Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56

[smlksmth]

I looked around and can't really find any threads on this interface!

I was in the market for a Digi 003 and a presonus 8 channel adat pre amp but I stumbleld upon this and it looks like it blows that setup out of the water for way less of a price.

Does anyone have any knowledge on it? It looks unbelievable!

[adrianww]

The Liquid Saffire 56 is a very nice unit. Lots of I/O, the Liquid pres are useful for adding tone or colour to your sound and the standard pres are pretty clean and useful too. Drivers seem rock solid on Win7 64-bit and latency is good.

The one caveat that I always try to mention on here though is that the Liquid Saffire 56 seems to do very badly in the AD-DA converter transparency test over in the audio tests forum (it's currently languishing right at the bottom of the pile). I know because it was my own LS56 that was tested. I'm going to be rerunning the tests again, just in case I screwed something up first time around, but it's currently looking like the LS56 doesn't have particularly transparent conversion. Or, at least, mine doesn't. Which is weird, considering it supposedly uses the same converter chips as the Apogee Ensemble, but that just goes to show what a difference all the other assorted circuitry in there makes I guess.

Overall though, I'm very happy with mine and won't be changing it in the foreseeable future - transparency test results or no. This is in the context of a small home/project studio for doing my own stuff (I'm a muso, not an audio engineer). If you're talking about "real" studio work and paying clients, it probably won't fit the bill as a main interface, although it could have a useful life as an alternate/backup.

If you have any specific questions about it, drop me a pm. Or go ahead and post 'em here if you think they'll be of general interest to other folks.

[smlksmth]

Originally Posted by adrianww

The Liquid Saffire 56 is a very nice unit. Lots of I/O, the Liquid pres are useful for adding tone or colour to your sound and the standard pres are pretty clean and useful too. Drivers seem rock solid on Win7 64-bit and latency is good.

The one caveat that I always try to mention on here though is that the Liquid Saffire 56 seems to do very badly in the AD-DA converter transparency test over in the audio tests forum (it's currently languishing right at the bottom of the pile). I know because it was my own LS56 that was tested. I'm going to be rerunning the tests again, just in case I screwed something up first time around, but it's currently looking like the LS56 doesn't have particularly transparent conversion. Or, at least, mine doesn't. Which is weird, considering it supposedly uses the same converter chips as the Apogee Ensemble, but that just goes to show what a difference all the other assorted circuitry in there makes I guess.

Overall though, I'm very happy with mine and won't be changing it in the foreseeable future - transparency test results or no. This is in the context of a small home/project studio for doing my own stuff (I'm a muso, not an audio engineer). If you're talking about "real" studio work and paying clients, it probably won't fit the bill as a main interface, although it could have a useful life as an alternate/backup.

If you have any specific questions about it, drop me a pm. Or go ahead and post 'em here if you think they'll be of general interest to other folks.

Awesome thanks so much!

Do you run any pres with it? How do you like the first two channels modeling after famous pres?

[lostwars]

I also use this interface. Personally, I love the liquid channels. If you have a good range of mics to use, you will find something usable in the emulations. I use an SM57 on the first channel with the 1073 emulation and a Oktava319 on the second channel with the Old Tube or Millennium emulation for my guitar sound. It works really well. The other channels with Focusrite pres are great as well. The only thing I don't like is not all the other channels are the same. Some have pads, some have HPF but not all. When mixing a drum set, bass and snare get the liquid channels and everything else is spread across the remaining channels. I also used this as a part of a mobile recording setup and it works well with recording off a soundboard or with a few mics. If you can get it for 750 or cheaper, go for it. I am thinking about getting an RME interface as my business is expanding, but I do love this interface for what it is.

[adrianww]

Originally Posted by smlksmth

Awesome thanks so much!

Do you run any pres with it? How do you like the first two channels modeling after famous pres?

I don't currently run any external pres with it, but if I was going to, I'd probably look for external pres with their own converters/digital outputs and run into the LS56 through ADAT or SPDIF (or AES - I think there's an option to switch the SPDIF connection to ensure compatibility with AES signals over coax/RCA, although that's more or less just SPDIF anyway from what I understand about it). That way, I get extra inputs and still have access to the existing pres on the interface.

Although I don't think there'd be any problem with running an external pre in through the line inputs if that was what someone wanted to do - they're plenty clean enough and shouldn't do anything horrible to your signal - but there isn't a way to bypass the variable gain stage on them and there isn't a clear unity gain position/marking on the controls. That's the one small area that I sometimes wish Focusrite had done things slightly differently. It would be great if the gain controls were stepped/detented (or digitally controlled like some of the MOTU stuff for example, if only to make it easier to match adjacent channels for stereo pairs) and also it would be nice to have a way to bypass the gain stage or at least have an easy way to set a fixed unity gain.

In terms of the Liquid pre emulations, I honestly don't know how close they get to the originals since I've never heard any of the original hardware. I've heard some people say they're nowhere near, while others say they get pretty close - I think it varies depending on how well the listener knows the originals, which originals they were familiar with (since they all probably sound slightly different anyway) and what their own expectations and/or biases were.

From my point of view, the Liquid pres are certainly a great addition to the whole package since they do give you nice tonal variations that you can use to complement different sound sources. I'm really still learning my way around them to get a feel for what they work best on and which settings give me the best results for different things, but I think they're a really good feature.

[Chagalj]

Originally Posted by adrianww

The Liquid Saffire 56 is a very nice unit. Lots of I/O, the Liquid pres are useful for adding tone or colour to your sound and the standard pres are pretty clean and useful too. Drivers seem rock solid on Win7 64-bit and latency is good.

The one caveat that I always try to mention on here though is that the Liquid Saffire 56 seems to do very badly in the AD-DA converter transparency test over in the audio tests forum (it's currently languishing right at the bottom of the pile). I know because it was my own LS56 that was tested. I'm going to be rerunning the tests again, just in case I screwed something up first time around, but it's currently looking like the LS56 doesn't have particularly transparent conversion. Or, at least, mine doesn't. Which is weird, considering it supposedly uses the same converter chips as the Apogee Ensemble, but that just goes to show what a difference all the other assorted circuitry in there makes .

Converter shootout thread is meaningless for ls56, because you dont have clean line in, you have 8 preamps which cannot be bypassed. Even if you turn your gain knob to zero you have coloured signal on the way in.


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Gearslutz.com

[adrianww]

Originally Posted by Chagalj

Converter shootout thread is meaningless for ls56, because you dont have clean line in, you have 8 preamps which cannot be bypassed. Even if you turn your gain knob to zero you have coloured signal on the way in.


Sent from my GT-I9100 using Gearslutz.com

Don't know if I'd go so far as to call it meaningless (since any kind of testing can usually provide some kind of useful information) but you're right - there's no bypass for the mic pres or for the variable gain stage on the line inputs (which is probably just based around the same gain stage as the mic pre, but padded down). So there may well be colouration of the signal on the way in. Whether it's nice colouration or nasty colouration is a question for a different discussion!

Still, that's probably true for a lot of interfaces in the low and mid range to be honest - yes, there are some with fixed level line inputs or with a hard-switched bypass, but there are probably just as many if not more that have some kind of variable gain stage on their line inputs. And, in many cases, the variable gain stage is just a padded-down version of the mic pre.

In any case, I only tend to mention the converter shootout thing in case some wannabe rocket scientist comes along with a load of "Oooh yeah, you say you like it but look - it does bad in the DA-AD shootout test! LOL! It be sucking man!!" Yeah, right dude, so what?

As I've said here and elsewhere, I'm very happy with my LS56 and won't be changing it in the near future - shootout threads or no shootout threads. It's a great interface to use.

[smlksmth]

Are there any similar interfaces with somewhat solid pres that can be bypassed if needed? Trying to get something with atleast 4 xlr channels and adat.

[adrianww]

Originally Posted by smlksmth

Are there any similar interfaces with somewhat solid pres that can be bypassed if needed? Trying to get something with atleast 4 xlr channels and adat.

Two that spring to mind would be the TC Electronic Konnect 48 or the RME Fireface 800. They've got the right amount and type of I/O, plus fixed level line inputs (or bypassable pres/gain stages - I think!) The only drawback is that the TC is slightly more expensive than the LS56 while the Fireface is even more. I took a look at a few others (Mackie Onyx Blackbird, assorted MOTUs, etc.) but I couldn't find out for sure whether they have fixed level line inputs or not. There's quite a few interfaces in this price range that can give you the right I/O, but a lot of them still have some kind of variable gain stage on the line inputs. I think that some of the USB Tascams might have fixed +4dBu/-10dBV switched line inputs, but I can't recall whether they have ADAT or not.

[ Edit: Just thought of an interface that might have fixed-level line inputs - the M-Audio ProFire 2626. Got ADAT as well. ]

I don't currently run any external pres through my LS56 and I find the variable gain on the line inputs useful because they're mostly handling keyboards that have pretty variable output levels depending on what I'm doing with them at the time. However, if I was going to add external pres, I'd probably go with ones that had their own converters/digital outputs and come in via ADAT or SPDIF. Or possibly just add an external multi-channel converter or two via ADAT and run pres into there.

The only other scenario that is really left to consider at this point is running out of the interface to external effects/treatment and back in again in the analog domain. Although if I was doing that I'm not sure I'd be too bothered whether or not I'm running through a variable gain stage on the way back in. Whatever effect the input gain stage might have will probably be more or less irrelevant compared with what's happening outside the box anyway.

Mind you, I still wish that there was a unity gain mark on the controls! Although, if I ever get too paranoid about it, I guess I could just run a quick loopback test through each of the channels to find unity gain and mark it up myself.

[mista min]

The MOTU HD interfaces have line level inputs as well as their hybrid series. Really great interfaces. I wanna pick one up whenever I can.

[adrianww]

Don't know about the MOTU HD series, but I think the Hybrids still have a variable gain stage on their line inputs. They do have digital gain controls though, so it's easy enough to set them to unity gain. I don't know whether that actually bypasses the analog gain stage or just sets it to 0dB. If it bypasses it, then that's good, but if it just sets it to zero gain then it could still colour the signal passing through.

Not that I think that's a problem. I can appreciate wanting the most transparency you can get for some sources (detailed classical or acoustic stuff, high-end reference recordings or whatever) but I sometimes think folks get a little too hung up on it. Whatever you record and however you do it, you're never going to get the complete, 100% perfect sound of the source. Leastways not with any technology we've invented so far. So it becomes a question of exactly how your recording setup alters the sound, how much of that you're prepared to live with and how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go in terms of time, effort and money to pursue your goals.

At the end of the day, my own setup is purely a home/project studio and something like an LS56 or Yamaha n12 is more than capable enough for anything I'll be likely to send through it...

[smlksmth]

The profire looks very promising! Are the stock pres somewhat decent? As I would be using those while saving up for a nice pre amp.

[adrianww]

'Fraid I don't know what the ProFire pres are like as I've never used or heard one. I would imagine they're OK though - I don't suppose anyone would really be able to get away with having totally crappy unusable ones at this point.

Hopefully someone else who knows the ProFire better can chime in on that score.

[mrnemo]

I owned this interface and I had a lot of driver issues on it with my PC. I switched to the FireFace 800 and have no complaints. I did not buy into the RME hype at first and lost thousands going through interfaces trying to find the best deal. I wish I had gone straight to the FF 800 years ago. YMMV. Obviously, there are some happy owners here, I just had nothing but clicks and pops on my system (i7 960, Gigabyte X58a board with a TI FW card.

[maticomp]

mrnemo, are you concerns about stability related to LS56 or a ProFire?

Thanks,

[dkelley]

have to say, languishing at the bottom of the list in the converter test/shootout thread isn't a bad thing really - it would probably be sitting near the top of converters from many years ago, and is still plenty good enough for pro work.

The difference in sound quality between a converter that is 99.82% accurate and one that is 99.42% accurate is.... probably none at all.

just saying. and yes, I made up those numbers completely :-)

but it's my feeling on the subject. Just like how everyone thinks the sound of the steinberg 816 is just oustanding yet it's proven to have inferior converters (at least in the d/a stage) to most of the other half decent products around these days.

So yea - go for it - these liquid channel based products are so cool, and hte sapphire conversion is just fine. Not textbook perfect, no. But probably not audibly inferior in any way shape or form.

We're only humans.... our ears have more consistency flaws than any of these converter chips.

[dfahb44]

I have the 40 and the 56, the liquid channels are significantly noisier on higher settings, can't do voice overs with a 57 on those. Other than that I'm enjoying it quite so.

[maticomp]

Originally Posted by dfahb44

I have the 40 and the 56, the liquid channels are significantly noisier on higher settings, can't do voice overs with a 57 on those. Other than that I'm enjoying it quite so.

You mean, noisier than the standard pres on 40 and 56? That is surprising, especially after many people saying it's worth to buy the unit for these preamps alone.

Would it be too much to ask you for an audio example? It's almost impossible to find any sound recordings of these Liquid pres apart from a single shootout of emulations I have found some time ago.

Phillip and Jaci

The noisefloor indeed bothers me a bit.

I believe it would be quite helpful for many if anyone owning an LS56 would be so kind to demo these liquid pres somehow.


Thanks!
M.

[adrianww]

I don't really have any useful demos of the Liquid pres that I could post up at the moment, however the thing to bear in mind is that the whole point of them is to try to provide emulations of some classic preamps. You can also dial in additional harmonics for added tone colour. All of this is achieved through some clever bits of techno-wizardry that alters the input impedance presented to the mic and then a load of DSP/convolution applied to the incoming signal.

Under the circumstances, I wouldn't expect them to be as clean and noise-free as the standard pres. And, in a sense, they're not supposed to be. Although I can't comment on how good the emulations are because I've never heard the original hardware. I've heard people who do know the original hardware call it both ways - they're never perfect (nothing could be) but some folks say they're a mile off while others say they get close. I think it might vary depending on the original units that the listener may have heard, since they would all have had some variability in them anyway.

If I get the chance, I'll record some simple spoken word stuff through the standard pres and the Liquid ones sometime soon and post it up somewhere.

[maticomp]

Originally Posted by adrianww

Under the circumstances, I wouldn't expect them to be as clean and noise-free as the standard pres. And, in a sense, they're not supposed to be. Although I can't comment on how good the emulations are because I've never heard the original hardware. I've heard people who do know the original hardware call it both ways - they're never perfect (nothing could be) but some folks say they're a mile off while others say they get close.

You are right! May I ask if you are overall happy with them and find them useful and interesting addition to your rack? It's all subjective, but after reading tons of threads about LS56 I rarely see people commenting on their use of these Liquid pres. The unit as a whole is praised, but the preamps don't get too much directed love.

Originally Posted by adrianww

If I get the chance, I'll record some simple spoken word stuff through the standard pres and the Liquid ones sometime soon and post it up somewhere.

Thanks! It would certainly be great! I know one cannot judge preamps based on that without working with them personally on a variety of sources, but it would be a great starting point to hear some flavour and noisyness differences between them.

[adrianww]

Overall I'm very happy with the whole thing, including the Liquid pres. The standard pres and line inputs are clear and clean enough for general use on a variety of sources, while the Liquid pres are nice for adding a bit of colour or character (mic signals only since the Liquid trickery is purely on the first two mic pres, not the corresponding line inputs).

If I can find the time, I'll record the vocal snippets sometime over this coming weekend and get them online somewhere. I'll post a note back in here and also drop you a pm when they're done.

[maticomp]

Thanks for your time!

[dfahb44]

Originally Posted by maticomp

You mean, noisier than the standard pres on 40 and 56? That is surprising, especially after many people saying it's worth to buy the unit for these preamps alone.

Would it be too much to ask you for an audio example?

Both. Here's an example, but I'm warning you: it's a really bad recording all around. This was my first VO work and I had no idea what noise/room reflections I would be working with when cranking those pre's on a 57.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1742937/Soun...2002022012.mp3

The noise was only brought up with a limiter, I had to use one because I couldn't bring it up to a good tracking level without obscene amounts of noise, this is with the pre's at around 85% with NO emulation. You'd cry if you heard the amount of noise with the emulation. I need a FEThead...

[dkelley]

I can't imagine why there is so much noise. I've messed around with one of these recently (liquid saffire 56). I've never heard problematic noise from any properly setup preamp with correct gain staging. same with the saffire - it was excellent - liquid channels sounded as quiet as I would expect considering that the liquid mix 32 is perfectly silent from the same company. I didn't have to push the gain super hard (although it was up high, same as with many preamps), and there was no notable noise. I was only playing though - messing aorund, recording, playign back. nothing kept, nothing worth noting. still, that's really odd that it is so noisy and low gain that you had to use a limiter to get decent levels.

Are you tracking very soft material or keeping the mic too far from the source? Just a silly question I suppose - but seirously, if you want more level, put the mic closer. LoL, it sounds so arrogant, it's not meant to be arrogant though or insulting in any way to your skills.

I just can't see htis being a problem.

And I certainly found the 4 preamp models that I've worked with extensively over the years to be right on - they gave me what I'd look for when searching out the real thing for that sound. a/b/x identical? of course not. but then the same is true if you take the same preamp into two different studios - it'll sound different on different gear with different mics in different rooms.

[dfahb44]

Originally Posted by dkelley

Are you tracking very soft material or keeping the mic too far from the source? Just a silly question I suppose - but seirously, if you want more level, put the mic closer. LoL, it sounds so arrogant, it's not meant to be arrogant though or insulting in any way to your skills.

I just can't see htis being a problem.

Lol, I've been recording for nearly 6 years. Mic was barely 4 inches away from the guy, but yes he does speak rather soft. I'm not insulted, I'm positive though that it's the preamps/mic. Maybe I have bad power in my house or something.

[Chagalj]

Originally Posted by maticomp

I believe it would be quite helpful for many if anyone owning an LS56 would be so kind to demo these liquid pres somehow.


Thanks!
M.

There is a whole thread about LS56 here on GS and everything about it was already discussed. Here is a link to a liquid pres part.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5819827-post147.html

[maticomp]

Originally Posted by Chagalj

There is a whole thread about LS56 here on GS and everything about it was already discussed. Here is a link to a liquid pres part.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/5819827-post147.html

I found this review some time ago. The problem is the sound samples are no longer there - all of them bang us in the head with "404 - File or directory not found" error, unfortunately.

[adrianww]

Quick update - I've got a bunch of files recorded through some of the Liquid pre emulations, just need to add takes through the standard pres and maybe a couple of snippets using a dynamic mic instead of a condenser (for a more comprehensive picture). Once it's all done, I'll probably just zip up all the files together and make them available for download.

[adrianww]

OK, if the technology all works, there's a Zip file containing some examples of a short spoken-word piece recorded using some of the Liquid Pre emulations and also using the standard pres. It can be downloaded:

Here.

There's a README file along with the audio clips in the Zip file so that you know what's going on - it explains what's in there. Hope someone finds it useful.

[maticomp]

Now, that is something! Thanks, Adrian, for your immense contribution and taking your time to do all this!

The examples are wonderful. They clearly show the difference between Liquid pres and the stock ones, as well as how much difference the emulations make. And what makes me the most happy is the fact that they all are pristine and noiseless, after being basically scared few posts above

I am looking forward to using them on a variety of sources with a variety of mics.

Thanks again!

Cheers,