May 8, 2022)

ptram said:


> The obvious question is: why wasting power when you are not using it?
> 
> Paolo


Interfaces fall between 30-100watt power consumption on average. That is maybe 20-30 dollars/year in power. Not a big deal. That's also on the assumption they will be under full draw at least 50% exactly of the year as well. In reality it will be less than 50% total usage time. On idle the current draw will be much lower.
I am also on clean British Columbian hydro power. Very cheap. .11-.13CAD/kwh
My bedroom fan costs much more to run and it is on 24/7 from now until fall.

Thanks for the responses so far. They've been incredibly helpful and I'm sure they will serve as an archive to anyone else hoping to find this answer.


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## MarcusD (May 8, 2022)

Bit nerdy, but I power down monitor speakers, shut down the pc then use a smart plug to switch off all other devices in a sequence using voice command / shortcut on my phone.

Got a timer set to turn on the power in the morning, then all I do is turn the pc on. The monitor speakers power can be controlled from the phone as well. Saves clambering around the back of the desk. So lazy..😂


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## Bee_Abney (May 8, 2022)

MarcusD said:


> Bit nerdy, but I power down monitor speakers, shut down the pc then use a smart plug to switches off all other devices in a sequence using voice command / shortcut on my phone.
> 
> Got a timer set to turn on the power in the morning, then all I do is turn the pc on. The monitor speakers power can be controlled from the phone as well. Saves clambering around the back of the desk. So lazy..😂


Lazy would be not setting up the remote control and timer, and having to deal with the hassle every day as a result. You are taking the smart approach!


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## Al Maurice (May 8, 2022)

From my perspective, it's the active amplified speakers that draw most of the power; so those are the items I prefer to turn off either at the end of the day or session; seeing as digital interfaces on the whole are designed to draw little current, hence their connections mostly being no more than line ins and outs.


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## ptram (May 8, 2022)

MarcusD said:


> The monitor speakers power can be controlled from the phone as well. Saves clambering around the back of the desk. So lazy..😂


My main speakers have a front switch, so it's easy to turn them on/off. But I'm now testing a new set, that only have a power switch on the back.

Uncomfortable? I discovered how good they are in making me do a little walk to reach their back!

Paolo


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## MartinH. (May 8, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> Interfaces fall between 30-100watt power consumption on average.


That doesn't seem right for normal USB interfaces. USB 2 spec is something like 2.5 watt max I think. Maybe a tube preamp with external power draws 30+ but my scarlet solo for sure doesn't.




timbit2006 said:


> Pretty well that's what I will be doing but I have the feeling long term this may not be the best for thermal buildup in the power supplies.


I don't know for sure, this may depend on the kind of components involved, so do your own research to be safe. But I would assume the thermal stress from repeated warming up and cooling off over years can create micro fractures that harm the components more than leaving it on 24/7 for the same time.


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## DivingInSpace (May 8, 2022)

ptram said:


> The obvious question is: why wasting power when you are not using it?
> 
> Paolo


My exact thought. I turn it off whenever i remember, power is expensive at the moment.


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## Martin S (May 8, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> Interfaces fall between 30-100watt power consumption on average. That is maybe 20-30 dollars/year in power. Not a big deal. That's also on the assumption they will be under full draw at least 50% exactly of the year as well. In reality it will be less than 50% total usage time. On idle the current draw will be much lower.
> I am also on clean British Columbian hydro power. Very cheap. .11-.13CAD/kwh
> My bedroom fan costs much more to run and it is on 24/7 from now until fall.
> 
> Thanks for the responses so far. They've been incredibly helpful and I'm sure they will serve as an archive to anyone else hoping to find this answer.


Whether the power is cheap or not, technically speaking it’s still a waste of power if you’re not actively using the device that draws power. And that power still has to be produced somewhere. Unless you have your own solar panels, there’s no guarantee that the actual power coming out of your outlet is 100% ’green, environment friendly’ power.

The national power grid of any country (except maybe Iceland) provides a mixture of power produced by both ‘black’ as well as ‘green’ power sources, produced natively and/or in neighboring countries.


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## R. Soul (May 8, 2022)

This thread prompted me to figure out why all my USB devices (incl. RME Babyface Pro) were on and lit whole night. 
I figured out that it can be disabled in the Bios.


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## ReelToLogic (May 8, 2022)

I have two rack mounted power switch units mounted under my desk that make it easy to power down everything in my studio, even devices without built in switches. I power everything down every night, or sooner if I'm done composing for the day. Wasting electricity is bad for the planet and I also figure my equipment is less vulnerable to power surges this way, even though I have good surge protectors. I have the relatively inexpensive units shown in the link below. I've been been doing this for years and they work fine but I'm sure there are higher end units available too.


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## KEM (May 8, 2022)

I had a Scarlett 2i2 for about 6 years and never once turned it off, never had an issue with it. I just bought a 4i4 last month and I’m probably never going to turn that off either lol


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## vitocorleone123 (May 8, 2022)

KEM said:


> I had a Scarlett 2i2 for about 6 years and never once turned it off, never had an issue with it. I just bought a 4i4 last month and I’m probably never going to turn that off either lol


My Clarett has a power switch that is reachable, just barely, on the back right side. I never use it.


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## kgdrum (May 8, 2022)

24/7


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## ptram (May 9, 2022)

timbit2006 said:


> That is maybe 20-30 dollars/year in power. Not a big deal.


More than the absolute cost, I'm more concerned by our individual contribution to the overall consumption. If you want, I consider it sort of a personal hygiene, that extends from the audio interfaces to the driving style to the use of heating, to how much food I waste and how I manage my waste.

Not that I want this to be approached in a fanatical way. It's just that if it doesn't serve, it can be off.



timbit2006 said:


> I am also on clean British Columbian hydro power. Very cheap.


It's true that some countries have an abundant reserve of clean energy. Most Canada provinces and Scandinavian countries can access to a lot of hydro-power.

For some reasons, however, some Canadian provinces also rely on nuclear power and natural gas. This should mean that the internal balance is not fully satisfied by hydro-power (maybe because Canada also sells power to other countries).

Hydro-power has also other types of concerns attached. The Sami population in northern Scandinavia is concerned by the devastation of their territories that can be caused by new dams. The development of hydro-power in my country (Italy) has been blocked by concerns about heavy impact on a limited territory, with limited water supply.

I'm planning to install a domestic solar system in my house. This will give an abundant supply of clean energy during summer, but not during winter. If I get used to bad habitudes in summer, I'll probably insist on them in winter, when solar power is limited.

So, I prefer to stay on the lowest possible consumption, to be ready in case something goes bad.

Paolo


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## Loïc D (May 9, 2022)

I also use a rackmount 6 power switches.

This way I can fine adjust my power consumption according to my activity (IT/work, lighting, synths, control surfaces, audio interface, monitors,…)

Everything is off at night.


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## Jrides (May 9, 2022)

Every day


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## MarcMahler89 (May 9, 2022)

Multiple times a day for my MOTU M2, because the most recent windows drivers are shit - constant audio freezes where only shutting the interface off and on again is a working solution. On a less serious note, everything gets completely shut off at night


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## Dietz (May 9, 2022)

In a purely digital environment I switch off everything as soon as I plan to leave the studio for longer than for half an hour or so. 

As soon as analogue equipment (especially vintage consoles and tube gear) is involved, things are a bit more complicated, but still I try to switch off all stuff that doesn't suffer from heating-up/cooling-down cycles and/or possible spikes from a power supply.


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## ThomasNL (May 9, 2022)

Do you guys recommend like a master switch? Because I'm way to lazy to turn everything off manually. But if it is just one switch that safely turns everything off than I might consider that.


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## babylonwaves (May 9, 2022)

I have a master Switch which is controlled by my computer. Once I switch on the computer, the studio als switches on. It’s really convenient and contributed towards my goal to switch things off as much as I can.


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## Dietz (May 9, 2022)

A power-sequencer is a very helpful addition to every studio, e.g.

-> https://www.furmanpower.com/product/15a-standard-power-conditioner-with-sequencer/


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## fakemaxwell (May 9, 2022)

Just get a cheap Furman with a big fat switch and turn everything off at night. Your power bill is not the only metric of consumption.


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## HCMarkus (May 9, 2022)

I like a fresh start every day. Power strips located close enough to reach from a single spot make the process easy; in my case computer is powered on last so it "sees" all the controllers. Everything is shut down at session's end.


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## xenno (May 9, 2022)

Martin S said:


> Whether the power is cheap or not, technically speaking it’s still a waste of power if you’re not actively using the device that draws power. And that power still has to be produced somewhere. Unless you have your own solar panels, there’s no guarantee that the actual power coming out of your outlet is 100% ’green, environment friendly’ power.
> 
> The national power grid of any country (except maybe Iceland) provides a mixture of power produced by both ‘black’ as well as ‘green’ power sources, produced natively and/or in neighboring countries.


This can depend on your setup. If you're constantly working on a load-heavy sample library template, then it may make sense to keep everything running, if you're going back and forth between ideas and breaks.

I tend to use a lighter template for ideas, but having to load your setup each time can be a hassle, even if your setup is lighter on loading into memory or full of SSDs.

I turn my system off at night or between projects, but it'll be on 24/7, if I'm remote or collabing, for sure.


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## jscheel (May 9, 2022)

It wouldn't be an issue for me to leave it on 24/7 if MOTU offered a way to turn the screens off my 828es.


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## PaulieDC (May 9, 2022)

Babyface is buss-powered, so it goes off at night when I shut my PC down. I don't leave my tower on 24-7 because I'm still a "got a day-job" composer. If I ever go full time, it'll probably stay on all the time.

"What's your music composition goal?"

"Easy, keep my audio interface on 24/7."


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## ThomasNL (May 10, 2022)

babylonwaves said:


> I have a master Switch which is controlled by my computer. Once I switch on the computer, the studio als switches on. It’s really convenient and contributed towards my goal to switch things off as much as I can.


Wow that is awesome! Could you share it?


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## Pier (May 10, 2022)

MarcMahler89 said:


> Multiple times a day for my MOTU M2, because the most recent windows drivers are shit - constant audio freezes where only shutting the interface off and on again is a working solution. On a less serious note, everything gets completely shut off at night


My new M4 has been flawless on Windows.

What firmware version do you have?

And I do turn it off when I'm not sitting on my DAW computer. Love that on/off switch.


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## jscheel (May 10, 2022)

babylonwaves said:


> I have a master Switch which is controlled by my computer. Once I switch on the computer, the studio als switches on. It’s really convenient and contributed towards my goal to switch things off as much as I can.


I would love to do that for turning off, but my macbook turns back on if I turn off my audio interface, which means it would probably get into a loop :(


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## MarcMahler89 (May 10, 2022)

Pier said:


> My new M4 has been flawless on Windows.
> 
> What firmware version do you have?
> 
> And I do turn it off when I'm not sitting on my DAW computer. Love that on/off switch.


Firmware version is 2.0 (most recent one for the M2).
The issues started only after the latest Driver update for the M2 (December 2021). Sadly, i dont find an option to find older drivers on their homepage as the version before was stable for me (though with other issues, which got fixed in the most recent version). After contacting their support and them just refering to their "USB-Troubleshooting Guide" (which is actually great and solved the interface not working at all for me in the first place when i bought it), a simple wish to get a link to an older driver version just got ignored until now :(

To clarify the issue i got: Everytime i load specific plugins in the DAWs mixer ( for example everything from FabFilter), the computers audio output gets muted - not only in the DAW, but for other applications as well. The only workaround is switching the buffer size in the MOTU control app to another value back and forth when this happens. Or turn the interface off/on. Something which didnt happen in the driver versions before.


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## babylonwaves (May 10, 2022)

ThomasNL said:


> Wow that is awesome! Could you share it?


it's probably not worth sharing what I use because electrical details are so different over the world but if you search for "powerstrip master slave" you' get a lot of hits:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=power+strip+master+slave&crid=CWOSAD2EDKV1&sprefix=power+strip+master%2Caps%2C756&ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_1_18
I also use a device which limits the initial power consumption. If you switch everything on at the same time, chances are that you kill the fuse. Something like that:



https://www.desertcart.com.om/products/58649940-unitec-41748-inrush-current-limiter



HTH


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## babylonwaves (May 10, 2022)

jscheel said:


> I would love to do that for turning off, but my macbook turns back on if I turn off my audio interface, which means it would probably get into a loop :(


if you switch it off (and not into hibernation/sleep) it won't do that. I switch my computer off. It cannot switch itself on again.


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## jscheel (May 10, 2022)

babylonwaves said:


> if you switch it off (and not into hibernation/sleep) it won't do that. I switch my computer off. It cannot switch itself on again.


Fair fair, I really only put it to sleep, because I keep my dev env running all the time for my day job. Frustrating to restart it every day.


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## jmauz (May 10, 2022)

Now that my entire studio is powered via solar panels I leave everything on except for lights, speakers and tvs/monitors.

Prior to that I still always left computers and converters on. Powering things on/off puts additional 'wear and tear' stress on delicate electronics due to the surge of electrons during power up as well as inherent thermal cycling. 

I've been leaving computers and the like powered on 24/7 for decades and I've never had a hardware failure aside from mechanical failures inside spinning platter disk drives.


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## Pier (May 10, 2022)

MarcMahler89 said:


> Firmware version is 2.0 (most recent one for the M2).
> The issues started only after the latest Driver update for the M2 (December 2021). Sadly, i dont find an option to find older drivers on their homepage as the version before was stable for me (though with other issues, which got fixed in the most recent version). After contacting their support and them just refering to their "USB-Troubleshooting Guide" (which is actually great and solved the interface not working at all for me in the first place when i bought it), a simple wish to get a link to an older driver version just got ignored until now :(
> 
> To clarify the issue i got: Everytime i load specific plugins in the DAWs mixer ( for example everything from FabFilter), the computers audio output gets muted - not only in the DAW, but for other applications as well. The only workaround is switching the buffer size in the MOTU control app to another value back and forth when this happens. Or turn the interface off/on. Something which didnt happen in the driver versions before.


That sucks... Personally it's been absolutely rock solid for me so far.

I just checked and I'm also on firmware v2 and driver v4.0.9.


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## LDW (May 10, 2022)

I turn off my MOTU M4 when I'm away from my workstation (i.e. if I'm going to work, or I'll be out of the house for more than a few hours on the weekend), so I'd say it's probably turned off for around 12 hours a day.
Only things which I'll leave on 24/7 is my workstation in a low power state, and my APC UPS protecting said workstation and my monitoring speakers.


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## robgb (May 10, 2022)

Both computer and interface stay on 24/7.


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## ssnowe (May 10, 2022)

I leave everything turned on, I run my furnace and air conditioner at the same time and leave all of my doors and windows wide open all year round, I only use halogen bulbs because they use more electricity, I actually run some things off of whale oil, I leave my cars on and running all of the time so I don't waste time starting them, I have all of my power tools plugged in and use duct tape on the power buttons to keep them running, I also have my sprinkler system running all of the time even in the winter, ...

Yeah, not really, I shut everything down when I'm not using it


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## HCMarkus (May 10, 2022)

jmauz said:


> I've been leaving computers and the like powered on 24/7 for decades and I've never had a hardware failure aside from mechanical failures inside spinning platter disk drives.


I've been tuning off all my gear for decades, too, and never had a hardware failure aside from one spinner partial death. 

I have solar, too. : ) 

But I must confess, ssnowe, I still have halogens lighting the studio. : (


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