Focusrite Scarlet 18i20

[nst7]

Yes, that's pretty much it. And also the Scarlett has Word Clock out, in place of where the second firewire port would be on the Saffire 40.

Focusrite have stated that these are basically identical units. They came out with equivalent USB units because how computers were evolving. In the case of Windows PC's, firewire was always very iffy, and you had to have just the right firewire card, etc. With Macs, they started dropping the firewire ports altogether. So Focusrite came out with these USB units as an alternative for people to not have to use adapters and such.

However, they do advertise that if you use the the Saffire range, they will work fine with the Apple Thunderbolt adapter.

Also, they have stated that the Saffire firewire units are a little bit lower latency at the equivalent buffer of the USB units.

[Michael Zull]

FWIW, I have a Scarlette 2i2 that I have used with W7, W8, and Mac OSX 10.9.x systems, on PT 10.3.9 and 11.2.1, and it's never given me any problems that I can recall.

[tchipman]

Originally Posted by Michael Zull

FWIW, I have a Scarlette 2i2 that I have used with W7, W8, and Mac OSX 10.9.x systems, on PT 10.3.9 and 11.2.1, and it's never given me any problems that I can recall.

I'm so glad I came back here to visit. You guys have given me so much great information.......I really appreciate it. It also makes me feel a little secure having katherine from Focusrite watching. Now I have to decide which one will work for me........the 40 or the 18i20?
More a little later........I really need to pick your brains!
Tim

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by tchipman

I'm so glad I came back here to visit. You guys have given me so much great information.......I really appreciate it. It also makes me feel a little secure having katherine from Focusrite watching. Now I have to decide which one will work for me........the 40 or the 18i20?
More a little later........I really need to pick your brains!
Tim

Let us know what you decide!!! Also, I'm not sure Katherine is still around, but there is someone else from Focusrite that checks here.

[tchipman]

Originally Posted by DonaldM

Let us know what you decide!!! Also, I'm not sure Katherine is still around, but there is someone else from Focusrite that checks here.

Hi Donald........I've looked through your list of equipment....very impressive. What I'd really like to do is start over with some kind of Thunderbolt interface and PT 11 and go the 64 bit direction but I can't afford it for one thing and another I'm not sure even if I could that it would make me enjoy what I'm doing in the basement any more.
I'd have to start over with plugins (not good....I've got a bunch of the Waves stuff that I like)......so that's why the Focusrite interface looked like an attractive alternative to the Digi 002.
I wrote Katerine a private message but you said she was gone. Who do you suggest I visit with at Focusrite?
Tim

[tchipman]

One other question...........is that your Dragon Rock Productions on SoundCloud? (Donnie Allen)?

[Christian.Focusrite]

Hi Tchipman,

You can PM me anytime. I try to check my inbox as frequently as possible. Also check out what we just announced:
http://us.focusrite.com/clarett-range

Thunderbolt range!

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by tchipman

One other question...........is that your Dragon Rock Productions on SoundCloud? (Donnie Allen)?

Yes

[mattskii]

Hi.

Only just had my attention drawn to this.

I’ve got a Scarlett 18i20 interface. However, it’s not stable on PT11 in that -6001 errors occur when moving between sessions of different bit rates. This might be an issue related to W7 or USB2, but I’m still not sure as the Focusrite help wasn't very helpful.

I eventually concluded that the cause was with the Focusrite drivers. The earlier version confines me to a 44.1. I can get above that with the current version (in scarlett-mixcontrol-1.8), but - as I've said - it's unstable. Their beta (in Scarlett MixControl-1.9b4) is dangerous. When it fails you need to do a complete deinstall of PT to make things work again.

The interface is, however, stable with PT10. It's also stable with Reaper.

Cheers,
Matthew.

[albee1952]

Re headphones, any interface that has 4 or more outputs is a prime candidate for a decent headphone amp. The one I use is the Alesis Multimix 6 Cue. How you feed it depends on your needs. At first(with my 003) I fed the main outs to the Alesis main inputs(everybody gets the same basic mix) and then used other outputs fed by AUX sends, so each of 4 players could have "more me"(had to make special cables, but anyone that can solder can do this). Now I feed 5 stereo mixes out of my HD IO so I can give separate mixes to all 5 players(about all I can fit in my little cave) ART makes a similar unit that has the AUX inputs on the back, so that might be a better option(but its another $50).