OT: Focusrite's ISA One

[Carlos Mills]

Did anybody here try it? Seems an interesting piece of gear...

[Ian Alexander]

Hi Carlos.

Never used any Focusrite gear, but here's a link to a very long page of opinions about it.

http://www.mercenary.com/whynofocusrite.html

[Perry]

Hi Carlos.

Never used any Focusrite gear, but here's a link to a very long page of opinions about it.

http://www.mercenary.com/whynofocusrite.html

Now THAT was some interesting reading! :)

To add: I've looked at the 'Focusrite One' at my local dealer here and I'm thinking about taking one out for a trial run. If I do I'll try to post my impressions... after I make my own mind up about it. One thing I can say is that I remember in Nashville when the earlier 'glory days' products were highly praised... but that's been a long time ago. It would be interesting to revisit these products... maybe. :) The price seems not so bad... maybe. :) Put another way: "I want to believe." ;)

I also want to look inside the box... I know some of the 'later' products used rather 'common' ic's in their designs.... not that this necessarily means something bad... except maybe in the value department. I would suggest while evaluating something like this to cover the front with plain cardboard (or something) to avoid the influence of that 'Focusrite' look. (seriously) Of course the 'look' could be considered part of the value I suppose.

[Carlos Mills]

Thanks for the link Ian. I will take a look soon. Cheers!


Hi Carlos.

Never used any Focusrite gear, but here's a link to a very long page of opinions about it.

http://www.mercenary.com/whynofocusrite.html

[Carlos Mills]

Hi Perry!
Thanks for you reply. Please let us now what you find out in your "spiritual experience" :) And also what you find inside the box! I will be going to the US by the end of this month and since this things are much cheaper there I might get one of this toys... I've been doing a lot of live recordings gigs lately and the rugged design also caught my attention... well, research goes on... Please let me know what you find out... Cheers!



Now THAT was some interesting reading! :)

To add: I've looked at the 'Focusrite One' at my local dealer here and I'm thinking about taking one out for a trial run. If I do I'll try to post my impressions... after I make my own mind up about it. One thing I can say is that I remember in Nashville when the earlier 'glory days' products were highly praised... but that's been a long time ago. It would be interesting to revisit these products... maybe. :) The price seems not so bad... maybe. :) Put another way: "I want to believe." ;)

I also want to look inside the box... I know some of the 'later' products used rather 'common' ic's in their designs.... not that this necessarily means something bad... except maybe in the value department. I would suggest while evaluating something like this to cover the front with plain cardboard (or something) to avoid the influence of that 'Focusrite' look. (seriously) Of course the 'look' could be considered part of the value I suppose.

[Carlos Mills]

So the question is... does ISA One bring something special to the party? (besides the good look and heritage?) :)


I've worked on one of the original Rupert Neve Focusrite consoles on many occasions, as well as the original outboard 110 and 215 pieces, which were more like a channel strip with the EQ. Those products were excellent in their own right, and certainly had their own character and signature sound. The stereo 215 was my go-to piece for acoustic pianos for years, because it consistently brought something special to the party.

Since then, I've used some of the Digi and post-Digi era products like the Control 24 with Focusrite pres and the 428 (?) 8 channel mic pre and found them to be very plain, and nothing special at all. In that case, I think I could find generic sounding stuff much cheaper.

Mark

[Perry]

So the question is... does ISA One bring something special to the party? (besides the good look and heritage?) :)

Yes that IS the question isn't it? :)

It seems a bit too good to be true that this re--'re-issue', at it's price point, could equal the originals. Again, "I want to believe!"

We'll see eventually I guess.

Perry

[AcousticGlue]

I haven't used many products and cannot say on Focusrite hardware but the Red Compressor plugin in ProTools was excellent. Also of note is Avalon direct box and Blue Tube which for good or bad, had sonic qualities I could hear. Other products such as (tube pres or preamps) Studio Projexts, Behringer, Peavey, Drawmer 1960, DBX, ART all sound sonicly same except for maybe quality but clean nevertheless. Blue Tube sounds Blue and Avalon has airy sound.

[DominicPerry]

I had a Focusrite Saffire interface for a couple of days. The mics pres were dull, certainly no better than the ADA8000s, possibly worse and the (flimsy) pots had all the gain in the last 10%. I guess that only shows that not all Focusrite pres are created equal.

Dominic

[Carlos Mills]

p.s. my idea is to use vocals with ISA One...

[TotalSonic]

Focusrite has a long history that has seen the name go from issuing high end consoles and console modules designed by Rupert Neve from 1985 - 1989, followed by the 90's when they issued a number of rack based products based on Neve's designs (who had sold the company), down to the recent now Digidesign owned company that issues fairly generic stuff and "dumbed down" versions of older products.

Neve's designs starting in the 80's often did in fact incorporate lots of IC's - but from my direct experience with some of these (i.e. the Amek Medici mastering eq I use pretty much every day) they can in fact sound excellent. While "class A" and "all discrete" are usually indications of great build and sound quality I've found that often they can just be used as catch phrases and that an integrated circuit in a signal chain if well placed and well implemented does not mean necessarilly that you can not get excellent sounding results.

fwiw - I just aquired a Focusrite Blue 330 mk1 (with transformer balanced i/o) mastering compressor at the recent auction of the remainder of the now closed Sony Music Studio's gear and got to say it's an excellent sounding piece of gear - but this one was built in 1996 and not made anymore.

Anyway - The original ISA 110 modules and the Forte consoles they are taken from are indeed really fantastic sounding - I have no idea how close the new ones are to these originals but based on the Digidesign version of the companies recent products I'm not so optimistic.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Perry]

...............

Neve's designs starting in the 80's often did in fact incorporate lots of IC's - but from my direct experience with some of these (i.e. the Amek Medici mastering eq I use pretty much every day) they can in fact sound excellent. While "class A" and "all discrete" are usually indications of great build and sound quality I've found that often they can just be used as catch phrases and that an integrated circuit in a signal chain if well placed and well implemented does not mean necessarilly that you can not get excellent sounding results. .................

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Well said and absolutely correct. OTOH... it is relaitively easy to build a 'cheap' circuit around an IC.

But, as you say, having IC's does not mean that it is bad (ummm, I said that didn't I?). Another pre amp that comes to mind is the Millennia. I use mine all the time.. love it. For some stuff it's amazing in fact... and it's chock full of IC's!

In the end.. a good design is.. well.. a good design. And conversely, a poor design is.. well... not a good design. As well.. 'cheap' is cheap! And that's hard to hide.

All of this has got me really wanting to check out the ISA One... just to know what's up with it. I might be able to pick that up on Saturday... but maybe not. But I too remain very much not optimistic. When it seems too good to be true it generally is. But OTOH.. sometimes... every once in a while.... good things DO happen.

Errr.. the optimist in me takes hold still. ;)

Perry

[Carlos Mills]

Hi Guys,

I obviously won't have the time to test it before buying... so I will pretty much rely on the opinions and experiences from this selected group of audio engineers we have here at the SS forum. So please keep your opinions coming... they are very welcomed! :)

[Sean McCoy]

I haven't used the ISA One, but if it's anything like the ISA 428 (I have two of those) I wouldn't recommend it as a go-to vocal preamp. I have no complaints about the 428's, but they're definitely not character pre's. If you're looking for one, great, single-channel preamp for under a grand, I'd look at a Brent Averill 312A. It has that cool API punch and lots of hot gain, so you can run it clean or push it hard for different tones.

Other good options in that price range are the Universal Audio Solo 610 and the Chameleon Labs 7602.

[Carlos Mills]

Hi Sean,

ISA 428 and ISA One are different circuits. ISA one is supposed to sound like ISA 110, originally built by Rupert Neve back in 1985. I guess just a test drive could tell us how good (or bad?) it sounds...

Thanks for the Brent Averill tip. I will take a look.

Cheers!


I haven't used the ISA One, but if it's anything like the ISA 428 (I have two of those) I wouldn't recommend it as a go-to vocal preamp. I have no complaints about the 428's, but they're definitely not character pre's. If you're looking for one, great, single-channel preamp for under a grand, I'd look at a Brent Averill 312A. It has that cool API punch and lots of hot gain, so you can run it clean or push it hard for different tones.

Other good options in that price range are the Universal Audio Solo 610 and the Chameleon Labs 7602.