Focusrite
Focusrite Introduces Next Scarlett USB Audio Interfaces
2025
The Scarlett 3rd Gen series includes six interfaces: Solo, 2i2, 4i4, 8i6, 18i8 and 18i20, plus two Studio bundles – Solo Studio and 2i2 Studio. Whether you’re looking to perfectly capture every nuance of your guitar and vocals, or bring together your studio’s ever-expanding array of synths, drum machines, outboard, and effects, there’s a model in the Scarlett 3rd Gen range for you. I use personally Clarett 8PreX and Focusrite Audio Interfaces are ready for the next years and OS releases to come. Focusrite has an excellent record in supporting Windows and MAC users over the years. MAC is less of an issue as you do not need special software like on Windows. The audio interface is built for professionals and shows that in the support from Focusrite.
Playing a part in the production of more tracks than any other audio interface in history, Scarlett makes turning your musical inspiration into primary reality. For Scarlett 3rd Gen, Focusrite added their best-ever Scarlett mic preamps, additional fixed line inputs, refined monitoring features, and enhanced performance, ensuring professional-quality recording results every time.
Scarlett 3rd Gen Mic Preamp & Air
Enable the Air circuit on Scarlett 3rd Gen’s mic preamps to perform your guitars and vocals sound immediately more colorful and more capacious, giving them a glossy shine that can make all the difference in the mix. Air emulates the technology of the same name from Focusrite legendary ISA preamp.
Scarlett Inputs and Outputs Options
From the compact 2i2’s two inputs and two outputs to the rack-mount 18i20’s immense 18 analog and ADAT digital inputs, and 20 outputs, Scarlett 3rd Gen caters to all I/O requirements, no matter how simple or expansive. You get instrument inputs with sky-high headroom, ultra-clean balanced line level inputs, balanced TRS outputs for doing away with speaker hum, headphone outputs (two of them with the 8i6, 18i8 and 18i20), and MIDI I/O for hooking up external synths. Focusrite’s signature Gain Halos, meanwhile, light up around gain knobs to indicate input levels, making monitoring visually intuitive and guaranteeing distortion-free recordings.
Sequential merges into Focusrite
With great excitement, Dave Smith announces that Sequential is joining the Focusrite Group of music and audio brands. Sequential is part of a family made up of some of the best and brightest companies in the music instruments and pro audio industries: Focusrite, Focusrite Pro, Martin Audio, Optimal Audio, ADAM Audio, Novation, and Ampify Music.
Sequential’s synths have made a huge impact in music for decades, and continue to inspire music makers all over the world. Instruments such as the classic Prophet® 5 — the world’s first fully programmable polysynth, designed by Dave Smith and launched in 1977 — and the futuristic Pro 3® hybrid monosynth, which combines analog and digital in a powerful paraphonic instrument, show Sequential’s dedication to the craft of synthesizer design.
Sequential will operate as a separate entity to the other brands in Focusrite Group and will continue business as usual. Operationally, Sequential will retain its existing company structure, with Dave Smith leading engineering, product development, and mentorship of Sequential’s new breed of designers.
Commenting on the news, Focusrite’s Executive Chairman Phil Dudderidge said, “We’re excited and pleased to add Sequential’s instruments and pedigree to Focusrite Group’s portfolio of world-class audio and music production tools. Dave Smith’s history as an innovator speaks for itself. From his creation of the world’s first fully programmable polysynth (the Prophet 5) to his co-invention of MIDI, Dave Smith has literally changed the world of music several times. We’re looking forward to continuing his history of innovation and expanding the global market for Sequential’s instruments.”
Sequential’s Dave Smith commented, “With Focusrite, we’ve found an ideal home and a perfect cultural and technological fit. Phil Dudderidge and his team have a long history of quality, vision, and focus on what musicians and audio professionals really want. We’re excited to join such an industry powerhouse and contribute to our mutual success. I expect great things.”
Dave Smith continues to lead the engineering and product development and work with the Sequential design team into the future. Dave has more time to develop amazing synths!
Focusrite Scarlett Solo Video Review
The Focusrite Scarlett Solo USB audio interface stands as an entry point into the Scarlette ecosystem, coming at just around $100.
But the price point doesn’t take away the quality and in this Scarlett Solo review, we’ll go over what you get with this nice little package. To start with, the build quality is amazing. Even though it is the cheapest interface in the series, Focusrite Scarlett Solo specs are rather similar to the 2i2 or any of the other, more expensive offerings. The body is an anodized aluminum shell with amazing, professional-feeling knobs and buttons that are placed as solid as they can be.
The build quality is definitely a 10 out of 10. But there are some drawbacks that come with the size, the monitor volume combines the headphone and speaker outputs, meaning you can’t really control it separately, but as soon as we go down, we go back up, this small interface even adds direct monitoring functionality, with amazing latency.
It’s a USB-C interface and gets powered by that connection alone also powering the phantom power for the microphone input and as well as the more expensive offerings it includes an air switch that brings more character to the preamp, which by istelf is wonderful. It’s a very compact, robust interface that’s great for travel.
Just like mentioned before, the focusrite scarlett solo usb audio interface is the cheapest offering from Focusrite, coming at $100, which is a decent chunck of changed shaved off of the second cheapests offering the Scarlett 2i2, which is more towards the $150 mark and if you want to save even more money, you can get the 2nd gen focusrite solo interface for around $80.
A great deal! But it could be argued that $100 is still quite a bit of money for an interface, that only offers a few inputs when you can find a similar offering for cheaper or offering with more ports for the same price.
But that’s not why focusrite scarlett solo interface is great, it’s the fact that for a $100 you’re getting a premium product for just the fraction of price. It shouldn’t be seen as interface you buy for a home studio, but an interface you buy for traveling – something you just throw into your backpack and get on going.
We do a lot of interface reviews and we have to say, this has to be one of the most durable little audio interfaces out there. It is cheap, it is compact and it is built like a tank – which comes with every Focusrite interface, but to have it on their budget option is just wonderful.
Scarlett audio interface solo stands to be a great option for anyone who is looking for a new compact interface as the focusrite scarlett solo phantom power capabilities, size and quality is just hard to beat. We definetly like this scarlett solo audio interface and will use it many more times in the future. All the road trips are looking to be quite promising!
Focusrite is know for their high quality product, including options for hobbists, amateurs and industry professionals.
The scarlett solo audio interface is just the first step in the wonderful world that the Focusrite has crafted, anything from USB audio interfaces to Synths, Keys, Apps and much much more. And we hope you’ve enjoyed our scarlett solo audio interface review and if you did, let us know what else should we review from what Focusrite offers?
And better off, why not check it out right this moment?! As our youtube channel already includes many products from both under the Scarlett series and the Novation series, so feel free to check out our channel for more videos.
Plugin Alliance is proud to announce the availability of the new MEGA Bundle Subscription Services. The MEGA Bundle is the new gold standard for subscription-based plugin-bundles, offering an impressive collection of 100+ plugins from 28 Alliance brands including SSL, Ampeg, Brainworx, Focusrite and many more.
I use in my daily workflow several Plugin Alliances plugins, they part of my Top 5 Plugin and Effect companies. Well worth to check their product line and start using either the subscription or single plugins. See also our Brainworx bx_console SSL 4000 E Review – an SSL console Emulation by Plugin Alliance, bx_masterdesk Review – Mastering for All and Complete Mastering Chain by Brainworx, bx_oberhausen Review – a Famous Iconic Synthesizers Emulation by Brainworx, SpecOps Review – Spectral Effects Processing by Unfiltered Audio, and BYOME Review – Build Your Own Modular Effect by Unfiltered Audio.
MEGA Bundle
The MEGA Bundle contains an ever-growing collection, starting today with 100+ state-of-the-art plugins:
- Best-in-class TMT console-emulations from SSL, Focusrite and more
- Brainworx M/S Mastering tools
- Several Virtual Instruments from DS Audio, Brainworx and more
- 3D mixing from DearVR / Sennheiser
- Innovative modular FX from Unfiltered Audio
- Dozens of branded and officially endorsed analog-modeled units
- Guitar Amps (ENGL, DIEZEL, Chandler…)
- Bass Amps (Ampeg…)
- EQs (Mäag, SPL, Millennia, Dangerous Music…)
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All these plugins are being offered in multi-platform versions, working on Mac and PC (VST 2/3, AAX and AU). 70+ of our plugins even work on professional AAX DSP systems. Plugin Alliance offers a simple and unified, dongle-free activation scheme, so one activation will give users access to ALL of the tools at once, and every license for the bundle is good to activate up to 3 machines!
Pricing and Availability
From Q4 on, the MEGA Bundle will be available for $24.99 per month.
But as of today, prepaid annual plans (1 Year Auto-Renewal) are being offered for $249.99 per year, which is a 17% saving over the month-to-month price. ($24.99 x 12 = $299.88 per year // Prepaid Annual plan = $249.99 per year)
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