Focusrite have announced the launch of a new eight–channel mic pre with A–D and D–A conversion, Clarett OctoPre. This design seems to take the popular OctoPre 8 channel mic preamp form factor and turn it claret.
The Clarett OctoPre includes eight of the Clarett range’s ‘Air’–enabled mic pres: the ‘Air’ effect is designed to emulate the transformer–based sound of Focusrite’s ISA range of heritage mic pres. The Clarett preamps are designed with significant headroom, making them ideal for drums or other high–level signals. The rear panel inputs switch automatically between mic and line in and there are also two instrument DI inputs on the front panel. The ‘Air’ effect can be switched in or out on a 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, can alternatively be switched to pick up the ADAT inputs via the D–A converters.
The Focusrite Clarett OctoPre offers 24–bit operation at standard sample rates up to 192 kHz. Both A–D and D–A converters measure a dynamic range of 118dB. Two ADAT inputs 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 and 2.
With eight Clarett mic pres, eight line outputs and ADAT interfacing, the Clarett OctoPre is the ideal way of adding inputs and outputs to your Clarett Thunderbolt audio interface – or any other interface with ADAT I/O.
The Clarett OctoPre is due to start shipping in November 2016 and will priced at £649.99 (inc VAT) / $699.99 (ex Tax).