Focusrite ISA One Pre-Amp

[White Fire Sky]

I am looking to purchase one of these but not sure what I need to interface into pro-tools. I have been advised to get a Focusrite ISA One Pre-Amp with a digital card and to plug straight into my iMac's USB, obviously downloading the appropriate drivers. A sound engineer / producer with a pro studio advised this.

However, the shop salesman just advised me that this is not possible and that I need to buy a new interface. I already have a Focusrite Sapphire Pro 24.

So I'm confused!

Can anyone help?

I have an iMac, 3.4ghz quad core, 1tb hard drive, two thunderbolt ports, SDXC card slot, four USB 3 ports and have upgraded to Pro Tools 12.

Any advise gratefully received. Thank you!

[amagras]

If your actual interface has a digital I/O then with the digital card in the ISA One you should be fine.

[VRW]

Originally Posted by White Fire Sky

I am looking to purchase one of these but not sure what I need to interface into pro-tools. I have been advised to get a Focusrite ISA One Pre-Amp with a digital card and to plug straight into my iMac's USB, obviously downloading the appropriate drivers. A sound engineer / producer with a pro studio advised this.

However, the shop salesman just advised me that this is not possible and that I need to buy a new interface. I already have a Focusrite Sapphire Pro 24.

So I'm confused!

Can anyone help?

I have an iMac, 3.4ghz quad core, 1tb hard drive, two thunderbolt ports, SDXC card slot, four USB 3 ports and have upgraded to Pro Tools 12.

Any advise gratefully received. Thank you!

The Focusrite ISA One is a mic preamp with an optional A/D conversion card but it is no audio interface. It will not work as your Pro Tools playback engine.
You wrote that you own a Saffire Pro 24 already. As long as you can get the right driver for the Saffire (which should be no problem as Focusrite say it to be even macOS Sierra compatible) you would not need a new interface.

However your friend messed something up about the option to connect the digital card of the ISA One to your USB port directly. As for this particular fact the shop salesman was right as this won't be possible to do finally.

It's like that. You connect the spdif out of the optinal digital card of the ISA One to the spdif in on your Saffire Pro 24. Then you connect the Saffire Pro 24 to your iMac via Firewire-to-Thunderbolt-adapter. You choose the Saffire as your playback engine in PT, put all the I/O settings in PT to default and finally select the spdif input on the dedicated track in PT. That's it.

You cannot connect the digital card of the ISA One to any USB port on your iMac unfortunately. Btw you will need to buy a particular Focusrite spdif breakout cable separately. As far as I know it will not be included in the purchase of the digital card. You will have to check it out.
https://www.thomann.de/de/focusrite_...uer_s_pdif.htm

There you find the ISA One incl. the optional digital conversion card for a pretty good price I think.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_...gital_246677_0

May I suggest you another option?
Focusrite have released a great Thunderbolt interface series, the Claretts, which are really current stuff, super fast/super low latency and which do come with studio grade converters and mic pres.
The converters as well as the mic pres are classes above the Saffire and of pro quality. I personally think you would get better results using the Clarett 2pre or 4pre on the Thunderbolt port of your iMac than using the ISA One via the Saffire 24. And it would be a future proof solution as for the audio interface.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_clarett_2pre.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_clarett_4pre.htm

So this ain't necessary of course. You can use the ISA One with the digital conversion card and your Saffire 24 with your iMac and PT12. No doubt about that.
Nevertheless the Focusrite Clarett 2pre or 4pre could be an even more current and even better sounding solution at the end of the day.
You know, I know the ISA One pretty well and I like it. It's a nice little preamp and you can get decent results with a good microphone.
I think there are better sounding solutions out there though.
You might look at the UA Apollo Twin Thunderbolt Duo as well for example. Definitely studio grade converters and preamps and about the price of the ISA One incl. Digital card. The best sounding interface/converters/mic pres under 1k probably.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/universal_...o_twin_duo.htm

Both interfaces, Focusrite Claretts as well as UA Apollo Twins Thunderbolt are approved audio interfaces for the use with Pro Tools 12.

Anyway.
Whichever solution you may go for finally the best of success to you.

Cheers.

[VRW]

Let me add 2 interesting options.

If you would go with the Focusrite 2pre now for example you would get a most current, professionally sounding Thunderbolt audio interface which mic pres and converters will be better than the ISA One+Saffire solution and you would save about 300 bucks compared to the ISA One. You further might gain another 100 for your Saffire on Ebay for example.
You could save the bucks and some more by the time and finally go for an Avalon M5 mic preamp which indeed is a high end mic preamp if you still would need anything better than the Claretts pres.
With both, the Clarett 2pre and the Avalon M5, you would get really high quality gear in compact sizes still affordable in a way. And classes above the ISA One+Saffire ensemble.
Just as an idea.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_clarett_2pre.htm
https://www.thomann.de/gb/avalon_m5_...valon_156660_0

Another more affordable yet seriously pro sounding option would be to buy an UA Apollo Twin Duo Thunderbolt audio interface and add one of those really cool Unison Preamp Channel plugins for recording.
I replaced my Apogee Quartet with an UA Apollo two years ago and started to use the Unison Preamp Neve 88RS Channel for recording. You know what? This even comes close to some high end hardware as for the audio quality (if using it with high quality mics and instruments). Very impressive.
So this would be an even more affordable yet high quality option. Get the Apollo Twin first.
https://www.thomann.de/gb/universal_...o_twin_duo.htm
And then get one of those Unison preamp plugins. I would highly recommend the Neve 88RS but you may demo yourself the other ones as well like the Manley Voxbox, the Neve 1073 etc.
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/ch...ollection.html
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/ch...ey-voxbox.html
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/eq...ollection.html

Whats interesting with the Apollo Twin at the moment is that they will give you a bunch of the good UA plugs for free until 31st Dec with the purchase of the Apollo. One of it is the Neve 1073 Unison Preamp Collection already for example.
Further if you would decide to buy it within the next two days (available until 1st Nov) they will offer you a special where they give you 3 plugins of any value (only bundles are excluded) for $399.- only.
You might say 399 aren´t a bargain and you are right. However you can add 3 plugins each $299.- or more to this bundle which means you will receive 3 plugins worth about $900.- for $399.- only.
That´s pretty cool indeed.
For example you could add the Unison Neve 88RS Collection for $299.-, the Lexicon 224 for $349.- and the Massenburg MDWEQ5 Parametric EQ for $299.- and you would be ready to go on a really high level. All for around 1200.- all together (800 for the Apollo Twin, 400 for the UA high end plugin bundle).
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/re...xicon-224.html
http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/eq...rg-mdweq5.html

Just to give you food for thought actually.

If however you decide to stay with the ISA One+digital card and your Saffire I´m sure you will get satisfying results as well. Have fun with which solution ever finally!

Cheers.

[YYR123]

ISA ones rock hard....legit hardware that will last forever.

But the digital cards on those things are ridiculously priced.

Use whatever interface you have and use simple audio out into the interface.

That ISA also has a DI option that can be used in conjunction with the mic pre...like at the same time.

[White Fire Sky]

Guys thanks so much for your replies. It's just awesome so now i have the right gear, cables etc. But I can't figure out how to get it up and running!

So I have shure Sm7b into Focusrite isa one, where i have installed and the digital card no problem. This bit was easy! I have an optic cable coming out of the back of my sapphire pro 24. But.... Do I plug it into adat or spdif? And then how do i configure pro tools? I know how to change the input on a channel/track to adat or spdif, but there's no signal showing. The only way I can get a signal is to plug the optic cable into adat and then as soon as the isa one powers up, there is a constant crackling interference sound. Any advice? Thank you so much in advance. I just want to sing!