Designing the Ultimate Interface

Designing The Ultimate Interface 05 Jun 2017 Combining the trinity of sound, speed and connectivity in Focusrite's Red interface range.

In 1993, Focusrite debuted the original Red Range, a line of mic preamps and audio processors that feature the analogue circuitry of the Focusrite Studio Console in rack-mountable format. They were beautiful, shining, over-engineered hulks of audio mastery which, to this day, are still considered some of the finest recording products ever built. But as technology changed, the studio landscape shifted and recording budgets shrunk, the line was eventually discontinued. Nevertheless, the legacy of the original Red family will forever be tied to Focusrite's best-ever audio products. So when it came to naming the new line of flagship interfaces worthy of a place in the greatest recording studios in the world, Focusrite looked no further than its own archives: to revive the Red brand.

The Focusrite Red interfaces represent the culmination of over 15 years of audio interface design and manufacture, which grew out of the company's preceding 13 years of expertise in analogue and digital audio fields. Not only are the Red 4 Pre and Red 8 Pre the newest and most advanced of Focusrite's interfaces, they have been designed and built with the highest specification of any Focusrite interfaces ever. This article uncovers the technical methods implemented by the R&D team to make the Reds the best ever', and perform to the standards demanded of the ultimate interface.

With any interface, there are several key things to get right in the design phase. The mic pres, of course, are critical for capturing a clean and dynamic sound. Then there are the converters, which encode the analogue audio inputs into digital information (A-D), and decode the digital information from the computer back into an electrical, analogue signal (D-A). These have to be implemented properly in the electrical circuit then programmed efficiently to minimise digital artefacts and maximise dynamic range. The communication with the host machine - whether this is over USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, a proprietary interface, or something else - will have a big impact on latency, and without an efficient and stable driver, even the best-sounding interface will flounder. Lastly, like any electrical device, the interface has to be physically reliable and assembled well. This means using quality components that play well with each other, PSUs that provide smooth, steady power, and physical fixtures that don't break off in your hand.

The Dante Brooklyn' card is walled in by a metal sheath, to protect the sensitive digital components from stray noise emanating from elsewhere inside the Red 4 Pre

Focusrite has always striven to engineer the highest quality at all levels of interface design, whether sub-$100 iOS devices, or multi-thousand-dollar audio-over-IP devices. Of course, there have to be compromises with products that offer lots of features at affordable prices. We can't put super-expensive components in a hundred-dollar interface, because they quickly eat away at the margin that makes a product commercially viable. But we can make sure that the affordable components are implemented and programmed properly, to optimise performance. At Focusrite, we do this using our technical smartness, which we have gained from nearly three decades of audio engineering. We've built our reputation on this, and for making great-sounding, reliable products, despite the hurdles of consumer budgets. But what happens when the design hurdles are removed? How does one design the ultimate interface?

Making A Marvel

We started from the ground up with the Red range, so we had the opportunity to begin from scratch, recalls Will Hoult, Focusrite's Product Manager for Commercial and Professional Audio. The first step in the product development process was to identify who the product would be for. We researched the problems that audio professionals face in their everyday workflow, and set out to solve them, while keeping the commercial competitiveness in view at all times. [Despite taking a no-holds-barred approach, we acknowledged that there is a practical limit to what people will spend on a best-in-class interface.] We spent a lot of time looking at what really falls down for professional users, and what we quickly identified was that large numbers of Pro Tools | HD users were not satisfied with the existing offerings on the market. We focused in on the customer who wants a simple-to-implement, all-in-one solution, which integrates seamlessly with their existing workflow, whether that involves a Pro Tools system or Core Audio-reliant software such as Ableton Live or Logic. Of course, this user also wants unbeatable sound quality that compliments the high-end mics, monitors and outboard equipment in their system, as well as the acoustic environments they work in.

One of the most significant emerging technologies in the interface space is audio-over-IP. - Will Hoult, Focusrite As with every design project, we looked at emerging trends, and what technology we have directly available to us from our other product lines. One of the most significant emerging technologies in the interface space is audio-over-IP, which is something Focusrite has several years of experience in. (Our RedNet range of networked audio interfaces was one of the first to market.) Its main benefit is being able to leverage standard IP networking equipment and infrastructure - which is affordable and easy to obtain - to very quickly add additional equipment to an audio I/O system, and work with very high channel counts at low latency. With older, less advanced tech, adding I/O involves considerable configuration and synchronisation headaches, along with several hurdles in terms of channel count, cable length an

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