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When Focusrite’s Scarlett interfaces reached their fourth iteration with the launch of the Gen‑4 models in August 2023, the range as a whole could quite reasonably lay claim to the accolade of being ‘probably’ the biggest selling computer audio interface in the world. Given that manufacturers are understandably somewhat coy about divulging actual worldwide sales figures, ‘probably’ is about as certain as I’m willing to get, but I can’t think of anyone who might be likely to put their hand up and seriously challenge the assertion: there are interface manufacturers who are strong in one sector or another, but Scarletts are everywhere: musicians’ home studios, DJ rigs, education, Podcasting setups, mobile recording rigs — everywhere.

Focusrite CEO Tim Carroll: “Our company’s mantra is about removing barriers to creativity.”There’s no magic formula to the Scarlett range that immediately explains its huge market success, which is in itself perhaps one of the things that makes this story interesting. Products that dramatically outsell their competition tend to be either unique, offering something previously unseen or heard, or they offer a currently available facility at such a low price point that they literally widen the bottom of the sales pyramid by bringing in a raft of entirely new participants. At its launch in 2011 the Scarlett range is neither of those things. The concept was simply to try to offer good audio performance, perhaps leveraging some of Focusrite’s legacy of involvement with high‑end pro audio products at a highly competitive price, and employing the easy‑to‑use and cheaper to implement USB connection protocol. Nothing remarkable there, but there was nevertheless something of a philosophy behind the range, recognising the crucial importance of ease of use at a time when a lot of computer‑related audio equipment wasn’t at all user‑friendly, never mind being specifically ‘beginner‑friendly’.

If the technology is too overwhelming… they’re likely to put it in a closet and never use it again.

Focusrite CEO Tim Carroll recalls: “We collect a lot of data from people who buy one of our products so we can have an understanding of who they are and what they are trying to do. What we found is that there were a lot of people buying our interfaces just for producing beats or something, but we were taking them through a whole bunch of tutorials about things that were completely irrelevant to them at that point in time. At that end of the market people are buying an interface fundamentally because they have an idea in their head of something creative that they want to accomplish, and the onus is on us to make them feel really great about that. If the technology is too overwhelming it can just squash their dreams, and they’re likely to put it in a closet and never use it again. Our company’s mantra is about removing barriers to creativity. For the beginner, it’s really about removing all the technical jargon to let them get up and running really quickly so they have a great first experience. We spend an inordinate amount of time working on their ‘onboarding journey’ to really streamline the experience for their use case.”

For a lot of people USB 2 is good enough, so why would you pay a premium for something better?

The first Scarletts

Launching in 2011, the Scarletts entered a recording market in something of a state of flux, with computer manufacturers, more than ever before, driving the agenda for manufacturers of related products. The dominant ‘serious’ interface type of the previous decade, Firewire (IEEE 1394), would fairly soon cease to be supported by Apple and whilst Thunderbolt looked like a natural successor, slow adoption, complexity and cost caused many manufacturers to look again at the USB 2.0 protocol. Focusrite had been making computer audio interfaces since 2002 when they designed the original M‑Box for Digidesign — a USB 1.1 interface that had a huge market impact, not least because it offered the most affordable route into the Digidesign universe via the bundled Pro Tools LE package. When that relationship ended in 2005, with Digidesign partnering with its new corporate acquisition M‑Audio on its successor M‑Box 2, Focusrite launched their first own‑brand interfaces in the form of their Firewire‑based Saffire range. “We went with Firewire because it was perceived as offering better quality than USB 1.1” says Focusrite founder and Chairman Phil Dudderidge “and we thought we’d never do another USB interface, but Thunderbolt hasn’t been the commercial success that everyone thought it would be, because for a lot of people USB 2 is good enough, so why would you pay a premium for something better?”

The original Scarlett Studio bundle gave you everything you needed to get started with computer‑based recording and mixing.

Throughout their four generations, Scarlett interfaces have remained superficially consistent in form factor, connectivity and their distinctive colour scheme, and whilst the range has always included a truly entry‑level 2i2 model, as well as models with more expansive channel counts, the nominally six‑input, six‑output 6i6 model will serve us as a useful example of the heart of the range at this time. Working with both a Windows PC or a Mac, it offered 24‑bit conversion at sample rates of up to 96kHz, and although the smaller 2i2 model could be USB‑bus powered, the 6i6’s power had to come from a supplied external 12V DC adaptor.

Only the two main inputs feature mic preamps and are fitted with ‘combi’ sockets that can accept XLR mic‑level signals, or line‑level signals via the centre jack connection. There’s hardware‑switchable phantom power, and the line inputs can be changed to high‑impedance instrument inputs via the included Mix Control software. There are two more line‑level inputs on the rear panel, plus a coaxial S/PDIF digital audio port. Similarly on the output side, there are four balanced line outputs, two of which would be used to connect to your monitor speakers, and an S/PDIF digital output, to make up the ‘six’ in the I/O count. As far as analogue connections go, this is actually a four‑in, four‑out interface.

The two gain controls have LED rings for level metering — innovative at the time — and there are also status LEDs for mic Pad and Instrument‑input selection. Another status LED on the front panel monitors activity in the two MIDI ports on the rear panel, while another confirms the USB connection. A large hardware monitor‑level control knob, and monitor muting, dimming and mono selection in the software, to a large extent obviate the need for a dedicated monitor controller in a small setup. Two built‑in headphone outputs with separate level controls also offer some flexibility when a performer and ‘engineer’, or two performers, might prefer to monitor at different levels.

The Mix Control software was part of a bundle that included the necessary Mac and Windows drivers, a full DAW in the form of Ableton Live Lite, the Scarlett Plug‑in Suite, plus a Novation Bass Station soft synth and a selection of samples. The Scarlett Plug‑in Suite offered compression, reverb, gating and EQ in VST, AU and RTAS formats. Opening the Mix Control software revealed a mixer with any of the available interface inputs able to be selected for monitoring and combining with the output mix of the host DAW. Up to four different mixes could be set up to offer different balances assigned to the line outputs for feeding headphone amps, if desired. Mixer inputs could be soloed, muted, linked in pairs for stereo use and monitored pre‑fader, with metering to show the input level. A horizontal slider was used as a channel pan control.

The original Mix Control application, like most audio control software at the time, followed the ‘virtual analogue mixer’ paradigm.

On a Mac Pro running Logic, Sound On Sound magazine’s review reported reliable operation in a simple recording setup with a 32‑sample buffer size, giving a round‑trip latency of 6.3 milliseconds at 44.1kHz. A more demanding project would naturally require a larger buffer setting thereby incurring a longer throughput latency, and it is no surprise that Firewire was still the protocol of choice at this time for ‘serious’ users working on big multichannel projects with lots of plug‑ins, both for its potential for lower latency and overall stability. Many Mac users at this time would tend to be running Intel Core 2 Duo or Quad processors in a Mac Pro tower chassis using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but generally only with about 8GB of RAM, whilst a PC‑based DAW setup in 2011 would perhaps have been using an AMD processor and running Windows 7 or XP. Both comfortably meet the Scarletts’ ‘minimum spec’ requirement.

Phil Dudderidge, co‑founder and Chairman of Focusrite was awarded an OBE in the 2024 New Year Honours List in recognition of his contribution to the professional audio industry. Focusrite plc was formed in 2014 to take the business public, with the Focusrite Group now incorporating 13 major pro audio brands.Of course, Focusrite’s Scarlett range didn’t launch into a vacuum: in fact it was taking on a particularly competitive sector of the market, including some very successful interfaces like M‑Audio’s Fast Track Pro; Native Instruments’ Komplete Audio 6 (particularly popular among electronic music producers and those already using NI’s software instruments and effects; the PreSonus FireStudio series (FireStudio Project and FireStudio Mobile); Apogee’s neat little Duet interface; and, of course, Avid’s Mbox, for those operating primarily in Pro Tools universe.

At the entry level, where it was safe to assume that the user might not have already gathered together any of the other essentials of a recording setup, it was common to bundle other items, such as mics and headphones with an interface. The 2i2 model was available as part of the Focusrite Scarlett Studio bundle that included a cardioid capacitor microphone, a pair of headphones and a copy of Cubase LE6 DAW software, plus mic cable, stand adapter (but no mic stand) and a USB cable — if you already had a computer, that was everything you needed to get started with recording and mixing. In 2012 the Studio bundle was priced at £199 in the UK, compared to the 2i2 alone, which was priced at £119. The 6i6 cost £149, and there were models with larger I/O counts too, in the form of Scarlett 1818 at £299 and 18i20 at £399.

Gen‑2 Scarletts like this 2i2 had a new mic preamp design offering a 50dB gain range and improved scaling of the gain pot.

2016: The Second‑Coming

The Gen‑1 Scarlett range proved hugely commercially successful, but after five years the drivers couldn’t be said to be ‘state‑of‑the‑art’ in terms of low‑latency performance and the original control software, which could occasionally baffle even experienced users, arguably lacked a little finesse compared to competing products. The ‘second generation’ Scarletts arrived with a bit of a style upgrade in the hardware, now looking every bit in the same class as Focusrite’s more expensive ranges, and there were improvements in the control software and the basic audio performance, too. With 24‑bit, and up to 96kHz operation, dynamic range was now quoted as 106dB for the 2i2’s ins and outs (109dB and 108dB respectively for the 18i20’s inputs and outputs) and there was a new mic preamp design that improved the scaling of the gain pot. The mic amps’ 50dB gain range was now more than adequate for all but the quietest of sources, although it was also possible to run into clipping with very loud sounds like a hard‑hitting drummer.

A Gen‑2 6i6: there are two ‘combi’ sockets at the front plus the two line‑level inputs on the rear panel, alongside four balanced line outputs. Stereo in and out S/PDIF digital ports make up the ‘six’ in the I/O count.

Gen‑2 Scarletts were also now Mac OS class‑compliant, meaning that no dedicated driver software was strictly necessary, but Focusrite included a software utility that could minimise latency beyond the class‑compliant default. Sound On Sound’s Sam Inglis reported being able to record at 44.1kHz using a 32‑sample buffer size with a round‑trip latency of 5.6ms using the class‑compliant driver. With the dedicated low‑latency driver, however, round‑trip latency dropped to an impressive 3.9ms. Focusrite’s new ASIO driver for Windows with equivalent settings delivered a round‑trip latency of 4.6ms. Of course, there are some situations in which even very low latency amounts are disturbing to a performer, so some form of direct monitoring, via software or hardware is still useful. The smaller Gen‑2 Scarletts had a front‑panel switch to feed the input signal directly into the outputs, whilst larger models offered the same facility in their control software.

The Focusrite Control app that superseded the earlier Mix Control software is simpler, cleaner‑looking and more intuitive to use.

The original Mix Control software used by the Scarletts had by now been superseded by an entirely new utility called Focusrite Control, initially introduced with the company’s more upmarket Clarett and Red Thunderbolt‑based interfaces. Cleaner‑looking, simpler and more intuitive to use, it was regarded as an improvement in almost every respect over Mix Control. Focusrite Control was designed from the outset with touchscreen access in mind, and was logically made available for iOS devices too. As well as giving the larger Scarlett models the facility of remote control, the new control software prioritised simplicity and ease of use, breaking away from the ‘virtual analogue mixer’ look used in many control–panel apps, resulting in a utility that was clearer and more intuitive. With the ability to hide unused elements, it was easier to make everything you were using visible without the need for scrolling, although the ‘lean and clean’ look came at the expense of some facilities, as there was no longer any integral EQ, dynamics, or effects, and there were also some limitations in the monitor–control functionality. The accompanying software bundle still comprised Ableton’s Live Lite DAW, the Scarlett Plug‑in Suite supplying EQ, compression and reverb, as well as the Red Plug‑In Suite modelling Focusrite’s own classic Red 2 equaliser and Red 3 compressor.

The ‘second generation’ Scarletts received a style upgrade, now looking every bit in the same class as Focusrite’s premium hardware ranges.

Just as enticing as the updates, however, was the highly competitive pricing. The Gen‑2 Scarlett 2i2 was listed at just £111 in the UK — actually less than the £119 cost of the original 2i2 in 2011. At the other end of the range, the 18i20, at £355, could be said to offer much of the more up‑market Clarett interfaces core features at a significantly lower price point. There are also more competing products from other manufacturers using USB connectivity at this time, including PreSonus’s AudioBox Series, Behringer’s UMC range, M‑Audio’s M‑Track models, and units from Steinberg, Roland, Avid, Tascam and Native Instruments. USB, in its version 2.0 guise, was always capable of a more than adequate data transfer rate for multitrack audio, and, with the assistance of faster computers, has by now well and truly seen off any last vestige of being viewed as inherently ‘second‑rate’ even for serious recording projects.

Gen‑2 6i6 user guide.

Minimum System Requirements for a Gen‑2 Scarlett in 2016 were listed as Mac OS X 10.7, or Windows 7 or 8 (all versions apart from RT) for PCs, comfortably within the spec of the typical computer hardware in use at the time. Home studio Mac users in 2016 would tend to have been running quad‑core and hex‑core Intel i5 or i7 processors in an iMac or Mac Mini, running Mac OS X 10.10 El Capitan or 10.12 Sierra, typically now more often with 16GB of RAM rather than just the 8GB seen at the start of the decade. A PC‑based DAW setup back then would perhaps have been using a Dell, HP, Lenovo, or even a custom‑build, running Windows 10, and we are also starting to see wider adoption of solid‑state drives. Logic Pro X DAW users were on 10.2.3 by the end of 2016, with Cubase Pro 8.5 and Cubase Artist 8.5 being the most up to date versions from Steinberg, and Pro Tools 12.5 the latest from Avid in 2016.

It would be tempting to narrate the Scarlett story as one of steady, incremental improvements over four iterations resulting in an inexorable rise to the top, but that simply isn’t how it happened. By the launch of the Gen‑2 versions, the Scarlett range is already cited as ‘the biggest‑selling interface on the market’ by Focusrite themselves. In 2016, though, many of the competing USB interfaces listed above are also seriously good performers, so identifying a single competitive edge for the Scarlett range is far from obvious. Maybe it’s the balance of having just the right feature and performance combination at the right price points throughout the range, or the consumer confidence created by not requiring the very latest operating systems, or the three‑year warranty, I’m not sure that I, or anyone else, can point to a single factor with any certainty. However, as the saying goes, it is one thing to rise to the top, but quite another to be able to stay there. But stay there, they certainly did!

2019: The Next Generation

By 2019, just three years later, the Scarlett range is already in line for another upgrade — nothing stands still for long in the music‑tech market, especially consumers’ expectations in terms of sound quality, operational features and latency performance. If the emphasis in Gen‑2 was mostly on the software side — new USB drivers and the old Mix Control software being superseded by Focusrite Control — for Gen‑3, the spotlight is once again on improvements to the hardware. The USB 2.0 type–B sockets of the earlier models have been replaced with the ‘new standard’ USB C connectors. The preamps have an extra 6dB gain, dynamic range on the analogue inputs has been increased from 109dB to 111dB, and total harmonic distortion has been reduced on all analogue inputs and outputs. And Scarlett preamps now also feature a version of the Air process previously seen on Focusrite’s upmarket Red and Clarett interfaces, emulating the sound of the revered, transformer‑based Focusrite ISA preamp design. The Air implementation in the Scarletts isn’t the full version found on the more upmarket interfaces, however, as it doesn’t change the preamp input impedance. Driver performance remains the same as before, as does the Focusrite Control software, although the latter has the added benefit of now being usable with the smaller models in the range as well.

The Gen‑3 Scarlett range encompassed six models, from the diminutive Solo with one line/instrument, one mic input, a pair of balanced line outs on quarter‑inch TRS sockets, and a single headphone output, up to the fully multitrack‑capable 18i20 with a ton of I/O. The Solo model gained balanced TRS outputs, while the 2i2 got direct monitoring in stereo for the first time, with both entry‑level models available as part of a ‘get‑you‑started’ ‘Studio’ bundle, adding a capacitor mic, headphones and an XLR cable. The previous 2i4 model now grows into the 4i4, adding a pair of dedicated line inputs and the 6i6, too, gets the same extra pair of line inputs, becoming the 8i6. Both the 8i6 and 4i4 now also have a very useful loopback facility for recording audio from other sources within your computer.

The Gen‑3 Scarlett range encompassed six models, from the diminutive Solo with one line/instrument, one mic input, a pair of balanced line outs on quarter inch TRS sockets, and a single headphone output, up to the fully multitrack‑capable 18i20.

At the very top of the range, the 18i8 got both an additional pair of TRS line output sockets and alternate speaker switching, while the 18i20 added switchable pads on all eight mic inputs, and an extra optical input and output to allow eight channels of ADAT‑format digital audio to be accommodated at high sample rates. The latter, too, now gained alternate speaker switching: line outputs 3–4 could be switched in the Focusrite Control software to carry the same signal as outputs 1–2, while a front‑panel Alt switch determined which pair was active. Both 18i8 and 18i20 also now have a built‑in, fixed‑gain talkback mic, activated from a momentary front‑panel switch. Every output can either be configured in Focusrite Control to accept a ‘custom mix’ of input and DAW playback signals, or be directly assigned a DAW playback channel, or to mirror an input for direct monitoring. There’s now a ‘Custom Mix + Talkback’ option that adds the talkback mic, with automatic dimming, to whatever else has been set up.

With the Gen‑3 upgrades of 2019, the Scarlett range has clearly now come a long way upmarket, with a spec to rival pricier competitors and perhaps even some of Focusrite’s other interfaces. The latter are still likely to win on audio performance alone, but anyone looking for high‑functionality in a USB interface would have to consider a Scarlett 18i20 for its speaker switching, talkback and input pads. It also had a second ADAT port facilitating 96kHz operation, a built‑in PSU and removable rack ears, making it more practical for the home studio where, of course, plug‑ins now tended to do the jobs once handled by racked hardware outboard gear.

The concern for ease of use and the ‘onboarding’ experience for beginners who are just getting started is still very much in evidence and has received a slick new feature — on first connection a Gen‑3 Scarlett will mount as a virtual disk with a clickable link that takes users through driver installation and the bundled software options, which now includes both Pro Tools First and Ableton Live Lite, Softube’s Time and Tone bundle of reverb, delay and distortion plug‑ins and an easy‑to‑use mastering tool, as well as the Focusrite Red Plug‑in Suite and Focusrite Plug‑in Collective offering free or discounted versions of innovative software.

Will Hoult, Head of Product for both the Focusrite and Novation brands within the Focusrite group of companies describes his role as “balancing the needs of the customer and the needs of the company to make sure that we are producing products that satisfy the aspirations of both”. Like CEO Tim Carroll, Will stresses the importance of the company’s emphasis on overcoming the potential intimidation of the complexities of computer‑based digital recording systems. “Our interactive onboarding system takes a new Scarlett user through a process that helps identify exactly what that user is trying to achieve and then guides them through the process of getting it set up. And the final step of that is the question ‘have you achieved your goal?’ Along that path, we now deliver quite a lot of video content, too, taking people through some of the complexities that are not directly in our hands, like operating system configuration and some aspects of DAW setup. When they get to the end of that journey, we hope they’re able to start recording music and creating whatever it is that they’re hoping to achieve.”

The Gen‑3 Scarlett range could be said to have something for every level of the home studio market, from the Solo, priced at just £99, up to the high‑spec 18i20 at £449. The 2i2 model that we have been using as a ‘pricing benchmark’ (supplanted in the entry‑level role by the Solo) now costs £149. Comparing that with the launch price of £119 in 2011 and the Gen‑2 price of £111 you’d have to say the increase exceeds simple inflation, but we are now talking about a higher‑spec device: in performance terms, you can no longer really even call it ‘entry level’. Other units in the Gen‑3 range see the 4i4 priced at £199, 8i6 at £249, 18i8 at £349. Studio bundles are created around the Solo and 2i2, costing £199 and £249. The 18i20, now priced at £449, has seen the biggest increase, compared £355 for a Gen‑2, but is still able to look like something of a market leader on a price‑for‑features basis, competing with PreSonus’s Studio range, Steinberg’s UR series, Native Instruments Komplete Audio Series, and new models from Audient, Zoom, Tascam and Roland.

Only three years have passed since our last snapshot of computers in the home studio: not quite enough for things to be radically different, so we still tend to see iMacs, mainly 27‑inch models, the 15‑inch MacBook Pro and Mac Minis proliferating, albeit with higher clock speeds and more cores. 32GB of RAM has become more common, with users often now working with larger track counts and certainly more memory‑hungry virtual instruments. Mac users would be on Mojave 10.14 in 2019, with Catalina 10.15 launching later that year for the adventurous early‑adopter. Windows 10 was still receiving regular feature updates and security patches for PC users. Version 10.4.6 was the latest version of Logic Pro X in 2019, Avid conveniently named the 2019 version of Pro Tools ‘Pro Tools 2019’, whilst Cubase remained at version 10.5, with version 11 not to be released until 2020.

2023: Scarlett Goes Fourth…

With sales of the Scarlett range said to be already in the region of six million worldwide, one could be forgiven for wondering whether further improvements may have reached the point of diminishing returns. The 4th‑Gen models of 2023, however, host arguably some of the biggest performance upgrades of all, including the adoption of digitally controlled preamps, which also allowed the introduction of some entirely new features. Perhaps surprisingly, this fourth iteration of Scarletts launches with only the smallest products in the range — Solo, 2i2 and 4i4. All three can be bus powered through USB‑C sockets, with the 2i2 and 4i4 having a second USB‑C socket that can be used to power them from any source that meets the USB 2.0 spec, such as a phone charger. The 4i4 is supplied with a dedicated PSU as it draws more current and therefore needs a supply that meets the full USB C specification for power. Connectivity remains unchanged, with the Solo featuring one line/instrument and one mic input, a pair of balanced line outs on quarter inch TRS jacks, plus a single headphone out, whilst the 2i2 has dual inputs that can take line/instrument signals via the front‑panel jacks, or a mic level signal through the rear panel XLRs. The 4i4 has two combi jack/XLR inputs on the front, plus an additional pair of line inputs and outputs, as well as MIDI In and Out on full‑size sockets.

The Gen‑4 Studio Bundles feature improved SH‑450 headphones with a more comfortable design and a flatter frequency response, plus a custom‑designed pop‑shield for the CM25 MKIII microphone.

Whilst retaining the essence of the by now very familiar front‑panel layouts and design‑aesthetic of the Scarlett range, the 2i2 and 4i4 inputs no longer have individual switches for Phantom, Input and Air, with just one of each to cover mic and line inputs, augmented by three new functions, Select, Auto and Safe. The digitally controlled preamps of the 2i2 and 4i4 now have a rotary encoder for a gain control, rather than an analogue potentiometer, and the Air and other control buttons operate on whichever input is chosen by the Select button. You can press‑and‑hold on the Select button to link the two mic/line inputs so they can be adjusted together. The Air button now offers a choice of two types: Air Presence and Air Presence & Drive: the former, like the Gen‑3 Air, adding a high shelving boost in the analogue domain, whilst Air Presence & Drive includes also some harmonic saturation via DSP.

A Gen‑4 4i4 model, showing the ‘new standard’ USB C connectors introduced to the Scarlett range at Gen‑3. After several ‘near‑misses’ for previous generations, the Gen‑4 iteration finally won the Best Audio Interface category in the 2024 SOS Awards.

Along with the digital control feature, the specification of the preamp circuit itself has also been upgraded, offering a gain range of 69dB — for comparison, the equivalent figure for third generation Scarletts is 56dB. Equivalent input noise is 127dBu (A‑weighted), THD+Noise is 100dB, and the frequency response is specified as flat from 20Hz to 20kHz (±0.05dB). Maximum level is +16dBu from a microphone or +22dBu from a line level source, which, in practical terms, equates to enough headroom for the loudest sources and enough gain without noise for the quietest. Whilst the Solo still has a conventional analogue controlled input stage, it does benefit from the uprated A‑D and D‑A converters of the fourth‑gen Scarletts, taken from Focusrite’s premium, ‘pro’ products of their RedNet range. Dynamic range on the 2i2 and 4i4 is now a hugely impressive 116dB for mic inputs and 115dB for line inputs, whilst the line outputs spec at 120dB.

The new digitally controlled preamp design allows all parameters to be accessed from within the Focusrite Control software (now at version 2), including the automated gain adjustment of the newly added Auto Gain function. Automatically optimising the gain for a new recording is an increasingly common feature of modern interfaces, particularly entry‑level models, and here involves just pressing the Auto button and playing or singing for about ten seconds while the algorithm optimises the preamp gain to achieve audio peaking at ‑12dBFS (a safe 12dB below full scale at the A‑D converter). The Focusrite version has sufficient intelligence not to be derailed by preamp noise, digital silence, inter‑channel crosstalk or even accidentally knocking into the microphone. The gain setting initially established by the Auto Gain learn process is retained until you ask it to ‘learn’ a new level, perhaps for a different source signal, but you can also enable another new function in the form of Clip Safe, which continually monitors your input signal and automatically adjusts the input gain level to reintroduce some headroom if clipping is detected. Clip Safe is a great addition, particularly for the less experienced practitioner, and should mean that no‑one should ever lose a ‘best take’ because they hadn’t quite got the initial gain structure right.

The Auto Gain and Clip Safe features facilitated by the digitally controlled mic amps are major assets for new users.

The 2i2 and 4i4 provide effective visual monitoring of their processes via their front panels with the button labels lighting up in green or amber, whilst the gain controls and the master volume control have LED ‘halos’ around them that display signal levels in different colours according to their current function. The implementation of digital control, however, means that all the main front panel settings, including activation of Auto Gain, are now visible and adjustable within the Inputs page of Focusrite Control 2, which now features a number of other updates to further simplify the workflow and make the software more intuitive to use.

Fourth‑gen Scarletts still use Apple’s built in Core Audio USB driver, and it is possible to install an additional ‘codeless kernel extension’ that reduces that latency figure slightly, although Apple Silicon Mac users have boot in Safe Mode to enable kernel extensions as part of Apple’s generally tighter security measures in their newer operating systems. With the kernel extension in place, a round trip latency of under 5ms is possible, comparing favourably with all but the best bespoke custom drivers. Direct monitoring in hardware is still implemented on the Solo and 2i2 models.

Scarlett 4th Gen pricing perhaps reflects global increases in costs as much as the range’s significant step‑up in performance. Our 2i2 ‘pricing benchmark’ has gone from £149 at Gen‑3 spec to £199 now, with the Solo taking up the entry‑level slot, itself still priced at a very affordable £139. A 4i4 model that would have cost £199 in Gen‑3 spec, will now cost £274 in its 4th‑Gen iteration. The Studio Bundles created around the Solo and 2i2 have increased proportionately, at £239 and £289, but also have some added value with the improved SH‑450 headphones having a more comfortable design and a flatter frequency response, and CM25 MKIII microphone now including a custom‑designed pop‑shield. The Hitmaker software bundle remains unchanged, including tons of plugins and a choice of recording software: Ableton Live Lite, or a free, time‑limited trial of Avid’s Pro Tools Artist subscription.

The original Scarletts may have been notable primarily for their excellent value for money, but by the 4th Gen we are looking at interfaces with a level of audio performance once considered exclusively the domain of the professional recording studio.

People appreciate the legacy of our brand and that we originated from that really big Focusrite console.

Retrospective

Will Hoult, Head of Product for the Focusrite and Novation brands within the Focusrite group: “The longevity of support for our interfaces is a key part of what we’re doing. We recognise that customers are investing in our hardware and that they expect to continue getting a return from it into the future.”

Looking back across ‘the Scarlett years’ from the perspective of 2024 — years that were not exactly without challenges for manufacturers, given the legacy of the financial crisis, the Covid pandemic period and the issues surrounding component shortages — the range seems almost to embody the ‘rising tide’ of consumer expectation in the home and project studio market. Whilst little may have appeared to change on the outside, each new generation actually represents a significant improvement in usability and fundamental sound quality. The original Scarletts may have been notable primarily for their excellent value for money, but by the 4th Gen we are looking at interfaces still described as ‘affordable’, and maybe even still ‘entry‑level’, but which have seriously impressive audio performance, going way beyond anything needed to make high‑quality recordings in a home or project studio environment and into the area once considered exclusively the professional domain. The continued growth of the audio‑technology market as a whole has inevitably maintained some downward pressure on pricing in the sector, however, so competing on the basis of value for money alone, is never going to be enough to achieve the sort of large‑scale success that Focusrite has enjoyed with this range. CEO Tim Carroll feels that at least some of that success is derived from the company’s origins at the very top of the pro‑audio world: “What’s become clear is that people appreciate the legacy of our brand and that we originated from that really big Focusrite console and how a lot of that technology and that signal path and that story has come down even into things like the Scarlett range, even if they don’t really quite understand what the technology is all about.”

Looking for further explanations for the success of the Scarlett range, it is not really necessary to look beyond the idea that the last decade or so has seen a whole new group of people getting into this technology, with a very different kind of expectation about how everything should work. For them, you don’t sit at a desk with a computer and an audio interface to create, you carry your interface with you wherever you go and record, mix and stream on a laptop, phone or tablet, whether you are a musician, a podcaster or a DJ. Wider access to more affordable, easier‑to‑use, more flexible, and better‑sounding technology has undoubtedly helped create a democratization of all types of audio content creation.

We are fortunate to be living in a time when we all have a lot of seriously good computer audio interfaces to choose from, and finding one that matches any specific needs we might have is not going to be too difficult, but the ubiquity and sheer convenience of USB connectivity in an interface makes that protocol somewhat self‑selecting as likely to achieve the widest customer base. Looking at other product groups in the same price range as the Focusrite Scarletts, however, it is difficult to discern a similar degree of market dominance anywhere over the same time period. Affordable microphones were pretty good in 2011, and they are still pretty good now. No one of them is the ‘obvious, safe purchase’. In fact, if you want the ‘obvious, safe purchase’ in the mic sector, you might well end up buying something invented in the 1960s. It is not quite the same in the monitor speaker sector where technology and designs have undoubtedly both improved over the last 12 years, as has value for money, but I’m not sure anyone can point to one really dominant product range, just a lot of really rather good ones. Perhaps software is the one area where it is obvious that great advances have been made — there are things that can be done in software now that could barely have been imagined just a few years ago. But mics, mixers and monitors, like instruments, are objects that engineers and musicians develop some kind of emotional attachment to — perhaps they are items where we think our choices say something about us and how we work. But for an audio interface — that most prosaically functional of devices in the signal chain — to clearly exceed the commercial norms for its market sector, and at the most competitive entry‑level, too, is highly unusual and intriguing enough to have been the motivation for this retrospective examination.

There’s no point having the fastest driver on the planet if it’s going to drop out constantly.

Some products achieve huge commercial success in the audio world by being outstandingly good at something, while others rise to the top for a while just by being the right thing, at the right time, at the right price. Focusrite’s Scarlett range, at launch in 2011, undoubtedly fell into the latter category, but by the current 4th Gen versions has a level of performance now fully deserving of the accolade ‘outstandingly good’ as well, and on that basis perhaps it should be no surprise to see the range as a whole able to credibly lay claim to being the ‘biggest‑selling audio interface range in the world’.