ART USB Dual Pre 2-channel Audio Interface / Preamplifier Reviews

I bought this as an emergency fix for a live sound problem. I was running sound for a community theatre group. They used a 16x4 snake that was 15+years old. The snake had been used for indoor concerts and summer concerts in the park. The summer humidity has taken a toll on the snake. Some channels would not carry a signal. Those that did carry the signal significantly degraded the strength of the signal. The signal out of the sanke was less than -30dB. Nothing registered on the PFL meter. The group did not want to buy a replacement snake. So, I bought the ART Dual Pro to boost the signal from the stage mics. Worked perfectly. Decent fidelity for the application. The signal strength was adequate to support the on-stage dialog of the actors. WHEW.... I had only three days to fix this problem. The Art Dual Pro saved the day. Since this near disaster, the community theatre has replaced the snake.

Great value. Can't believe it has the design, build and sound quality for the price. Enough features to do what you need to do yet simple enough for ease of use in any situation. I use it for live broadcast or live reference recordings off the PA output. Easily portable for remote recording. Definitely best in class!

My USB dual pre mixer is the first one I've bought and it's easy to use and great quality. Sweetwater staff and technicians were very helpful and patient.

The Other reviewer"s have said it all no need to repeat. Before putting the 9 V battery in, I glued a piece of dental floss to the bottom of the rechargeable battery leaving the floss hanging out the front of the unit. A tug on the floss removes the battery from it tight home. QED

I went shopping for a dual mic preamp to use with my performance rig based on iPad and iPod Touch. I ended up with not only a fine dual pre, but a very functional USB audio interface with 0-latency monitoring and mixing capability. I suppose I didn't study the description enough, because I was not expecting such full function. I had the impression is provided audio input in only. A very good set of functions at an excellent price. And it sounds good. Now I just need to decide if I need 2 more.

You will get what you paid for, and a little more. For the price, this unit is almost priceless. It works without a smallest hitch powered through USB port (even via a Belkin USB unpowered hub!). Considering its size (another big selling point for a touring musician!), it is very well designed; compact and sturdy. Both preamps are very quiet. The manufacturer claims that the unit may be used as an audio interface and, apparently, is valued for its clean, warm sound. As every one, I take such statements with a grain of salt. Yet what the manufacturer says is completely true! The sound is indeed clean and warm. ( If used for recording, I recommend normalising afterwards.) I use it with the fantastic Edirol FA-101 interface, connected through ins 3-4. Under MacOSX no drivers are necessary. Also, I was able to create an Aggregate Device on my Mac, combingthe Dual Pre with the Edirol interface, giving me 10 ins/12 outs; this works great with Ableton Live 8. I played recordings made with this setup (plus a pair of Samson cardioid mics) for a couple of top notch pro engineers. They were positively surprised by the very high quality of the resultant sound. I recommend this product very warmly. BTW, Sweetwater service was superb and friendly, at least as good as what we are used to in Canada. Overall VERY POSITIVE experience.

I'm giving this little a 5 start rating because I'm considering its price. You get 2 ins (XLR-1/4") and two outs (1/4") plus a headphone output. Works great, no noise, decent gain-level, USB powered, and ultra portable! I'm using it only for rehearsals with string quartets, solo bassoon, solo cello, etc and it works great. I'm using it both for MaxMSP and Logic. You can get decent materials out of it. Highly recommended for these occasions. However, I wouldn't use it for a live situation or a more serious recording project. Overall, highly recommended, and for $80 you can't go wrong. Trust me!

I needed a interface for my laptop to send band members material from our last sessions. Normally I use
a desktop that has a decent sound card but I wanted to compile and edit things on a laptop which doesn't have a
decent interface. After researching USB interface devices I decided this would be a good less expensive option.
Set up and operation is a breeze and I have had no issues with this. Now we will be able to edit and share stuff at our next coastal sessions.
Of course Sweetwater is awesome and getting it to me in short order and Aaron Cieslikowski is fantastic at facilitating my orders and taking care of everything else I may need.

I agree with everything the other reviewers have listed. It is a great interface for recording..... you gotta remember to load the driver with Windows.
But something else... the band got to leave the bass amp at home... we plugged the bass guitar into the Dual pre and from there to the PA system... BOOM! One less backache. Beauty.

Gets it's power from the USB
This unit takes XLR or high impedance input.
(Dynamic or condenser mics, switchable phantom power)
Headphone or XLR output.
Using Audigy software, can edit/splice and output to MP3
and create CDs
I really like it.

Consumer reviews can be very misleading due to prejudices, misunderstandings and both positive and negative over reactions . I try to be objective and realistic because I like to be actually helpful rather than vent.
Now on with the review. The Art USB Dual is a JEWEL Pre. The caveats? It'is neither a Grace Design preamp nor a 24 bit 96kHz Cakewalk interface. It's not intended to be a high end studio console that fits in your pocket. It is an extremely handy tool of excellent quality that can make remote productions very convenient and make your day. It is the most versatile product of it's nature. There's nothing else to compare it with. Let's take a close look. It's relatively tiny and very compact. That makes it easy to carry and store. The disadvantage here is the slight clumsy use of the controls. The preamps sound very good and he phantom power is claimed to be a full 48 volts. My unit seemed to be prone to slight hum on the USB line which turned out to be caused by my laptop a/c adapter. The bit depth is 16, which seems troublesome for folks who think numbers are the end all answer to sound quality . Sixteen bit depth at a 44.1 kHz sample rate is absolute CD quality and is the best your end product will be, no matter what. If you are doing very complex studio mixing and editing, you may need the 24 bit headroom. In that case you probably wouldn't be using a USB interface. Technique and mic quality are far more significant considerations.
The battery compartment issue is interesting. I purchased the latest version, hoping the overly tight fit would be fixed. It is however, still a problem. If you insert the battery all the way it may become a permanent installation. I am actually going to turn this into a positive. Simply don't put it all the way down. It stays very secure even with the battery half exposed. The positive note here is that it helps to remind you to remove it after the job, thus saving battery leakage or drainage from forgetting to turn it off. Nothing is perfect, but I do think the USB Dual Pre is the perfect solution for portability and versatility. A combination USB interface and an analog preamp for providing a couple of extra inputs can make all the difference in achieving a successful project. As I said, there's nothing comparable. .

I bought this box to replace a much larger rig (mixer, 8-track HDD Recorder) for some simple stereo recording; mostly instrumental/vocal recital-type stuff.

So far, this Interface does exactly what it's supposed to. I'm running this through Ableton Live8 and it's working beautifully. Very low noise, clean sound.

My only minor issue is the 9-volt battery slot is a bit difficult to work with... It's a piece of cardboard between the battery and the inner-workings of the preamp. This makes it difficult to change batteries.

Other than that I'm pleased with it's performance.

I'll post another review after I can get some serious use out of it.

This little box allowed me to take my usual main outputs from my Behringer mixing board from the input to power amplifiers to the input of an iPad, via the lightning connector. I searched for some time looking for the answer, and turned to Sweetwater who confirmed what I wanted to do… This is now being used for mixing sound to produce weekly worship services for our church. Normally my gear is used for our live music venue, now closed due to the pandemic. (Hope to open again but probably not for at least another year) Great delivery and ordering process from these guys, as always, and of course my sales engineer, Chris called me immediately after ordering and made sure I was getting the correct item. I've worked with Chris for many years now and he has always been helpful and courteous. One of my musicians friend just the other night also raved about Sweetwater.

It took me a while to get it up and running properly in Adobe Audition. I had issues with noise, not recording properly, but but after a little research, I found it was Windows 7 issues, not issues with the ART USB Dual Pre. I've only used it a little so far, but its very straight forward and easy to control. If you get it figured out with your system, its an extremely quiet preamp. No latency if you get the recommended ASIO drivers. Also its built like a tank. On a budget and with a little patience to get everything configured, I definitely recommend the Art USB Dual Pre

Just picked this unit up to use as an interface to my iPad for Digital guitar apps. Works like a champ. I really had to search the web to find out this will work with an iPad and it isn't directly stated so I will here. THIS WORKS WITH AN IPAD!

I have guitar to one of the inputs, USB to iPad thru Camera Connection Kit, and one of the outputs back to my guitar rig mixer and power amp. I am using it to interface my guitar with JamUp Pro which provides excellent Guitar Amp and effects modeling. I have the ART USB + Ipad as one of the selectable preamps in my rig and it's perfect. Plus I still have the other input to use for a mic.

I have tried several other options like iRig and GuitarConnect Pro and have had poor success, but now I have a winner. There are more expensive option that claim to work, but not for this awesome price and it's packed with features and VERY flexible and compact.

With the battery, the preamp is powered by the battery but the USB path is powered by the buss so you don't draw as much power from the USB and keeps the iPad happy. It will also run without the battery powered strictly from the buss but the iPad may not like it as well.

It also make a perfect little portable rig also. It is VERY compact and with the battery + USB buss power, All I need is my guitar, the Art USB, and my ipad and can send a feed to the Front of house or amp and also have built in headphone monitoring. Perfect!

I also plan on recording some of my music with this thing using the built in 12 track recording in my guitar app. It would also work with other DAW recording apps for the iPad.

The battery compartment is tight and I haven't had to remove it yet but I will get it out.

Thanks for the tip on which product to purchase. This took care of ongoing computer audio problems from PowerPoint embeded movies. We can now rely on the sound to be right. Thanks!

Wanted something more portable than hauling a Mackie 1202 mixer around to pull computer, device and mic audio into my laptop for podcasting. Worked well but the SM58 XLR mic was pretty soft even with the gain all the way up while I had to keep the gain down for the iPhone on the second channel. Seems the preamp isn't quite as strong as the one I have in the Mackie mixer, but this is a lot more portable.

includes two inputs, compact, sturdy, easy solution

I have had one of these since they first came out. I used mine to boost
an ear monitor. I used the 9volt battery and put velcro on the bottom to
Connect to a strap belt. It has been plug in play with USB applications.
Recently, I have used it with my Lenovo tablet with Open Camera to get high
Quality audio feed from my Mackie 1202 VLZ mixer. I have used it with a USB C
Hub with my Samsung Note 10 plus as well. Works with Open Camera app. I have XLR
Attenuators to lower input level. It has been a usual product for me.

Not a bad preamp. This one loads it's own drivers and is ready to go quickly. The web is replete with horror stories about USB interface software that doesn't work with certain operating systems or software programs, but this one is simple. Sounds clear and strong. On/Off light is on either way. Phantom power light is always off either way (?) The green signal indicator light comes on only shortly before the clip light comes on, but I'm sure that this is to encourage a strong, usable signal. Satisfied an old cranky guy that hates computers, but is learning to deal with it. Could be better, but I'll take it.

For the price this provides very good sounding I/O. It worked fine with Windows 7. However, the lack of a driver for Chrome is disappointing. Chome is expected to catch Apple in market share in the coming year (although the market will still be Windows dominated) so this needs to be fixed.

Superglue a heavy-duty L-shape to the battery and you will be able to pull it out.

I have found this unit to be too inconsistent to be used all the time. I only use it to track guitar parts when writing songs. But for it to work one minute and crap out the next is extremely frustrating. My recommendation would be to buy something else.

Electrically, this dual preamp does exactly what it should. The pres are quiet, the construction quality is robust (with one glaring exception- more on that in a minute) and the pots are static-free. When running the unit on an external power adapter (not included) or via USB, you'll probably be a happy camper.

HOWEVER. If you need to run it on a 9V battery for field use, you're out of luck. The battery "compartment" is, believe it or not, a taped-together CARDBOARD sleeve which seems to be intended to keep the battery case from shorting out the nearby, and fully exposed, electronics. The battery is held in place by friction alone; there are no walls whatsoever on the battery 'compartment.' Unfortunately (to put it mildly) there is absolutely no way to remove a dead battery from the unit! That's right, it's stuck in there forever. There's no room for needle-nosed pliers to get a grip, there's no possible way to get your fingernails around the battery, there's no little red 'battery removal' ribbon like there used to be on old-fashioned electronics... and even if there were, the cardboard sleeve fits in the opening so tightly that I'm not sure the battery could be removed before the ribbon broke.

Unless you have the foresight to stuff a little gremlin inside the unit who can shove dead batteries out for you, (which I didn't,) you're well and truly out of luck when it comes time to change the battery.

ART really blew it on the battery 'compartment' design. The unit is otherwise a dandy, affordable preamp- but how they let this flaw get past them is anyone's guess. Disappointing, to say the very least.