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.

I can't say I do things the way you do. LOL I aways rip it out of the box and stick it in or or attach it or plug it in or install it or ....... Than when nothing works I start reading.

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. :-)

bass station is based on the real unit.. so keep / use that. they gave away their other synth when I bought one of their controllers.. quite a nice one , does arps n stuff. 

Did you get a cd of RX2 loops ? some of their stuff has it.  I have 4 novation/focusrite things IRC.
 
as for ableton , they are tied in with focusrite a bit.. I've got 3 licenses for "lite" hehe.. but at the moment here they are doing a decent deal if you upgrade 33% off if you have lite already, only for 3 days though!!.. I'm *REALLY* tempted , partly because of warp and a few more bits .. and yer I own sonar, cubase and reason already... if I could take certain bits out of each I'd be happy.. but I digress.

I use a saffire 6 usb here, on this laptop and it does what it needs to, although not I'm so impressed with the novation controllers build quality (same company) and how they deal with other sequencers better. 

I always get the updated drivers off the website as 90% of the time the ones on the cd / dvd with it are a few versions older :)

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.

So now I have the box in my hands...

The box (general):

It is, as promised, a steel box. The case is well machined and held together by screws. I kind of like that because it's good to know if I ever wanted to I could crack it open. That is obviously not something I would ever do though... because that would be dumb. I can see on the bottom where the board has been mounted to the box as well. All this basically means to me this is easily serciceable by Focusrite so if something happened after the warranty expired it might be cheaper to fix as opposed to a sealed box (which many are these days). But that's not important. It's just a well built box.

The front panel however seems to be made of plastic which is finished to look like brushed steel. No biggie but it's something that stood out to me. It does feel like quality plastic but it would likely crack if abused.

Front Panel:

Multi ins... These supposedly have the nice Focusrite pres. I was looking for quality pres because I did not want to have to use my old Mackie mixer anymore and everyone says the Focusrite stuff is great. I can't comment on their sound yet but there they are. Two multi ins.

Beside that are gain knobs for each of the pres and a 48v phantom power button beneath them as well as three LEDs. Two for the inputs (not sure if they change color for clipping or anything yet) and one for the phantom power.

Beside those is an LCD display for 8 inputs and below that individual LCDs for Power, USB and LKD (I don't know what LKD is yet). The screen is covered with a little pull away screen protector. Everything looks pretty solid.

Beside that is a Monitor knob which is GREAT. I thought I was going to have to buy a separate unit to control my monitor level but it is built right in. Awesome.

Beside that is the Headphone level knob and the headphone jack.

All the knobs are made of plastic but feel reasonably solid and move freely (but not too loose).


Back Panel:

There are two solid feeling SPDIF connectors for out/in.

Beside that the power supply jack (yes this unit uses a power supply. 12V DC 1A).

Beside that two DIN MIDI connections (in and out). This was important to me because I want to use an old MIDI keyboard as a controller at some point so I needed these connections.

Beside that is the main USB connector (that connects to the computer). It's a standard square style USB connection you'd find on a printer.

Beside that is the optical input which you can do all sorts of neat stuff with but to me it's most appealing feature is I can get an expansion device and add a full extra 8 mic pres to the unit (perhaps more). It has a little plastic plug protecting it.

Beside that there are eight female 1/4" connections. They all feel quite solid and seem to be steel coated in plastic of some sort. The first two are monitor outputs and the remaining six are line level analog inputs (I wanted those in case I need to record a full drum kit or a band. I would just use my mixer to input to these in that situation if I did not have access to an optical expansion unit).


Aside from that there isn't much else to say about the box. On top it has a nice graphic of the 18i6/Focusrite logos and on the bottom a serial number and the usual electronic compliance code stuff.

So that's the unit.

More to come...

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

Okay... so this is where things get a little obnoxious.

Underneath my nice interface is a standard USB cable (square type on one end to connect to the unit and a flat type to connect to the computer). It has filter on it. It is of medium quality. I'll probably replace it at some point though. This is pretty standard however so no complaints on the included USB cable.

Beside that is a box containing the power adapter. This power adapter is a little... uh... whack.

First off it is made of pretty crappy feeling plastic and seems to be mostly hollow. Second it has interchangeable plugs for European/US and one of the old phone type jacks (which I think are for older European outlets). I guess that's kind of cool but it came with the big ole European plug preattached. Removing it the crappy plastic build of the adapter becomes even more apparent. I could see that breaking rather easily if I was swapping things out often. Also the cable for the adapter is quite thin and I'm going to have to take some extra precautions to protect it from getting munched.

Another thing to note is it does NOT have a proper ground pin. I'm not sure how important this is for these types of devices but it concerns me a little as far as extra noise being introduced to the system.

So yeah... the adapter sucks.

Now I'm off to find the manual and drivers.

@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.

You may like this review on the forum under gear. Here.

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.

Actually I've seen the Cian threads and we even chatted briefly about the device. I learned a lot about the Scarlett series and the issues people were having with them before Focusrite fixed their drivers from those convos. They made me do some more research and contact Focusrite directly to make sure everything was going to work so they indeed help steer me towards the 18i6 in the end. Nice fella.

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.

Here is Focusrite's mainpage...

http://www.focusrite.com/homepage/

The general downloads page...

http://www.focusrite.com/downloads/user_guides/

And the 18i6 downloads page...

http://www.focusrite.com/downloads/scarlett_18i6/

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.

I was thinking of the Scarlett 18i6 (more input choices), over the Quad Capture....ended up with the QC...
that was during the time that people were still having problems with the Scarlett's drivers...

I hate fiddling around with drivers, etc...so I got the QC...been rock solid with X1
:)

Looking forward to your in depth review of the Scarlett though, Beepster.

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.

Okay, I'm awake. Just gotta some tea into me and then we'll see how far I get. Should have some tunes cranking through it by tonight.

@viscant... The Quad Capture does look quite nice. I think that was the unit Seth recommended to me but it was a little pricier than this one. I believe you can expand the QC via optical cable as well (don't quote me on that though) so it would a good choice for a small studio that may look into becoming a larger studio. And obviously it's a great choice for X1 because it's the same company. Apparently the pres are really nice on it too and it has ultra low latency. I, however, just couldn't afford it. Just from the specs and reviews I'd say you probably got a nicer unit than I did. Cheers.

@mystic38... lol indeed. I have certainly succumbed to OCD in my old age, especially in regards to reading manuals. I read the manual for my kettle. I even read the manual for my long underwear. I guess I spent so much time GUESSING at what stuff is supposed to do in my life because everything I owned was used that now when I have access to a manual I consider it a luxury. I'm also prone to complete freak outs when something doesn't work properly (which happens often) so it helps keep my blood pressure down. Heheh.

I will indeed be using balanced cables for my monitors. Made sure to snag some for this set up. I was going to just use my old snakes but they are pretty big and clunky for a small desk set up and they are kind of thin and chincy underneath the shrink tubing so those will stay in retirement.

It's nice to hear the Basstation software is a desirable plug (I'm assuming it will work as a plugin with X1). I'm all for extra sounds... especially for free. I think I'll have to get into more modern, electronic type music writing to appease the current market if I ever want to make any money. People like my old fart music but it just wouldn't really cut it as far as what people want for commercial music productions. It's also a lot harder to compose and record than this new fangled loopity loop electronic type stuff. That's part of the reason I bought the X1 Suite. That way I just have a whole pile of VSTs to play with. Also if I get too sore or crippled up to play my real instruments I can still write and produce. Cheers.

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

Not that I was gonna hook this up to a USB hub anyway but apparently it is advised against. If using a hub you can't use any USB 1.0 devices on the hub because it will force the hub to operate at 1.0 and cause problems with the 18i6. Also if using an external hardrive for loops, plugins or whatever it shouldn't share a hub with the 18i6. Good to know.

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.

The installer should be run BEFORE connecting the device to the computer.

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

You can use up to 8 channels when using ADAT but this drops to 4 channels when using 88.1khz and 96khz sample rate settings.

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

Now things are getting interesting. The mixer software is a LOT nicer than my old Echo's software mixer. Tons of control and doohickeys. This part is cool. You can make 6 separate monitor mixes that don't affect the DAW in any way. That way you can have a mix for the engineer and others for the artist(s). So if the artist wants to have certain things turned up or down in their headphones while tracking that can be done while the engineer can monitor things how he wants without having to fiddle with stuff in the DAW or use external hardware (like a headphone mixer). The Focusrite mixer handles it. Also you could have different monitor mixes for various tasks ready to go just by clicking a tab. Not sure how this would be routed yet or how many of these mixes can be playing at once but definitely useful. I'm guessing you would maybe use the main outs as TRS stereo sends (that'd be to separate mixes), the two SPDIF (two more stereo mixes), the headphone jack (one stereo mix) or maybe do it through the optical connection. Perhaps this is common with newer interfaces but I don't think my Layla did this stuff so to me it's pretty nifty.
EDIT: My mistake. You can have six MONO mixes or three STEREO mixes.

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.

I find this a little odd. There doesn't seem to be a way to adjust input levels within the mixer. It has to be done with the knobs on the box, external hardware or with the DAW. The fader only affects the monitor level. I'm guessing this is true of the pan fader as well.

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.

The monitor control section of the mixer has a whole pile of wacky options for what is and isn't controlled by the big GUI level knob. Tons of stuff I couldn't ever see myself using and I won't try to explain it all but even with all those options it seems very simple to use. At first glance it looks like it only applies to the headphones and main outputs. Again it is all right there on the main screen without having to flip through tabs or menus. It probably changes for each of the mixes that have been created but I can't tell yet from the manual. Someone certainly put a lot of thought into it. Very nice. It says that these settings are independent of the physical monitor/headphone level knobs on the front of the unit so I think this means you'd set the GUI monitor levels and then you can adjust them further with the front panel knobs. I'll mostly be using the front panel knobs to control the headphone and monitor levels.

.

@Chaos Choir... I'm glad you are finding it helpful. It's also very nice to have the forum to toss this stuff out to in written form. By doing this I'm getting a far better grasp on my purchase than I would have just reading the manual and slapping it in. I hope this isn't considered inappropriate in any way. I will be getting to how it works with X1 soon enough. Just finishing the manual now and then I'll be installing the drivers. May not get to a playback/recording point with X1 until tomorrow though. Cheers!

Device Status Section:

Now this is extremely cool and IMHO quite elegant. Again this is right there on the main GUI so you don't have to hunt around for stuff. It is extremely simple but has many of your important settings and options easily accessible. It also looks pretty. :-)

What's displayed...

Sample Rate: Shows the current sample rate and when clicked provides a menu to select one of the following... 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, or 96kHz. I'm actually a little surprised it doesn't have lower sample rates than those but maybe that's normal and I personally wouldn't use anything below 44.1 anyway. There is also a warning in the manual stating to close your DAW before changing the samplerate so nothing goes screwy on you. Good to know.

Sync Source: Pretty straight forward. It just tells you what sync clock the device is using. Again clicking it will give you a menu. You have the following options... S/PDIF, ADAT or Internal. I myself (and I'm sure most home studio users) would use the 18i6's internal clock.

Sync Status: This just tells you that your sync clock is properly set and working. There is no dropdown for this. Here is the blurb from the manual... "The sync status display shows “Locked” when the Scarlett 18i6 has successfully locked to the specifi ed Sync Source. If “No Lock” is seen, then the unit has been unable to lock to an external S/PDIF or ADAT signal. If this is the case, then please check that digital cables are secure in their input sockets and that the external digital devices have been set up as sync master devices." Pretty straightforward stuff.

USB Driver: Again, very straightforward. No menu dropdown. This just tells you the 18i6 is properly hooked up to your computer and the driver is working properly.


Below all of that is a "Settings" button and it seems all this does is let you adjust your buffer/latency settings. This only works for Windows users (but obviously if you are using X1 you are a Windows user... Mac users are told to adjust buffer/latency within their DAW software). The thing I like about this is the menu that pops up shows all the settings in milliseconds so you can get an idea of what your actual latency will be. Again this is very simple and it's right there. Awesome.

I think this entire Device Status Section is the coolest thing about this software so far. Extremely intuitive and you don't have to hunt around for stuff.

I am still however just gleaning all this from the manual. We'll see exactly how well all this stuff works in reality. If it works as described though I'll be more than pleased.

The last GUI entry in the manual just describes what the main File menu does. It is pretty much the same for Mac and PC and works the same way a usual file menu would. It essentially let's you save and recall your mixer settings as well as provides options to restore to the factory defaults or clear the current settings (not sure what "Clear" would do beyond setting it to factory settings but maybe it resets everything to where you were when you opened the mixer file... I may experiment with that later).

Here is the actual text from the manual on these options as I couldn't really explain it better.

Open - opens a ‘File Open’ window allowing selection of any pre-saved Scarlett MixControl set-ups.

Save - opens a ‘File Save’ window allowing selection of a location into which your Scarlett MixControl set-up can be saved. Subsequent saves overwrite the original file.

Save As - opens a ‘File Save’ window allowing selection of a location into which your Scarlett MixControl set-up can be saved. Use this option if you want to keep your original saved set-up and create a new one with a different name.

Restore Factory Defaults - causes the Scarlett 18i6 to revert to the original default state in which it left the factory.

Clear All Settings - causes the Scarlett 18i6 to reset all mixer and routing settings. This can be used to globally reset all mixer, routing, and monitor settings, allowing creation of a new set-up from scratch.


So that's pretty darned cool too. I'm pretty sure my Layla didn't do THAT kind of recall stuff.

Beepster.....Interested in your review because I have also been thinking of upgrading my interface. But one question... What happens if you are in the middle of a project and change interfaces. Does it effect the workings of the project?

Well... I was gonna post the technical specs but Adobe Reader is giving me a hard time so if you are interested in those they are in the manual and can be found on Focusrite's website (which I posted earlier). Overall the manual is well written compared to a lot of the electronics manuals out there. It has lots of nice graphics and is very concise. I now feel I understand this piece of equipment quite thoroughly just from reading it whereas other device manuals tend to leave me scratching my head. So A+ for the manual. It also seems this device in general is going to be extremely easy to use. It does a lot but I don't feel overwhelmed by endless settings and menus like I do with many other devices. I think I'm gonna take a little break now before setting up my system to download the drivers so I'll be back later. I hope this has been helpful so far and I'm not annoying anyone with my ramblings. Cheers!

@keneds... Hello. Do you mean just swapping out your interface for new one completely or having both devices installed (but not running simultaneously because that supposedly does not work) and switching back and forth? If it is the latter that is EXACTLY what I will be doing tonight or tomorrow. I've been told that you can just switch the driver within X1 to the new device and you don't even have to remove the old interface. I will be describing this as I make my attempt. I am not sure what this will do to my project settings. What I would like to do for now is have both devices installed so I can do a comparison of the mic pres on both the Layla and the Scarlett. You cannot have two different interfaces running at once so what I would do is record a vocal with the Layla, disable the Layla in X1, enable the Scarlett in X1, record a vocal with the Scarlett... then compare. I have a feeling I will run into some troubles with this so we'll just have to wait and see. Cheers!

Yes, I will be abandoning my old interface, as long as I can continue with my current project without screwing up the results I've made so far. 

@keneds... What you should probably do is save a bundle file of the project to test things out on. That way if things screw up you still have the original project unscathed. From what I understand you should be able to just change the interface in the Drivers portion of the settings screen. Make sure your sample rate, bit depth, buffer, etc... settings match up on the new unit and I'd guess everything should be okay. I am however, as the thread title suggests, a beginner so you'd best talk to one of the more knowledgeable guys and gals around here or perhaps send an email to Cakewalk or the manufacturer of your new interface to be sure.

And as I said I will be doing pretty much the exact same thing so I'll be updating this as I go along. Cheers.

Sorry guys. I don't think I'm gonna be able to get to the drivers and final install/test tonight. My stupid mortal body wants food and rest. It's a total jerk like that. I figured this might take a few days anyway so tomorrow I'll hopefully get everything fired up and working. BTW, at this point I'd estimate this device would probably be a 2-3 hour install including downloading/reading/understanding the manual, downloading/installing the drivers and setting it up for basic input/output within Sonar under ideal conditions. The only reason it's taking so long for me is that I'm typing all this up and taking little breaks to piddle around with other things I've got going on. Letting what I've learned today settle into my brain overnight and start fresh tomorrow will likely make the final install/test work out better anyway so all is good. Cheers.

Well that was really weird timing for the forum to kick back in. I JUST managed to finish installing my dealybob. I should probably edit my notepad doc before posting it though. lol

Alright... I'm just gonna post it. It was written real time so it's a little wacky. I'll fix my brainfarts and bad spelling once it's up. Why did the forum go down BTW?

Well the forum is down today so I'm gonna have to continue my adventures within notepad. Got the rig fired up and I'm about to go over to the Focusrite site to snag my drivers. Yes, I am downloading directly to the recording rig. I just updated Microsoft Security Essentials and I don't think Focusrite is gonna give me any internet cooties so it should be fine. I also use Firefox with NoScript and AdBlockPlus for extra security. If you're really paranoid though or don't know much about internet security you can just download the drivers on another system. Save and scan the zip file. Toss it onto a disc or a USB key (sometimes it's good to have a copy of your drivers on hand anyway in case you can't get online) and then toss the file onto your recording system to unzip/install the file.

WARNING: According to the manual you should not hook up the device to the computer until the drivers are installed. This way it doesn't try to use another driver and screw things up. I'm also going to install the mixer software before connecting the 18i6 as well but I don't hink that is actually necessary.


So now I'm on Focusrite's site. I clicked the "Downloads" link at the top of the page and it gives me a list of all their products. I scroll down to the "Scarlett" section and click on "Scarlett 18i6". This brings up a screen with drivers for Windows and Mac, the download for their "MixControl" software and a PDF download of the manual. It also provides details on the various fixes and improvements. It seems these drivers were updated in June of 2012.



I allowed focusrite.com within NoScript (sometimes it messes with downloads) and clicked on the Windows driver download link. There does not seem to be different drivers for the various versions of Windows so I guess this is supposed to work for all of them. The download took about 15 seconds over broadband. I double clicked the file directly in the download window within firefox. You can also just go to the "Downloads" folder of your computer and it should be there. I like to copy files like this from the Downloads folder and put them in a folder on my desktop where I keep all my installed drivers for easy access and backup.

After double clicking the driver file Windows defender pops up and is telling me the program is not from a Verified Publisher. I figured Focusrite would be Microsoft verified but I guess not. Doesn't matter. I clicked OK (or continue or whatever it said) and the installation wizard popped up telling me to close all other applications so I closed down FireFox and clicked next. It does it's little dance and then I get another Wizard. Clicked next. Got another windows warning. Clicked OK and then the driver seems to have installed. It only took a couple of seconds to install. Now I have a screen telling me the Focusrite is ready to use. I clicked "Finish" and that's that.

I checked to see in the "Sounds" section of the control panel whether the 18i6 was the default audio device now but it is not so I'll probably have to connect the device to finish the install and if that doesn't work perhaps change the settings manually.

Edit: Okay... I'm an idiot. It says right in the manual you have to hook up the device then restart the computer for it to fully install. Hopefully moving onto the next step did not screw things up.

For now though I want to install the Mixcontrol software so I opened Firefox and downloaded Mixcontrol from the same Focusrite page I was on before. Again I double clicked the file in the downloads window, ignored the Windows Defender pop up and got my installation wizard. Closed Firefox and clicked Next. Accepted the User Agreement and clicked Next allowing it to install to the default location on my C drive. I clicked the Create a desktop icon and ignored the Quick Launch icon (this is just a matter of personal preference). Clicked Next. Now I have the Ready to Install screen. Clicked Install and it did it's install dance which took about 10 seconds. Now for some reason I'm getting an installation Wizard for the USB 2.0 Driver. Uh oh. I just installed the driver. I'd better look into this.

Okay... so this driver which seems to have squirreled its way into my Mixcontrol download is saying it is the USB 2.0 Audio Driver Ver. 2.2 which was released in October 2011. I just installed the 2.3 version from April 2012 so this looks like a bit of a screw up on Focusrite's part. I am just going to cancel this driver installation wizard and hope that I do indeed already have the correct driver. I do NOT want to overwrite the most recent driver with the older one especially considering many people were having problems with the old driver. I probably should send Focusrite an email letting them know this could cause some confusion and they should take the 2.2 driver out of the MixControl 1.1 download.

See now why it pays to be an anal weirdo sometimes? ;-)

hmm... okay. Pressing Cancel gives me a message saying the set up is not complete so I think what I'll do instead is allow this install then RE-INSTALL the 2.3 driver. What a pain in the butt. Definitely going to email Focusrite about this to give them the heads up.

Okay... so that all took an extra 30 seconds. No big deal but Focusrite needs to clean up that download page so people aren't inadvertently getting the wrong drivers. I hope this did not screw up my installation.

Okay... now I need to actually attach the 18i6 to my computer. IT'S THE MOMENT OF TRUTH!!! Oh wait... where am I gonna plug this thing in? I can't see the back of my computer? My power bar doesn't have spot open big enough to accommodate the adapter? Oh woe is me!

Well I'm kind joking. I anticipated this... somewhat.

So first off I need to find a place to plug in the big ole clunktastic power supply. I have all my stuff connected to a semi fancy Belkin surge protecting power bar. It's great because it has 12 outlets. There are three on each side that are perfect for wall warts because the top of the adapter is pointed to the center of the power bar and there is lots of room in between the outlets. That makes it easy to have three normal sized wall warts on each side. Running down the center of the power bar are six outlets oriented so the top/bottom are in line with the length of the power bar. They are bunched tightly together like a normal power strip so you can have your computer power cables, monitor power cables, etc (anything that is NOT a wall wart) plugged into these. So to solve my wall wart conundrum I just unplugged my monitor power cables and put them on the center strip. Now I have room for my Focusrite Wall Wart. Eventually I really need to invest in a UPS but this strip is quite nice and I'm glad I bought it. I only bring this up because it sucks trying to set up a new piece of gear only to realize you have no where to plug it in.

So now I need to figure out my USB connection. I have TONS of USB ports all over this system but I don't want to just cram this thing in willy nilly. It is a USB 2.0 and although Focusrite assures me that the Scarlett will now work on USB 3.0 ports... I ain't gonna take the chance. They JUST updated that stuff so I will stick to 2.0. Also I have USB 2.0 ports on the front of my computer but they are the CASE'S USB connectors which I attached to headers on my motherboard and the wires are pretty thin and cheap. I think I want these attached directly to the motherboard. Also there is a lot of talk on the internet about picking a USB port for important data transfer devices and sticking to it. It makes sense to me as I wouldn't want to trip up my MOBO or OS or whatever little gnomes that live inside my computer making it do its thing by moving around onto different ports. I think it can actually mess with the USB hub drivers a bit too. So I yanked the computer out from its hidey hole to get at the back to find my USB 2.0 slots. Seeing as how this will be a pretty permanent device I chose one that is LESS accessible because I won't be removing that cable often. Okay... done.



I FINALLY pulled out the 18i6 and connected it to the computer using the provided USB cable and attached the power adapter to the back (I had already plugged the adapter into my power bar). I got a taskbar message that the drivers were installing. It took about 5 seconds. Now I have a message window stating my Scarlett 18i6 USB is installed and ready to use. Clicked close and now I'll reboot.

So again I'm a dumbass. I should have checked for and installed my Windows updates first. Does not seem to affected anything though... yet.

So now I can see via Control Panel > Sounds that the Scarlett is installed and has become my default audio device (remember I still have my Echo Layla installed which I can still see but it is no longer the default audio device... it swapped them out automatically).



I think at this point I'll yank my ethernet cable from the computer as I don't need the intertubes for this process anymore.

Now I just disabled the Layla Analog and Digital outs in the Sounds window. I did not remove the driver. Just disabled the Layla. That may not have been necessary but I did it anyway just to avoid any potential driver/hardware conflicts. Now I'm gonna reboot again just in case that is required (which it may not be but what the heck... it takes a few seconds). Rebooted... So now that everything is hooked up I can see my 18i6 has it's Power, USB and LKD (sync clock) LEDs lit up (they actually light up as soon as you connect the power but I couldn't see the front of the interface up until this point as it was turned around). HOORAY! It's all hooked up and ready to go.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for... getting playback from Sonar X1. This MAY cause some problems as my test project was using the Layla. Let's see what happens when I open it. DUHN DUHN DUUUUHNNNNN!!!!

Project opens fine.

Now... Edit > Preferences > Devices

Uh oh... this is what I feared. ASIO Echo Layla is still the default driver for the project. I do however see the Focusrite connections in the list but they are greyed out.

I kind of don't give a crap at this point and have multiple versions of this project I call fall back to anyway so I'm just going to uncheck the Layla drivers and see what happens.

TAAA DAAA! By unchecking the Layla driver stuff the Focusrite options are no longer grayed out.

So Sonar does something weird that I don't get yet but for some reason it will only show my odd number inputs and outputs (essentially just naming the first channel of a stereo pair). It all still seems to work this way but I would like to see my EVEN numbered inputs in the driver section. Whatever. I decided just to check off ALL of the Focusrite ins/outs in the driver section even though I won't be using the SPDIF/ADAT or even most of the line ins any time soon. By doing this all the Echo Layla drivers are now grayed out. Good. Now I'll click OK.

MISSING AUDIO OUTPUTS!!! EVERYBODY RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

Just kidding... Sonar is just asking me if I want to reassign the project outputs. It is showing the missing output as the Layla and offers up the Scarlett as an available device. I made sure that it is set to the stereo monitor out of the Scarlett and now I'll click OK.

Alright... nothing exploded. Good. Now to pull out my headphones.

AAAAND WE HAVE LIFT OFF!!! My test track is playing through my headphones (connected to the headphone jack) and it is glorious.

So at this point I have achieved a successful install despite the fact my old interface is STILL hooked up to the system and I really don't know what the heck I am doing.

Happy days... happy days.

EDITED FOR SPELLING ERRORS AND BRAINFARTS JUNE 16th 2012

I'll edit that and post more as I work with the Scarlett as far as the Pres and general usability. It's late now though so that all can wait. Just happy it's working.

Hey Beepster, nice review up to now. I'm interested in what kind of latency you are getting. I'm thinking about getting a new interface to replace my Delta 1010LT, and the scarlett series is one of the contestants.. :)

Well Beepster its good to finally know it works!

I have been sitting here with bated breath anticipating the big moment. 

Have you come across the WOW factor yet?

Good afternoon, all.

@c5_convertible... Hi. That's gonna be a little tricky to give a straight answer to for a few reasons I won't get into until I have some more caffeine in me but as of yet... I don't know. I'll check the numbers when I fire up the rig next (later today if I can shake off the cobwebs enough to get motivated) but the manual talks about a "Zero Latency Monitoring" setting which claims to allow you to track at zero latency. As far as the regular settings it sounds like most people online get good latency values (depending on their computer) but as I said I'll check it out as much as possible (I doubt I'll be tracking anything significant in the next day or so because I want to finish my test project first which is all loops). I'll let you know what I find out.

@John... Heheh. Yeah, me too. Now that it is actually installed I'd say if I just shut my yap and plowed into it I would been able to get everything I've described here (including reading the manual, downloading drivers, etc...) done in about an hour or so. It would have been even quicker if it was a fresh install without the Layla 3G being in the picture but even changing the settings for that was pretty quick and easy.

@keneds... Well just checking out the features, seeing the build of the box, the ease of installation have all given me mini wows. This might sound weird and could be entirely in my head but the headphone jack sounded... well, just nicer? smoother? cleaner? something... than the Layla's. IDK though. I think any REAL wow factor won't be apparent until I get a chance to properly test out the mic pres which is gonna be a bit of an ordeal. I haven't even LOOKED at a microphone for almost 3 years (pathetic really but I haven't been tracking or doing any live work in that time) so I have to dig them all out as well as some stands I have buried in my garage. I think the ultimate test is going to be simply my voice, my acoustic guitar and my Samson condenser mics. I'm quite excited for that day to come but as I said I want to finish my test track first as it's essentially how I'm teaching myself X1 and hammering out my workflow. Very soon though as that is getting to the final mixing stage (which I'm hoping you guys will be able to offer some advice on... but that'll be another thread).

Cheers!

Just did a bit of poking around on the net about the "Zero Latency Monitoring/Direct Monitoring" feature. I guess it just sends the signal being performed directly to the headphones and main outs so it's not traveling to the DAW and back which is where the latency would happen (it's still getting sent to the DAW for recording). So that's cool for vocals and stuff where you pretty much have the general sound but if you were using plugins from the DAW they wouldn't be applied to the monitored signal. That's kind of a drag for how I want to do my guitar stuff. I'd be using Guitar Rig for tone and effects but just recording the flat instrument signal then actually applying the final effects in post. So even though I just want the flat non effected signal to be recorded I'd still want some distortion and stuff while recording so I'm getting my performance right as far as palm muting, attack, harmonics, stuff like that. This does not seem to be possible with the Zero Latency Monitoring feature. No biggie though. Just worth noting.

Oh and when using that feature you have to make sure the DAW is set so you aren't monitoring the post interface signal as well. Otherwise you'd get two signals at once with the signal from the DAW being slightly later than the direct signal from the interface.

Just taking a break from house work and thought about this. One thing I haven't mentioned yet about the Scarlett series is the "Loopback" feature. All of the smaller versions like the 2i2 and 8i6 have a loopback function that allows you to record directly from other applications like Media Player or a web browser (eg: if you wanted to snag a sample from youtube, soundcloud or wherever) without any physical connections. However the 18i6 does NOT have this feature because all the internal wiring is used up for the physical connections. If you read about this feature and wanted to use it the 18i6 won't do it like the other devices. I was a little disappointed with that but I decided I'd rather be able to have the extra physical inputs in case I want to record a full drum kit or a band at some point.

Whoa... I couldn't find this thread for a minute and thought it got moved or yanked. Whew, I put a lot of work into this. Would be a shame if it disappeared. Anyway, I was actually trying to work in Session Drummer and thought something was buggy with the panning. So after checking the console in X1 to make sure everything was panned straight ahead (a couple things weren't because I screwed something up when I was trying to do a gain staging thing like in the vids but I fixed it) I realized I should actually take a look at the Focusrite MixControl stuff. Why I didn't do that right when I started the system is beyond me. I clicked Start > All Programs > Focusrite... Now I have two folders within my Focusrite folder. "Scarlett MixControl" and "USB 2.0 Audio & MIDI Driver". I know I want MixControl but I wanna see what's in that other folder first. Click... so in that folder I have "Focusrite USB 2.0 Audio Control Panel" and "Uninstall". Control Panel? That sounds interesting. So I clicked that and a little window popped up that simply has the Focusrite Logo, A horizontal fader labeled "Buffer Length" (the fader is set all the way to the LEFT and beside it is giving a value of 10ms) and below all that are two buttons labeled "Apply" and "Close". The apply button is greyed out but I'm sure if I moved this fader it would come to life... but I'm not gonna do that right now. So I clicked close and now I wanted to check out the "Scarlett MixControl" folder. I opened it up and there's mixer console I was describing earlier. However I get a popup telling me I need a Firmware Update and doing so would require the device to reset (I'm paraphrasing because don't have the window up anymore). Crud. I had a project open so I saved it, exited Sonar, exited the MixControl panel, connected my computer to the net, navigated back to the Scarlett MixControl software, opened it and got the same popup. I clicked okay (or update or whatever the button said... I forget). It did a little dance for about ten seconds or so and said it needed to reset the device and that it could take a couple minutes... but the window just hung for a few seconds and disappeared leaving me with my MixControl console. I'm gonna reboot anyway just to be sure. Sorry for the block of text. I am typing at an odd angle and don't want to mess around with HTMLing in paragraphs. Just thought I'd update this while it was happening. Cheers.

BTW I don't think that firmware update came from the internet when I clicked OK. I think it was probably in the latest driver which I installed the other day. I did not see any indication the MixControl software was connecting to the internet during that process.

I was trying to find this thread a few minutes ago too... hmmm it's back. I'm interested in your settings and latency. I think I've decided to get the Presonus audiobox 44 vsl.

@clintmartin... That's really weird man. I looked through 3 pages for about 5 minutes and couldn't find it. Maybe it did disappear briefly. I'd better save it or something. Anyway... I'm just gonna keep everything at default settings for now and see what results I get. I'm looking at the MixControl and everything set to 0, middle pan, 44.1khz, mon 1 and 2, headphones Mix 1 left and right, SPDIF "Off", Bothe multi ins set to "Line", etc... Pretty much what you'd want from default settings. All the channels are labeled in stereo. When I click the "Chain" button it separates the stereo inputs. When I click "Settings" in the Status Monitor section (I forget if that's the right name... the part with Sample Rate and stuff displayed in LED red) it pops up my Buffer settings as I explained before and it is set to 10.0ms just like that USB control panel I just talked about. I could dig into this way more but I want to get back into Sonar. BBIAB.

I've been using my Line 6 HD500 as an interface. 24 bit 48 khz 128 buffers (128 is as low as the hd500 goes) produce a roundtrip latency of 14.1 ms. I think with the Presonus I'll go with 24 bit 48 khz and 64 buffers and hope for roundtrip latency of 6.5 to 7.

The Cake/Roland guys talk about getting 2.0ms latency with their stuff in the webinars. I'd like to see if I can weasel my way down to that with the Focusrite eventually but for now I'm gonna see what I get with the default settings. I may not even notice latency at 10ms.

Aaaand that just reminded me of the post asking for my latency with the device within Sonar. When I click Edit > Preferences > Driver Settings I get the following results with the settings I described earlier... "ASIO Reported Latencies: (includes buffer and hardware latencies) Input: 21.0msec, 928 samples Output: 31.1 msec, 1370 samples Total Roundtrip: 52.1 msec, 2298 samples" Yikes! I don't know exactly what all that stuff means but I know it was much better with the Layla. In the end my total rountrip was around 22ms with the Layla and that was after increasing my buffer. I'm sure this can be resolved with some tweaking but that is not what I'm trying to do right now. I'll play with this stuff later and report back. I am not currently doing any input stuff anyway so it doesn't matter... yet.

If I click the ASIO panel button on that same screen I get another fader for adjusting the buffer. I'll play with that more tomorrow and report back.