A complete beginners adventures with the Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 and Sonar X1

Hello, everyone. I hope you are all having a great day.

It seems many people are curious about this line of interfaces and rightly so. They are a great price and seem to offer a lot. After being assured by other users here and contacting Focusrite that this would work with my set up I went for it. I'm going to spend the next few days reading the manual, installing the unit and testing it out. I finally have some time so tonight I have opened the box and figured I'd start my thread right now (I actually opened the box when it arrived but I only did a preliminary examination of the equipment). This way it's kind of a real time account of what I'm doing and how I am doing it. Just so you all know I am indeed very much a beginner to X1 and although I've done some digital recording in the past with decent results I still consider myself a beginner to digital recording (this will likely become apparent as the thread goes on if it isn't already... lulz). Essentially this is not intended as pro advice. Just an account of installing my new toy.

The Packaging:

Yup. It's a box. Nice secure box built to ship well. Glossy on the outside with all the usual stuff. Big ole pic of the 18i6 on the front, some feature stuff and general fanfare. It has a "Pro Tools 9 Ready" sticker and an "Ableton Live Lite 8" blurb that looks like a sticker but it's actually printed right on the box. The back has specs and descriptions, blah blah blah. I'm getting bored looking at the box...

Opens the box: OMG IT'S A HEAD!!!

Just kidding.

First thing is there is a nice little Xeroxed note from Focusrite saying if you have any problems to contact them and then it provides their phone numbers in the US and internationally as well as their website's answer base URL. It also has a note saying to be sure that you download the most current drivers from Focusrite. It is a nice personal touch on their part and their support is great (from personal experience) but that is there for a reason. People have had troubles with their drivers (I'm assuming it was the whole move to 64 bit that tripped things up) but they have updated their drivers and supposedly they work fine now. Essentially they are saying "DO NOT INSTALL THE DRIVERS FROM THE CD! Get the current stuff and if there is an issue contact us."

That, to me, instills some confidence. Obviously (or to some perhaps not so obviously) you should always get the latest drivers for anything you install on your computer but they remind you as soon as you open the box. Very nice.

Enough on that... under the note there is a formed eggshell type carton thingy. Pull it up and there's my 18i6 wrapped in a foamy bag, then wrapped in a plastic bag and to that a ziploc with bunch of CDs and other printed gack is taped on top.

What's in the baggie?:

"A Pocket Guide to the Full Range"... just a fold out ad for a bunch of other Focusrite products.

*tosses it aside*

Registration card with the 18i6's s/n...

*hangs onto that*

Scarlett USB 2.0 Range Resources CD Version - 1.1 (I will not install any of that unless necessary. Instead I will grab the latest versions from the Focusrite website).

Wait... there is ANOTHER baggie within the baggie!

This is the Ableton stuff.

Okay, so there is a sticker that looks exactly like the printed Ableton blurb on the front of the box. Meh.

*tosses it aside*

There is a card with a registration number for Ableton Live Lite. Not sure if I have to download it but I'm not intending to play with Ableton just yet.

*hangs onto that*

Novation Bass Station Authorization Card...

Another registration code with some instructions. I've never heard of this program but I'll check it out at some point.

*hangs onto that*

Optical Disc (not sure if it's a CD or DVD so I'll just call it an optical disc) that is labeled "Xcite + Pack Software and Samples". I think this is probably just extra content for Ableton and perhaps some of the fancy Focusrite software plugins. Stuff I'd probably snag from their websites as opposed to installing from a disc though unless I absolutely needed to.


So that was kind of boring but I just wanted to be thorough. Now I'm gonna yank out the actual interface for a proper visual inspection.

I'll be back in a bit.

Hello, John. Yup. I've learned the hard way over the years to read every darned thing that comes with the box and then scour the internet for anything I'm missing. I find the extra effort saves a lot of headaches especially considering electronics hate me for some reason. This is however from most reports a very easily installable device. I'm hoping those reports hold true. :-)

Right on, Fog. I'm actually quite interested in what Ableton Live does but I want to get my head wrapped around X1 first as it will be my main DAW. I like these lite editions that come with stuff so I can check out who's doing what. I'm looking at keyboard controllers and I have a motivation to get something by M-Audio so I can score a lite version of Pro Tools as well. I'm a very curious fellow. Anyway... just typing something up about the actual box right now. Cheers.

Beepster I just took a look at the  Focusrite Scarlett 18i6 that you have and I am impressed. I think you are going to really like it.  I hope you have dual monitors though. LOL

@John... I do indeed have dual monitors (which have actually caused me some grief but I won't go into it just yet as that issue is still being looked at), and I do think I'm going to like this unit very much... despite the cruddy adapter. Hope I'm not boring you guys. Cheers.

Beepster


@John... I do indeed have dual monitors (which have actually caused me some grief but I won't go into it just yet as that issue is still being looked at), and I do think I'm going to like this unit very much... despite the cruddy adapter. Hope I'm not boring you guys. Cheers.

Good! You will want to have the Mixcontrol open on the other monitor. 


I wouldn't be upset about the power adapter its the way things are now. Grounding should not be a problem because its low voltage and most likely DC.

It is DC. Glad to hear it shouldn't cause any extra noise. That's a real relief actually. It's still a cruddy adapter though. I forgot to mention something however about the fact this device has an adapter. Many devices are USB powered (and my Layla drew power VIA PCI) but there seems to be a lot of talk about that not being ideal for an audio interface. Something about the device being powered VIA USB taking away from the audio data. So now adapters are the shiz. I hate wall warts and extra cables but signal quality and everything running smoothly is obviously more important.

So anyway I thought I might get further with this tonight but I'm hungry and sleepy (spent too much time typing this up and not enough time doing... lol) so I'll continue tomorrow after I read the manual. This all may seem silly to some of you but I've always found these types of ultra thorough layman's reviews more helpful than a bunch of specs and technobabble. If it helps even one person understand the product a little better then this diatribe will have achieved it's purpose. Plus it helps me take a good solid look at the gear which will hopefully translate into getting the best results possible from it and avoid any problems. Have a good night, guys.

turn the damn thing on already!..

lol, it looks a nice little unit.. hopefully you take advantge of the balanced connections?.. 

oh..and the Nova Bassstation will surprise you.. the hardware unit is an all time synth classic and i understand the VST is really good.

coffee time.

Here's the list of included items from the manual so you can see more detail on the extra plugs/software that come with the unit...

Box contents
In the box there is:
1 x Scarlett 18i6
1 x USB cable
1 x Universal DC power supply unit (PSU).
1 x Installer CD: Contains combined installer for drivers and Scarlett
MixControl software for Mac and Windows.
Scarlett VST, AU and RTAS plug-in Suite for Mac and Windows - includes
Compressor plug-in
EQ plug-in
Gate plug-in
Reverb plug-in
4 x Self adhesive rubber feet - to be fitted to the base of Scarlett 18i6
1 x Registration card
1 x Xcite+ Bundle - includes:
Ableton Live LE software
Bass Station AU and VST synthesiser plug-in with serial number card
Over a Gigabyte of ‘Loopmasters” and “Mike the Drummer” royalty free samples
1 x Focusrite and Novation product brochure

The LED labeled "LKD" that I mentioned earlier tells you when the unit is "Locked" to it's internal sync clock or locked to an external clock.

On a Windows system it will use ASIO drivers. On a Mac it will use Core Audio drivers.

The unit will likely need a firmware update when first installed.

When using a 1/4" cable through the multi in connectors it seems you have to set the inputs to either "line" or "instrument" on the Focusrite mixer console depending on what you were doing. I think my Layla did that automatically but I don't remember ever trying to use those multi ins for line level stuff so I don't know.

So the routing section is very nice. You'll have to look at the manual yourselves for more detail but everything is right there and easily accessible. With the Layla it was quite confusing and you had to cycle through various screens on the mixer to get at stuff. With this all you have to do is click on what you want to change and select from a dropdown. You can also name your inputs and outputs through various methods. There are three routing presets. "Clear" which just resets everything on the mixer. "DAW Tracking" which sends the DAW outputs directly to the outputs on the 18i6. It says when using this you have to monitor the inputs being recorded into the DAW directly from the DAW. I'm not sure what that means but I assume it's a latency thing. "Zero Latency Tracking" which sends the output from the DAW to one of the monitor mixes instead of directly to the outputs. Tracks being recorded would then be monitored through the Focusrite mixer instead of the DAW or you get the same signal outputted twice. So yeah... that's confusing me a little but I'll figure it out.