focusrite saffire pro40

RFR

Well-known member
Have a chance to pick up two of these units. Anyone have any experience with this interface? Supposedly they link together and provide 16 analog I/O. !6 track tape transfers to daw and general recording is the goal here.
 
I have one and like it a lot; the mix control software was a little confusing at first but it was easy enough to figure out. Pre's are great and there are plenty of I/O options loaded into it. They do link via ADAT but I've never had a need to add any more than what is available on one unit for what I do. I'd say go for it if you can get them at a good price.
 
Ah, so you like it. :thumbs up:
Big learning curve for me being an analog guy. Price is right.
 
The only learning curve will be with the mix control software and whatever DAW you are running. Youtube (as well as this forum) is your friend there; more than a few walkthrough vids for mix control that help out a lot. If the price is right then I'm jealous... Who couldn't benefit from more I/O options than needed - especially at a good price? :D
 
Can the mic preamps output directly to the outputs on the rear of the unit w/o processing in the computer?
Sorry, just saw this. I am not 100% on this; let me go try it out and I'll let you know - pretty sure it has to go ITB through the mix control software to be able to make that happen...
 
Sorry, just saw this. I am not 100% on this; let me go try it out and I'll let you know - pretty sure it has to go ITB through the mix control software to be able to make that happen...
Pikingrin,

I gave up trying to get my old Firepod to do this, so I snapped up a Firestudio 26x26 on craigslist. The control software allows me to set up all the routing within the rack unit itself. The settings get stored in flash memory in the Firestudio, and I can switch off my Win 7 computer entirely and the monitoring still happens. So, zero latency, and at least 8 outputs -- not sure how many of the ADAT outputs can be accessed this way, but 8 is plenty for me!

I'm running my keyboards into my old firepod as a keyboard mixer, so that 2 channels of the Firestudio are dedicated keyboard ins. Same with my V-Drums, Handsonic, and two OH mics on the acoustic kit, run into one of those dinky mixers. So two dedicated channels for Percussion. That leaves four channels. The two Hi-Z's for Bass and Guitar DI, and two vocal mics. All individually monitor able with zero latency, and all permanently plugged into record whenever inspiration strikes.

The 8 outs from the Firestudio then get run into a digital mixer, a $250 Xair 12, which has ITB effects for reverb on the vocals in the monitors, gates, EQ, compression and chorus/phase/distortion etc.

Just set it all up last night and consider the studio complete for the first time ever. :)
 
I just tried it out; plugged a guitar in channel 1 and got sound out of my monitors without the PC on. Haven't changed anything in the mix control software to make it work and the PC wasn't powered up. The monitors are only on out 1&2 on my setup; not sure if it's a pass through from 1-1 and 2-2 and so on and so forth - I've been rolling with the default mix control setup for a while, outside of sample rate tweaks for latency though. If this works, then it seems there's got to be a way to make each input trace to each output, if that's what you were after.
 
I just tried it out; plugged a guitar in channel 1 and got sound out of my monitors without the PC on. Haven't changed anything in the mix control software to make it work and the PC wasn't powered up. The monitors are only on out 1&2 on my setup; not sure if it's a pass through from 1-1 and 2-2 and so on and so forth - I've been rolling with the default mix control setup for a while, outside of sample rate tweaks for latency though. If this works, then it seems there's got to be a way to make each input trace to each output, if that's what you were after.

Thanks for checking!

It seems to be only a 1&2 deal -- The firepod generally treats outputs 1 and 2 as the same as the monitor and cue mix outputs. I had wanted to have 3-8 routed right to out 3-8 w/o going to the DAW and back, etc. I roll with a bare bones $300 office max Win 7 tower... I think I would be in latency city if I tried to get tricky with routing things all over. I have only ever recorded at 44.1; even though I'm an analog head vinyl collector, it has always been good enough to suit the quality of what we've put in.

The Firestudio now does just what I needed it to do, and probably has better AD/DA conversion being, what, like two years newer. And I found it for peanuts on Craigslist!

Cheers!
 
Back
Top