Focusrite Clarett+ 8Pre USB-C Audio Interface Reviews

Just received this product and replaced my 15 year old AVID MBOX PRO Firewire Interface
The additional channels, quality sound, and near zero latency has made my new studio setup fantastic
I have recently setup my studio above my garage and along all the other fantastic products from Sweetwater.
I am Rocking in the free state of IDAHO
I have include a couple of pics from the new - Attic Studios

This audio interface replaced a 15-year-old Presonus Firestudio Project. I had some reservations about moving from Firewire to USB but so far this unit has performed flawlessly. I'm using Studio One Pro 6.5 and I've had no issues with recording, playback, or using my plugins. I'm looking forward to using some of the plug-ins that Focusrite included with the unit.

Matt (my sales engineer) and the team at Sweetwater continue to be the best in the business!

Have an Ensemble Firewire from apogee that when I upgraded my OS it died. Apple doesn't support FW any longer. So I thought bummer...but that was a blessing in disguise. This New interface is so clean and good I wish I did this months ago --- everything just tracks better... maybe it's the tequila .....but if you need to upgrade, buy this product. Love the AIR feature too

I've used this Clarett 8 ( superior to the Scarlet) for a couple of years now with vocals, live acoustic instruments, MIDI triggers, DI lines, Garage Band, Logic Pro, Ableton, and it's always very clean super low latency.
Apple products work like a charm with it. All the channels I need and then some. If I ever upgrade it it'll be a larger studio !

This is an upgrade from my MOTU 828mk3. Got tired of the lack of support or driver updates. Needed a more stable interface that also allows me to change buffers inside of PT without having to shut the session down first. The Clarett+ seems to have an accurate sound also. I just got it and haven't mixed with it yet, so take my review with a grain of salt. It was easy to install and has a similar routing option as the MOTU, so I had things up and running within a hour

I just received the unit yesterday so I haven't done any recording with it yet but I swear the outputs are much clearer and the frequency response is amazing. I don't usually do reviews but I had to mention this. Ill update this as soon as I record some tracks. So far, LOVING IT!

Crystal clear in and outs, no additional noise, and as a long-time Focusrite fan, it simply works and does it fantastically. I would recommend this to anyone and everyone.

I took my time in finding the right audio interface. I decided on this model for a number of reasons but the quality out of the box to the controls to the incredible sounds are enough for me. But wait, here's the fun part. When you register your product, you get access to more free (not demo's) plugins than you can imagine. The plugins actually pay for the unit. That was a surprise for me and an added bonus.

you don't need to look any further, this is the unit. Don't fall victim to what everyone "Thinks" is popular or part of a special club that if you don't use "Brand X" you're nothing. Well, this will prove them wrong.

The recordings I'm getting from this unit sounds fantastic. Might be not be perfect for small project studios. Low output microphones will almost certainly need a quality preamp. However, if you have the bucks, the Claret plus a pre will do a fantastic job.

After a few hiccups with the drivers for Windows 11 everything has been flawless. I upgraded from my Clarett 4pre to the Clarett+ 8pre and I love it. My recordings are crystal clear and the AIR feature is awesome on just about anything. Eventually I'm going to connect the two interfaces together for even more mic pres and inputs.

I upgraded from an aging Scarlett 18i20 and am very happy. Sounds great and has been solid so far. I'd give it five stars except for three issues. One, the Focusrite Control iOS app won't connect to my Wi-Fi, and is therefore useless (Focusrite Control itself on the PC is solid though). Two, the gain controls could have been more sensibly stepped - 75% of gain is squeezed into the last 20% of the pots, makes level matching a little tricky. Three, I can record a max of 17 channels at one time at 48k - 8 from the 8Pre, 8 from my Clarett+ OctoPre via ADAT, and one from my ISA One via SPDIF. Or I can use both channels from the ISA One, but then I must kill one of the other inputs. To be fair, I can't find where it says that the 8Pre can use 18 inputs at once (like the Scarlett can, allegedly), nor have I gone beyond basic troubleshooting steps, so maybe I'm missing something somewhere. Aside from that, even my old ears can tell that the preamps are a definite step up or three over the Scarlett.

Should have tested one before pulling the trigger, input gain is low even when turned all the way up in the trim knobs, i thought having pre's was supposed to enhance the input level and sound quality but not the case and i didn't mean to buy a whole new interface to have to add cloud lifters in every mic input the whole purpose was to have an interface with pre amps that worked as it should or i would have gone alot cheaper with a different approach very disappointed. Sweetwater said i was doing something incorrectly when consulted about this but obviously had no idea because it is well documented that this is a thing these interfaces do so that was disappointing as well. Unfortunately out of the return period when i finally got to use it i cant return it so im going to have to bite the bullet and sell it for what i can get.