Overview
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 condensor 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
The Rite Red
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.
Specifications
Weight
• 7.3kg
• 16.1Ibs
Dimensions
• 484mm (W) x 85mm (H) x 266mm (D)
• 19" (W) x 3.5" (H) x 10.5" (D)
• 2U rackmount
