A touch of class... Focusrite's Red range can be found in just about every professional audio recording establishment across the globe. The front fascia is made from 1/2' thick diamond cut anodized aluminum. Internally, the RED mic pre shares the same design as the original ISA110.
Using the same circuit topology as the original ISA microphone pre-amplifier designs, the Red 1 offers four channels of ultra-high quality Focusrite microphone amplification. Used with high quality ribbon, valve and condenser mics, the Red 1 obtains outstanding results with any sound source, but especially voice, piano and string instruments.
The Red 8, with a perfectly matched pair of mic amps, offers identical channel controls to the Red 1, and is especially suited to demanding mono or stereo recording work, such as location classical recording with digital recording media. Each channel offers custom-wound Focusrite input transformers, switchable phantom power, phase reverse, an easily-read illuminated VU meter, and a handy scribble disc for denoting channels. Mic gain is switched in 6dB steps over a 66dB range, for accurate, precise channel matching and recall.
The many benefits of the unique Focusrite mic amp topology include superb common-mode rejection, a good overload margin and, with its shared gain structure, (20dB from transformer and up to 40dB from the amplifier) a very low noise floor with the signature wide bandwidth (10Hz to 150kHz). It also maintains this level of performance with a very wide range of impedance across the inputs. In practice, this makes it what one reviewer called, “perhaps the most revealing yet forgiving mic pre-amp in history.”
The output stages of both the Red 1, with its custom transformer, will easily drive very long cable runs – up to several kilometers – without significant loss of quality, making them ideal for remote recordings
Focusrite RED 8 Features :
- Hand-made in the UK - Crafted to the highest standards, all the Red Processors are manufactured solely in the UK using machine-tooled, half-inch thick claret red anodized aluminum.
- Classic transformer based preamplifier - The benefits of Focusrite’s classic pre-amp topology include superb common-mode rejection, an excellent overload margin, an extremely low noise floor and super-wide bandwidth.
- Phase Reverse and Phantom Power - Available independently on both channels via firm-response illuminated switches
- VU output level meter - Two easily-read illuminated porthole window VUs are provided.
- Scribble discs - Two handy scribble discs for denoting each channel
- Stepped gain potentiometers - Mic gain is switched in 6dB steps over a 66dB range, for accurate, precise channel matching and recall.
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The Rite Red - About the Focusrite Red Range.
The Focusrite Red Range is hand-made, crafted to the highest standards. All the Red Processors are manufactured solely in the UK using machine-tooled, half-inch thick
claret red anodised aluminium. The chassis features recessed section grooves and styling motifs, (sculpted with diamond-tip cutters,) porthole windows, anoprinted silver control text, and firm-response illuminated switches.
All potentiometers are manufactured to Focusrite’s own specification by French company ‘Sfernice’, and are made from conductive plastic which gives more sensitivity and no mechanical resistance (easy to make very fine adjustments).
All Red products feature sealed relays, (gold-plated silver in an inert gas,) situated in the middle of the circuits in which they switch. The precious metals mean that all contacts are low resistance, and the gas prevents any kind of corrosion of the surface of the contacts, meaning the most perfect audio switching device ever designed - utterly passive, zero distortion caused and no FET’s required.
Red Range processors with mic pre’s feature solid-state-amplified audio transformers, which help to give the characteristic “warm, organic sound” loved by studios world-wide. Transformers are the only way of giving a truly floating and earth-free system, because there’s no galvanic connection between the input and output circuitry.
Transformers are not new in audio; they were there at the outset, but whilst others were trying to design them out to cut costs, Focusrite went after the best transformer possible, a philosophy which resulted in the transformers you find in the Red series today.
Low frequency second order distortion created by transformer saturation provides the character that many perceive as ‘warmth’. Meanwhile, a high frequency emphasis generated by the reactance of the coil resonance with the terminating impedance of the microphone or receiving device, provides the engineer with open, spacious high frequencies.
The Red Range mic transformer in particular gets its legendary “transparent yet warm” label from this process, an apparent contradiction in terms, yet a genuine characteristic – audition a unit and hear for yourself.
