Recording - June 2014 - 45

to the talent in the tracking room. A lot of
tracking and monitoring applications are
available depending on what's plugged in
where, and whether the Crimson is set to
something called Artist Mode, where the
Speakers B and Phones 2 outputs are fed
with a different mix than what goes to
Speakers A and Phones 1. Most obviously,
you can use Artist Mode to build a monitor
mix for distribution to a headphone amp in
the tracking room. As an added touch, in
Artist Mode the Left channel of Source 1
becomes a Talkback mic input. But Artist
Mode can do lots more-see below.
Front-panel buttons allow for any and all
signals to be routed to the Speakers and
Phones; Inputs 1|2 and 3|4, two stereo
DAW returns, the three Sources, and/or the
S/PDIF input. A Mono button lets Inputs

analog send or insert, patching an external signal processor chain into the
Crimson and returning it into a pair of
Inputs without causing runaway feedback.
A guitar input can be processed and monitored with a full pedalboard for the guitarist, and tracked both wet and dry (for
later reamplification). Or a full mix can be
routed through an external analog processor and returned to the Crimson for mastering. In these applications, pressing the
Artist Mode button lets the engineer audition processed vs. unprocessed audio
while cleanly recording both.
It's well worth going to the SPL website
and checking out all the diagrams on
offer, just to get a feel for the scope of
what the Crimson can do. With clever
choice of what's plugged in where, the

great on all the active and passive guitars
and basses I tested, even with piezo pickups. The headphone outputs drove even
my old AKG K240 Monitor headphones
with aplomb despite their 600 ohm impedance, and the A/D and D/A conversion
were glorious-almost worth the cost of
the Crimson on their own.
Conclusions
The Crimson is a pretty impressive
achievement. I've had interfaces in my studio that don't sound appreciably better,
offer fewer features, and cost hundreds
more. This box offers conversion that can
really do justice to 24/192 audio, and its
preamps and instrument inputs are nocompromise beasts that will capture your
sources and mics at their very best.
It's obvious that "affordable" means
something different for SPL than for many
other manufacturers; the price point is still
non-trivial, but there's been no compromise on flexibility or on the stunning
audio quality one comes to expect from
SPL gear. Throw in roughly 90% of the
capabilities of a dedicated desktop monitor controller and a very clever talkback/headphone-mix system, and you're
talking about one capable box.
I'd be tempted to end this review by
saying, "In recording, the Crimson's
king"-but that pun's too atrocious even
for me! Instead I'll just say, "Check the
Crimson out and be prepared for a
whole bunch of pleasant surprises."
Price: $769 ($692 street)

1|2 be auditioned in mono; how you hear
Inputs 3|4 depends on where (and if) you
have guitars plugged in-the Crimson sensibly routes Instrument inputs to monitor in
the center of the soundfield even as they're
tracked in mono, but the Line 3|4 pair is
heard in stereo if no guitars are plugged in.
Speaker A/B switching and a 20 dB
Dim are also available; Speakers A automatically dim when Talkback is activated
in Artist Mode. Finally, there's a Monitor
Mix knob that blends audio between the
analog inputs and the digital inputs/
Sources/returns from the DAW; in Artist
mode this knob only affects what is heard
on Speakers B and Phones 2.
Applications galore
The folks at SPL have obviously put a lot
of thought into how you can capitalize on
Artist Mode and the other routing tricks the
Crimson can do. On the Crimson website
you'll find a series of application diagrams,
one of which we've reproduced here as an
example, showing you how to easily set up
a variety of worthwhile routings.
For example, Artist Mode also allows
the engineer to turn Speakers B into an

Crimson lets you set up many different
routings with ease. About the only things
missing from this system are a third set of
outputs (which would allow for main and
check speakers plus an analog send/
return option), and dedicated subwoofer/bass management, which is often
built into the subwoofer anyway.
In use
This part of the review will be short and
very sweet. If there's any downside to the
Crimson, it's that its flexibility can be
daunting, and it will take a while to learn
all it can do. So many routing options and
so many buttons! But once you've learned
your way around, you'll wonder how you
ever got along with a more conventional
interface design. If you use external signal
processors at all, the Crimson is great for
integrating them with your DAW, and if
you have to do talkback and feed clients
a headphone mix, this interface lets you
do it without compromises.
And speaking of no compromises-the
audio quality is amazing. The discrete preamps are clean and clear with just a hint
of warmth, and the Instrument inputs sound

More from: SPL, crimson.spl.info; distributed in the USA by Network Pro
Marketing, www.networkpromktg.com

The Crimson's USB drivers
If you hook up the Crimson to a
Windows PC, a Mac running OS X
10.4-10.9, or an iOS device, you have
several options for impeccable audio.
The Crimson is class-compliant on all
three platforms with no driver needed if
you only plan to go as high as 24-bit/96
kHz audio, but the installable Mac and
PC drivers will give you full 24-bit/192
kHz I/O capability if you want it.
The optional driver for Windows is
ASIO, but the optional installer on the Mac
provides a HAL (Hardware Abstraction
Layer) audio driver for the Crimson, a "bit
accurate" driver that supposedly provides
even better audio quality and accuracy
than the provided Core Audio driver.
Under OS X 10.9 Mavericks, it is installed
next to the Core Audio driver and the user
can choose which to use. The Core Audio
driver works with iTunes and offers the lowest possible latency, while the HAL driver
allows the highest audio quality.-MM
RECORDING June 2014

http://crimson.spl.info http://www.networkpromktg.com

Recording - June 2014

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