Recording - November 2015 - 34

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

Focusrite Clarett 8Pre Thunderbolt Audio interface
The sound of Focusrite meets the blinding speed of Thunderbolt

While Focusrite is often thought of as
one of the premier audio interface companies on today's market, it got its start as
a large format console manufacturer. For
much of its long history, Focusrite has
been responsible for some of the industry's most respected and classic microphone preamps, featured in both the ISA
and Red ranges.
This time around we are taking a look at
the company's new Clarett product line,
which combines both areas of expertise:
interfaces and mic pres. "Claret" is a
shade of red with a deep ruby tinge, often
used in the description of fine wines. As
with the USB-based Scarlett range, an
extra letter gives the line a distinctive name
that's easy to find on the Internet while
being easy to remember. Each unit in the
Clarett line is housed in a deep red
anodized aluminum enclosure, but the real
story isn't their external beauty... it's all the
cool new stuff happening inside the case!
Bringing the thunder(bolt)
The most obvious new feature of the
Clarett range is its use of Thunderbolt, the
latest connection technology for computer
peripherals. Currently the Clarett interfaces only work with Mac OS X 10.9 and
above, but Focusrite is working on compatibility with Windows 8.1 and
Windows 10 and should have beta drivers available soon.
The advantage of using Thunderbolt for
multitrack audio can be summed up in
one word: latency. The faster your connection and the higher the bandwidth, the
lower your latency. Focusrite claims a
round trip latency of 1.38 milliseconds
for the Clarett interfaces.
Preamp legacy and heritage
The other big innovation in the Clarett
series is its newly designed preamps.
According to the Focusrite website, this is
a "low distortion, ultra-linear design", with
34

RECORDING November 2015

a self noise of -128 dB EIN. Focusrite
uses the adjectives "clean, open and
transparent" to describe the sound.
Overall I concur with this assessment.
The preamps in the Clarett have a tight
well-defined low-mid weight and the gentlest of rounding on top. This gives them
a clean, transformerless "modern recording desk" vibe that stacks well and offers
great coherency to a mix. Please note that
this top-end rounding is ultra-subtle; I
point it out only to differentiate the Clarett
preamps from many of the clinical
"straight wire with gain" interface preamps on the market.
The Clarett preamps also offer an additional feature (or voicing, if you will) that is
designed to impart some of the sound and
feel of the company's classic Red and ISA
models. Focusrite calls this feature Air, and
while it does impart a harmonic, feathery
openness-and yes, even a hint of air-
into the sound, it's not simply an EQ or
noise circuit being switched on, nor is it a
software model. According to Focusrite,
Air is an analog process that models the
input impedance and transformer resonances found in the originals. In addition
to the sonics, a big reason for keeping this
an analog circuit design is that the company did not want an additional software
process to add latency on the way in.
The Clarett 8Pre
Currently there are four models in the
range. The two larger models are out
now with the smaller units forthcoming.
Each model's number refers to its available microphone preamps, but note that
each unit comes equipped with additional ADAT and S/PDIF I/O as well, leading to the (input x output) totals listed
here. They are the Clarett 2Pre (10 x 4),
Clarett 4Pre (18 x 8), Clarett 8Pre (18 x
20), and Clarett 8PreX (26 x 28). For this
review, I received the 1U rackmountable
Clarett 8Pre.

Functionally the Clarett 8Pre is one of
the most straightahead interfaces I have
used in a while. Unlike many modern
units, which use multifunction dials, buttons and encoders, the 8Pre takes a
"what you see is what it does" approach
with 8 high-quality level knobs, 6-stage
LCD metering for each channel, a monitor
output knob, and a pair of headphone
outputs, each with its own output control.
There are also pushbuttons for Dim and
Mute, buttons for engaging 48V phantom
power for channels 1-4 and 5-8 and a
pair of front panel inputs with Neutrik
XLR/TRS Combo jacks for mic or instrument inputs. The only function not accessible from the front panel is the Air setting, which is accessed in the included
Focusrite Control software (see below).
On the rear of the unit are 6 additional combo inputs for mic or line, 10 TRS
balanced line outputs, ADAT optical I/O,
SPDIF I/O, BNC Word Clock Out, a single Thunderbolt port, AC socket, and
MIDI In and Out.
The software side of the Clarett package is Focusrite Control. This software
controls the few internally-accessible functions of the Clarett models, like turning Air
on and off. It also features a simple-to-use
mixer that is scalable to your needs, with
the ability to create submixes for the each
of the mono or stereo output groups and
each headphone output.
A full spec list is available at the
Focusrite website, but a quick scan points
up some relevant numbers worth quoting
here. The unit provides 57 dB of input
gain with a maximum input level of up to
+26 dBu (line level) or +18 dBu (mic
level); dynamic range is between 111
and 118 dBA depending on the input or
output stage; the outputs can push a maximum signal level of +18 dBu (0 dBFS),
and frequency response is flat to within
0.1 dB over the full 20 Hz-20 kHz
range.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - November 2015

Contents
Recording - November 2015 - Intro
Recording - November 2015 - Cover1
Recording - November 2015 - Cover2
Recording - November 2015 - 1
Recording - November 2015 - 2
Recording - November 2015 - 3
Recording - November 2015 - 4
Recording - November 2015 - 5
Recording - November 2015 - Contents
Recording - November 2015 - 7
Recording - November 2015 - 8
Recording - November 2015 - 9
Recording - November 2015 - 10
Recording - November 2015 - 11
Recording - November 2015 - 12
Recording - November 2015 - 13
Recording - November 2015 - 14
Recording - November 2015 - 15
Recording - November 2015 - 16
Recording - November 2015 - 17
Recording - November 2015 - 18
Recording - November 2015 - 19
Recording - November 2015 - 20
Recording - November 2015 - 21
Recording - November 2015 - 22
Recording - November 2015 - 23
Recording - November 2015 - 24
Recording - November 2015 - 25
Recording - November 2015 - 26
Recording - November 2015 - 27
Recording - November 2015 - 28
Recording - November 2015 - 29
Recording - November 2015 - 30
Recording - November 2015 - 31
Recording - November 2015 - 32
Recording - November 2015 - 33
Recording - November 2015 - 34
Recording - November 2015 - 35
Recording - November 2015 - 36
Recording - November 2015 - 37
Recording - November 2015 - 38
Recording - November 2015 - 39
Recording - November 2015 - 40
Recording - November 2015 - 41
Recording - November 2015 - 42
Recording - November 2015 - 43
Recording - November 2015 - 44
Recording - November 2015 - 45
Recording - November 2015 - 46
Recording - November 2015 - 47
Recording - November 2015 - 48
Recording - November 2015 - 49
Recording - November 2015 - 50
Recording - November 2015 - 51
Recording - November 2015 - 52
Recording - November 2015 - 53
Recording - November 2015 - 54
Recording - November 2015 - 55
Recording - November 2015 - 56
Recording - November 2015 - 57
Recording - November 2015 - 58
Recording - November 2015 - 59
Recording - November 2015 - 60
Recording - November 2015 - 61
Recording - November 2015 - 62
Recording - November 2015 - 63
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Recording - November 2015 - 65
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Recording - November 2015 - 68
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Recording - November 2015 - 70
Recording - November 2015 - 71
Recording - November 2015 - 72
Recording - November 2015 - Cover3
Recording - November 2015 - Cover4
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