| User Review | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 4 | | Bang for buck | | 5 |
Overall:  4.25 |  Focusrite liquid saffire 56 | | Focusrite liquid saffire 56
Since I never make any quick fixes when buying a product, I've run in the Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 ahead looked closely and read various reports on the unit.
The interface has everything I need and more. Eight Focusrite preamps and a midi interface are integrated. Also a monitor controller. Not every channel has a phase reverse or pad, but most of the time, you will not need 8 phase reverse buttons or pad knobs. The LIQUID PRE AMPS are a real added value and very versatile. They were also the reason why I chose the Focusrite product and not for another 8-channel interface. Each Liquid preamp offers ten different preamp emulations including the API 3124+, Neve 1073, Pultec MB-1, Telefunken V72 and Focusrite Red 1. I dig the Helios Console Preamp Emu for guitars all the time. It´s brilliant.
The interface is robust and can therefore be transported very convenient for customers. The included software (Saffire MixControl) for monitoring / headphone mixes is very powerful, but it needs its time till you understand it, at least for me this was the case. The included presets do well for the first work. What I like about the Software lately is that I can dial in dB-Steps for my monitoring. For the K-20 system this is really helpful. I don´t use the Plugins which come along with the unit. But all in all, a great Device from the house Focsurite. | | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 5 | | Bang for buck | | 5 | |
Overall: 4.5 | | Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56
I bought this interface more as an investment as currently I don't have an enormous need for 8 inputs, the most ive used with this unit in particular at any given time has been 5, but for what I HAVE used it for, it's been perfect. I run it with Pro Tools 10, and aside from a few occasions where sample rate changes automatically, it runs flawlessly.
The main features which made be bag this unit are ofcourse the liquid preamps. The two preamps offer emulations (both software AND hardware, impedance changes etc.) of a wide range of world class analogue mic pres, which all offer a slightly different shade for your recordings. I personally dont own any of the emulated preamps, so I couldnt possible comment on their success in replicating said preamp's sound, but either way I am extremely happy with how it performs. Another plus is that the interface has two headphones monitor outputs, which is extremely handy if I am doing any tracking in my control room.
The remaining 6 input feature focusrites own high quality preamps which all have plenty of gain to drive fairly low output mics successfully with minimal noise, and each input features a number of switches for +48, pad, HPF and phase.
The saffire mix control and mix control RTAS both operate very well, allowing me to easily bring up a number of different tracking mixes with ease, and the intergration with Pro Tools allows for one very stable unit. | | |
By
Dot.
on
3rd March 2012
| | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 5 | | Bang for buck | | 5 | |
Overall: 4.5 | | Priced less than $1000, sounds way more than that
Focusrite did amazing job with this FW interface. Great converters (as for the price) nice and clean sound, amazing routing abilities, ease of use and of course... 10 liquid channel emulations from "probably" the most known pieces of history.
The great thing about this unit is most definitely it's price and sound, You just can't go wrong with it. Really nice design of the unit makes it people ask what is this thing in your studio.
to make things short:
In scale 1 to 10 I would easily give this product 10, we all are looking for the best quality of the sound as we can afford, and this is what Focusrite came up with here, I actually believe they gave us a product worth way more than it's retail price.
PROS:
- Great Sound
- Routing Abilities
- Liquid Channel Emulations
- Nice Meters
- MixControl Software
- Lots of Inputs and Outputs
CONS:
- Knobs on the unit feel very delicate | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 5 | | Bang for buck | | 4 | |
Overall: 4.25 | | can't go wrong with Focusrite
First interface I ever tried on Logic
The preamps are world-class
and that is before trying the liquid channels
so much versatility
so much I/O
I am just barely starting to scratch the surface of all this unit can do | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 5 | | Bang for buck | | 5 | |
Overall: 4.5 | | Focusrite Saffire 56
Great box with a full feature set. I had been looking to replace my older ADAT expansion unit I had been using and found this at a deal way too hard to pass up. Full feature set with 8 mic pres, including two Liquid channels with 10 emulations, ADAT, SPDIF, MIDI, 2 headphone outs, front face metering screen etc. The Mixcontrol software is very nice and offers a ton of possibilities for configuration including a save to hardware feature to set the unit up for standalone ADAT operation if so desired. A huge plus for flexibility.
The mic pres are pretty good and actually I think the LS56 is nearly worth its price for the Liquid pres alone. Focusrite did not include all of the selections from the Liquid Channel but there is a nice range of options for just about any situation and a pair for stereo application. The remaining 6 pres are apparently based on the Focusrite green line and surprisingly nice.
AD/DA conversion is really very good and soundstaging has nice depth & detail. Certainly there are units that surpass the Focusrite but current conversion technology has grown tremendously. This unit has none of the haziness that my previous 7 yr old 8 channel ADAT box or older interfaces have had. It doesn't better my current interface but that has also been modified by a certain Chicago based company. However you choose to use the LS56 it is a more than acceptable centerpiece for the home/project studio and is certainly capable of professional level results in the right hands. | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 5 | | Ease of use | | 4 | | Features | | 4 | | Bang for buck | | 4 | |
Overall: 4.25 | | My Focusrite LS56 experience
Hey, Intro story:
So I have this unit for 2 years and still enjoy every finished mix on it. I have quite a lot of hardware so the '56' I/O was needed. The first weeks of use were awesome because I had an M-audio Delta 1010 as previous interface. But the first day of use I did not notice a lot of improvements at first sight but after one full month I was hearing the mix more objective of course and my music mix/compositions were getting an amazing thing to hear compared to my Delta 1010. Connectivity:
The unit has plenty of I/O. Also with the added ADAT (2×) expansions for future use I was very satisfied at that point. I use an analogue console as OTB mixer and C6 as digital mixer, hybrid setup, and it all works amazing together. Most analogue I/O on the LS56 are connected in my setup so the next step will be an ADAT unit. But straight out of the box I bet people will have enough connectivity, at their disposal. The two Liquid preamps were given, along with the more 'standard' preamps. But I do not use microphones with the Liquid pre's so no further comment about that. Sound:
After at least one month of use and finished 2 tracks; things I noticed were the massive headroom and breathing/dynamic mix I could never achieve with my Delta 1010 interface. It took me a while to re-learn mixing on the LS56 and I am still seeing more potential after the 2 years of ownership, nice. Although my music is based upon breakbeats and heavy SFX sound-design and really have "heavy" content in most of my tracks, I stress the mix a lot, but I believe it can work very different for others. Overal:
I find it a nice interface, a good step-up, if you look for an interface upgrade. The mix achievements are good and has enough I/O to grown along your studio with dirty cheap price.  | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 3 | | Features | | 4 | | Bang for buck | | 5 |
Overall:  4 | | Liquid Saffire 56
I love this interface. Actually I don't even use its interface capabilities. These days I find I use it mostly just for the liquid channels. Six additional clean-sounding pres are nice to have there just in case. I run the signal straight out to my mixer (A&H GS-R24m) using TRS and use Firewire on the Saffire only for control. So not even using the AD/DA.
The Saffire mixer software/driver is robust but routing can be confusing until you figure it out. It is not intuitive. Since I am just running signal through, I don't need to deal with the software mixer much. Just have a preset saved and keep the routing for everything.
The Liquid channels sound great. I can here subtle differences between the micpre models. Even subtler differences when adjusting harmonics. But they make a difference. Different models work well with different mics or sources. I have other pres beside these and the onboard A&H, but I go to these a lot just for versatility in tone and the high quality of sound.
It would be nice to have a bit more control over the modeling or something a bit like the Liquid Channel. But it's great little interface for the price. I don't use the other channels so much, but I know they sound great. But I believe they are comparable to my A&H onboard pres so the extra routing seems like an unnecessary hassle for me. But I might A/B them sometime just to really get a hold on which I like better. | | | | | | Sound Quality | | 4 | | Ease of use | | 3 | | Features | | 5 | | Bang for buck | | 5 | |
Overall: 4.25 | | Overall B+
I paid $600 for mine used so I will keep my complaints short. It was far superior than the mBox, and Lexicon I was using at the time.
The ease of use: It was really hard to figure out how to route internally within the unit. The manual is not straight forward at all.
I also did not like how the gain boosted super loud when the knob is past the (7+ gain).
Other than those factors, this unit is solid and has been used in many placements this year. I'd recommend this unit to anyone doing anything professional and needs an interface.
I still prefer the "real deal" pre-amps than the emulations. If you have the real ones you will understand.
Just wanted to give an honest review. | | | |
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