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Sale Price: $349.95
Today's Bonus:
- Onboard DSP chip powers the Virtual Reference Monitoring feature
- 24 channels of I/O (16 In, 8 Out)
- 2 award winning Focusrite mic-pres, 8 ADAT in, 6 analog out, SPDIF/Stereo in/out, MIDI in/out
- 2 unique loop-back virtual channels for routing between software applications
- Bundle: Xcite + Software Bundle, Ableton Live 7 Lite, and Focusrite Comp/Reverb/EQ/Gate VST/AU plugin
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I bought the Focusrite Saffire Pro24 DSP after months of meticulous research. I honestly believe this unit is not only perfect for my studio, but for everyone. I can't say anymore that hasn't already been said about Focusrite. Its top of the line professional quality. Period.Its got no more latency than the best Firewire device out threre. Pre-amps are fantastic, headphone reference is great and setup is clean and easy. The software is very flexible and gives you complete control. The DSP effects are not the best I've heard, but I didn't buy this unit for the built in effects. I mainly bought the DSP for the second headphone jack (important if you have a recording room). The VRM is pretty nice. Its great for referencing certain frequencies that you other wise couldn't if you didn't have it. Again, not perfect, but definitely nice.
I would buy more than one of these units. Since I received it, my workflow hasn't hit a bump yet. I replaced my M-Audio Firewire 410, and I definitely notice the difference BIG time. The Saffire Pro 24 DSP rules the planet.
Buy Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire Audio Interface Now
Bought DSP version recently, and despite some reviews talking about rather high latency on this interface, my latency measurement result with CE_Latency program was about 8.5um round trip latency with 128 buffer size (11.5um round-trip latency with 256 buffer), which is which is usable for my purpose of simple recording w/o VST. FYI, CE_Latency program actually sends a pulse to the interface, then measures time it takes to receive return signal.It uses Mix Control program (ver 2.2 now) to control Input mix, VRM, Reverb, Compressor, and works well with Windows7 64bit OS. It also worked fine on 2yr old Core2Duo laptop (windows XP, Cubase LE) with 256 buffer size. Curiously, on the laptop it drops recording (stops recording after a few minutes) if buffers larger than 256 were used. This is a little puzzling to me (sort of counter-intuitive since generally increasing buffer size is supposed to stabilize data flow..), but since it does work well with 256 buffer size, I am keeping it.
MixControl SW looked confusing at first with rather large set of functions (InputFX, VRM, routing, other DSP options), but with video instruction online (on their website) it was not hard to learn to use it.
Overall, it appears to be more advanced and more flexible than simpler interfaces (I have used Yamaha GO46 and Tascam 1641) and DSP Reverb/compressor is indeed quite useful with Zero-latency monitoring.
Read Best Reviews of Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP Firewire Audio Interface Here
I just received my Saffire DSP a couple days ago and have had a little time to put it through its paces. I haven't had a chance to record anything with it yet, but that will come soon, and I may update this review when I get to it.So far, I used the Saffire as my audio interface in Cubase 5 to mix a 24/96 project with several heavy VSTi instruments and a vocal track, each one of them with a full compliment of VST effects. The audio interface that I had been using before, the Echo Gina 3G (a PCI card with a breakout box), was starting to choke heavily on all my tracks to the point that it would peg my CPU meter and refuse to play back, even with big sample buffer settings (2056+ samples). My Saffire DSP, on the other hand, handles the same project with ease with lower sample buffer settings, playing back without the audio even skipping. This made it a breeze to complete this project without having to wrestle with my hardware or down-sample to 24/48.
I am not sure if this is because of the actual hardware or just because the Focusrite drivers are so much better, but either way I am more than pleased. The VST effects that come with the Saffire are great for recording and laying down a vocal track. The Focusrite mixer seems to be extremely powerful with tons of options, though it will probably take me a while figure out exactly how everything works (signal routing, etc).
I couldn't be more pleased with this little box. I was between the Saffire and the MOTU Ultralite. I am very glad I went with the Saffire.
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I bought this about a year ago for use Ableton on my older iMac. It worked flawlessly although I don't really do much with it besides plug in a couple monitors and occasionally plug a bass into it.A few months later I upgraded to a new computer and this time went the PC route. The box barely worked with my motherboard's firewire jacks which used the VIA chipset. After buying a separate SIIG card with the TI chipset (around $40) and changing to legacy firewire drivers on Windows 7 it worked fine -most of the time. However once or twice a day the audio driver would completely crash. Not a huge deal -I just open Control Panel and toggle my audio interface on and off which restarts the driver. I usually have to restart most music programs as well (Spotify, for example, pops up "There is a problem with your sound card" and won't work until you quit and re-launch). Ableton seems to work as soon as the driver is restarted. Sort of a hassle.
I installed windows 8 a few months ago and the drivers more or less imploded. The driver crashed every 20 seconds or so which basically meant it was impossible to use any audio program. In addition, they would completely freeze my computer every hour or so. WOW.
Focusrite just released updated drivers which have brought me back to where I was with Windows 7 -only crashes a few times a day. YAY!
UPDATE:
Version 3.0 of the drivers came out a few months ago which resolved most of the issues. The sound would occasionally start getting very distorted and glitchy so I would just have to restart the computer every day or so to fix it. At least I could run use my $500 studio monitors again!
I updated to version 3.1 of the drivers which were supposed to add Windows 8 compatibility. Instead, they added Windows 8 non-functionality. My computer seems to think there are no problems with the interface, but no sound comes out whatsoever. To make matters worse, rolling back to the previous driver didn't solve the issue. I've been without sound on my computer for a week now and have yet to figure out how to solve these issues. Oh well, at least I have headphones and an iPod.
UPDATE:
So... for some stupid reason I finally got sound working again by going to File > Load From Hardware in MixControl. Not sure why that did it but glad to have it back.
I hope Focusrite make drivers for OS X 10.7 soon .
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