Was about to buy the focusrite saffire 6 which has received great reviews, however just came across this newer focusrite scarlett 18i6/8i6 usb 2.0 product which seems well much better value (~300e) for more inputs. Can I have some experienced views from forum members incase im forgetting something to watch out for?!
 
http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/scarlett_18i6/
 
or a smaller version of it
 
http://www.focusrite.com/products/audio_interfaces/scarlett_8i6/
 
Regards,
 
Cian

I don't think there have been any reviews of the usb version.  I would assume the hardware part would perform the same, so the drivers would be the issue of difference.  USB is pretty est. now, but before I plunked down my money I would spend some time on their Forums to see any problems, bearing in mind the squeeky wheels speak more often.

@

Thanks AT, you would certainly think that the hardware and drivers should perform very similiar to the saffire pro6, i reckon i'll take the risk, dont know which one to go for but i guess more inputs is always better for the sake of an extra 50 squids.

Hopefully some reviews will crop up over the weekend, Im looking to purchase at the start of  next week.

Hi Cian, 

I bought 8i6 last week. I have bought also a new DAW notebook so right now, I am in the process of installing and tweaking everything. On Sunday, I am going to try it during a jam session so I can report you back on how it did perform.

So far I can say, the build quality is really great - it is all aluminum (steel), the knobs feel sturdy. I can compare the build quality to Edirol"s M16DX mixer, and 8i6 definitely wins.

Take care

Good luck, whack.  USB should be the standard for many years, which is always nice.

@

ordered the 18i6 anyway so should get it by the end of the week. Report back here anyway marek see if your having any major issues.

Cian

I too just ordered an 18i6 from Sweetwater.  It will probably be here next week.  I am looking forward to hooking it up and taking it for a test spin.

I had to scrap my Delta 1010 because it didn't play nice with Windows 7 64bit and my Intel motherboard.    I have read some positive reviews on the web.   I went this route because firewire seems to be on its way out and this device is new and supposedly has decent drivers.

I will check back here to see how everyone is doing with 18i6 and I will let you know how it works for me.

My impressions after my first real usage of my Scarlett?

Well, I must say I was impressed how stable my new rig was. I plugged MIDI, and two guitars into Scarlett and Line out to the PA.

We were jamming for 3 hours and did not have a single drop out or any other audio engine problem. I recorded everything, so Sonar was constantly recording two guitars, one VSTi (MIDI) and playing back VSTi drums (Superior Drummer). 

Running MSI GE620 notebook (i7 2,0 GHz), X1b 64bit, with 8 GB RAM, I had around Scarlett ASIO buffer set to 3 msec (around 10 msec roundtrip latency) which is I think great.

If you want some additional info on how Scarlett performed, let me know. Generally, I must say, I am very pleased with it.

I recommend you to download the latest MixControl (includes ASIO driver) from here:
http://www.focusrite.com/downloads/scarlett_18i6/

At least my 8i6 driver CD that came with it, included older drivers than on the web.

Ok so Ive gave my 18i6 a little test run, it hasnt gone overly smooth either....

Installed the drivers that came with the disk v1.19 and also the plug in suite (which does not seem to show up in X1 for that matter). I then had to go online to install the mix control 1.0 software ( I notice this also contains a usb driver 2.0?? which it has to install to install the mix control). Everything went well the first night, but the next day I got the dreaded blue screen, spent all day tweaking,uninstalling etc and still got the blue screen, today I have managed to get it back on track(How I dunno,just reinstalled everything for like the tenth time).

So here is a few things that I might get a few owners of this gear to answer;

• What way did you install it, by CD and then download the mix control off the site (which installs another driver on top of that seemingly?)
• Using two different condensor mics, I found that to get the recording level in x1 reach near the -6db level that I had to turn the input gain to 7/8 (on preamp instrument 1), is this very high??(goes 1-10)
• Did your scarlett plug in suite show up in your DAW under effects?

Cian