Focusrite Saffire Reviews | Sweetwater.com

great success
by Troy Stoner from Savannah, GA, October 2008
Music Background: Amateur Composer/Engineer

The Focusrite Saffire is a triple threat of an interface. It is great for those looking to experiment with surround mixing and composition, while still providing quality focusrite preamps for recording vocals or dual micing a guitar, with the added benefit of nice, internal dsp-handled plugins. What more could an avant-garde composer want?!

Great
by Anonymous from Asia, March 2008
Music Background: Hip hop emcee, producer, and studio engineer

This is a great piece of equipment. Honestly, if I didn't have to pay $55 for shipment and an additional $70 at my doorstep for handling, bank, and customs fees, I would have probably given this a perfect score.

The sound quality is great for vocals. It blends with the rest of the mix very well, and has a lot of presence and richness. I have had no problems with the drivers other than the occasional time when I have to unplug and plug the device so that my laptop recognizes it once again.

I have sometimes heard some clicks and pops during audio playback, but it is no big deal at all.

The on-board EQ is stunning. I love it. The compressor is okay, as it tends to have too much of a processed sound sometimes.

The physical features of the unit are great: the mute switch, the two headphone outputs, and the monitor and headphone volume knobs.

Overall, I love this thing. It is like a dream come true.

Good " 4 the money"
by Ken-E from Greensboro, November 2007

Good pre's
OK A/D,

good DSP effects

But, while using windows this piece may crash and reset in the middle of a session.
You might then need to go to your pre-references and select audio drivers again.

Will give you a good sound though, Very good for the money! Find it hard to complain.

oh yeah 10 outs thats crazy
Pick it up if only for the pre's and the 10 outs

For the Price - Focusrite could up their game.
by from California, May 2007
Music Background: BA in Recording Arts and Music Industry / Musician / Beatmaker / Producer / Engineer

I bought this unit after long research and debate over other similarly priced FW interfaces. The main selling point for me was the price and the fact that it was made by Focusrite - who, if youve ever had any experience with actually makes some really top of the line equipment (namely premaps and channel strips).

I bought the Saffire with the immediate knowledge that I was sacrificing a ton of I/O - but I figured the MicPres had to be good enough to make it worth my while....well, I was wrong.

This is all based on opinion of course - but I think for that much paper and comparing similar products in its class and price point, Focusrite entirely jipps you since you only get 2 micpres and 2 analog ins. Then they throw in 8 analog outs intended for a surround mix, but generally anyone buying a interface in this price point isnt even going to have a sufficient speaker setup for mixing in surround anyways! - So in my opinion, its a gimic to throw all those outs in there and rob you of the most critical part you need - the INS!

Also: The build quality is kind of tacky feeling. With consideration to what the thing weighs (which is virtually nothing) it seems Focusrite could have easily scaled the size down as well to maybe a 3rd smaller then what it really is.
THE PICTURES ARE DECEIVING AND MAKE IT LOOK VERY COMPACT.
It also can wobble over very easily since regardless of its little feet that are supposed to reinforce its stability.

My last gripe is that the Control Software really sucks and could have been engineered a whole lot better.

On a positive note - the micpres are very quite and so I give Focusrite props for that but the cons highly outweigh the pros.

Powerful, great-sounding interface
by Shane Hendricks from Hattiesburg, MS, July 2006
Music Background: Musician/composer since 1986

The Focurite Saffire sounds terrific to me. So far I've used it with my MXL condenser mic, but I can't vouch for the sound yet with my SM57. It's my first interface, so I'm comparing it to using the 16/44 I/O of my G4. The onboard compression and EQ sound great and are a big help, but frankly...the pres don't need a lot of help sounding great (obviously blows away my Behringer Ultragain Pro pre that has a tube). This box is all metal except for the front. The I/Os are balanced, and the outs on the back are bolted in tight. Midi I/O works great. If you love having tons of routing options, you'll dig the SaffireControl software that facilitates many submixes via the 10 outs; software takes a little time to get used to, but then no problems. SPDIF I/O works great with my V-Amp and DAT. Overall, a very sturdy, attractive, versatile, and great sounding unit. Glad I bought it.

Gripes? A few. The headphone amps are a little weak, but I think Focusrite did this on purpose to keep you from blowing your head off. I had to buy a new AGP video card to power my two video monitors, as one of my old PCI ATI Rage's caused the Saffire to click, pop, and reset whenever there was graphical movement on the attached monitor. Sometimes after a start-up, the unit will not come on and I'll have to unplug and replug the firewire cable. Sometimes at 96K, I'll start having some clicking in the left channel if the processor is under stress. No problems so far at 44 and 48K. At 192 K, you get a reduced software set--still not sure why, but you make some sacrifices to work in 192 (my computer can barely handle 96, so no problems for me there).

I still need to give this thing a workout on the ol' DAW, but I don't think I'll be sending it back. My gripes are minor annoyances that I'm not sure any other comparable interface could solve; much of the problem likely lies with the age and ability of old, heavily-upgraded AGP G4 (dual 1.2 GHz). If you use DP like me, you'll have to set the work priority to LOW.

Quite a surprise
by BS from Germany, July 2006

I always doubted the quality of the Saffire before i bought it. Just as I doubted the quality of each "all in one" device out there. Before I bought the Saffire I already used the Mindprint TRIO, M-Audio Fast Track Pro, M-Audio Firewire 410 and the Terratec X24 FW.
I'm quite surprised by the sound quality of the Saffire. I compared the internal preamps to a lot of well known outboard preamps. Of course - differences were audible. But the Saffire held its head high in this competition. Combine the Saffire with a good condenser mic and you're ready to go.
I wouldn't recommend using the Saffire preamps with dynamic mics like a SM58 or SM7, though. Outboard preamps provide more gain with less noise for this purpose. Dynamics with a higher output like the Beta 58A on the other hand are no problem with the internal preamps.
The routing and monitoring options are very nice, as well as two headphone outputs.
Drivers are very solid in my experience (XP-SP2, using onboard via-firewire-chipset on an ASUS A8V Deluxe mainboard).
In comparison to the M-Audio Firewire 410, which I used before, the Saffire provides balanced I/O and better preamps.
In the end, I can absolutely reommend the Saffire for mobile- and project-studio-recording.

Great Sound, Easy to Use
by Brian Greminger from Ann Arbor, MI, USA, June 2006
Music Background: Video Producer/Sound Engineer

DanG! This is one sweet piece of equipment! I mostly record voiceover for video, and had been using a Neumann TLM103 hooked up to an Event Layla 20 with an ART TubeMP to boost gain and add warmth. I tried swapping out the Layla with an Event EZBus, but weird drops in audio (ahh, USB's susceptability to system interrupts!) kept ruining takes. Not so, Saffire! I'm running it on a dual-boot MacBook Pro, and it's clean and reliable on both sides of the Windows/MacOS fence (I've also used it for event recording, up to 1.25 hrs per take). I still like to add the TubeMP into the chain, but I don't need to just for the gain. And, it fits into my 'puter bag. Very happy, and would recommend highly.

Saffire is a Jewel
by Bob P. from Austin, TX, January 2006

I have a Pentium 4 notebook but opted to try and use my older Pentium 3 desktop running at 933MHZ with no problems at all. Saffire and Cubase loaded very easy
and I had no problem authorizing the plug-ins. Good documentation for both Saffire and Cubase via PDF and online tutorials. Have had several sessions and have had no problems. Sounds great. An advantage of the firewire is it powers up without need for AC jack. Highly recommend.

firewire is better than usb
by David dyer from Indiana, December 2005

Anyone who thinks usb 2 is better than firewire is uneducated about the two diffrent interfaces. Firewire is all hardware, does not require your cpu to work. Were USB 2 is partly software driven like a winmodem, which requires cpu resources. Summary USB 2 is slower than firewire regardless of the 400MB vs 480MB theoretical speeds. USB uses more of your computers resources to operate, taking resources away from more important processes.

Good, yet off to a bad start
by David L from California, November 2005

I've had my saffire now for a week, It takes a while getting used to the software but I love the features and options the sound is amazing, the downside to everything right now is the saffire reboots to sync the sample rate it records at, sometimes in the middle of a recording sessions causing everything to get jumbled up, and I thought my mic was busted so i shelled out for a new one, and as it turns out it's not the mic but the saffire that is distorting the signal and making it brittle....... not good, I'm going to exchange it with another one..... maybe it's a faulty unit...... for me it's either this or the presonus fire box............ :-/

I own one
by Anonymous from ny, September 2005

I have one and the sound is dead on!!! Reccomended purchase.

I got it today,,,,WOW
by H.I.M. Productions from Detroit,MI, September 2005

I hate firewire but this was to much to pass up. It was taken a little while to figure the DSP out,But after that, i got it runnin like a champ. I wish Cubase SX3 prosessed at 192kHz, boy would that put icing on the cake,,,,,,,you must get this jewel box

Wow. Amazing
by Anonymous from Vancouver, BC CAN, September 2005

Yeah, I work at a music store and got to check it all out before I bought one. I just put it through the paces and this thing is amazing. Sounds wonderful... converters, preamps and plugins. On par with others in it's class (Firebox, UA-66) but blows them away for features/flexibility.

D

It's about time.
by Anonymous from Texas, May 2005

Finally, a preamp/AD Converter that sounds as good as the Mbox but you don't have to use Pro Tools LE with it. I just wish it was USB2.0 instead of firewire.
I don't own one yet, but next payday I will.

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