Focusrite has launched the Clarett OctoPre, an eight-channel mic preamp with A/D and D/A conversion, joining the company’s Clarett range of audio interfaces, and other interfaces that include Adat optical I/O.
The Clarett OctoPre offers eight of the Clarett range’s Air-enabled mic preamps – the Air effect emulates the transformer-coloured sound of Focusrite’s ISA range of heritage mic preamps. The preamps include extensive headroom for drums and other high-level signals. The rear panel inputs switch automatically between mic and line in and there are also two DI inputs on the front panel. The Air effect can be switched in or out on a per-channel basis and phantom power is also provided, switchable in two groups of four channels.
Each channel features a balanced path from input to output plus a front-panel switchable electronically-balanced relay-bypassed insert point allowing EQ, compression or other analogue processing to be left connected and brought into play with the push of a button. In addition to being fed to the A/D converter, the input channels are also available at the analogue outputs, from where they can, for example, be routed to a live mixing console while at the same time capturing the inputs digitally. The analogue outputs, which appear on a rear-panel DB25 wired to the AES59 standard, can alternatively be switched to pick up the Adat inputs via the D/A converters.
Precision digital conversion offers 24-bit operation at sample rates up to 192kHz. Both A/D and D/A converters measure a dynamic range of 118dB.Two Adat input and two output ports are provided, allowing the Clarett OctoPre to carry eight channels of I/O at sample rates of up to 96kHz and four channels at 176.4/192kHz. The Clarett OctoPre syncs either to external Adat or Word Clock, or may be clocked internally, and features JetPLL jitter elimination. Word Clock out is also provided.
Metering is via a group of six–segment LED bar meters plus per-channel clip indicators next to the channel level controls. Function buttons select Insert and Air and are used in conjunction with assign buttons under the channel level controls, plus two buttons selecting the front panel instrument inputs on Channels 1 & 2.
The Clarett OctoPre will ship in Q3 2016 at a recommended retail price of £649.99 (inc VAT)/US$699.99 (ex Tax).
More: www.focusrite.com
