Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen

I have never in my life even remotely thought that interface can change my workflow this much. Integrated zero-latency hardware 1 bus mixer is game changer since... it works even if PC is turned off and interface is unplugged. It means that you can actually set this interface up in such way that when PC is off Scarlett 18i20 can behave as pass-through device passing any line-in of your choice (eg. inputs 7-8) directly to your main XLR monitors. It makes it really easy to connect multiple either balanced or unbalanced devices to monitors. Kinda like... monitor controller or actual mixer AND interface in one device.

Really nice. Value added by this device is simply incredible. Also it works under Linux (as of today there's kernel patch available on linuxmusicians fixing implicit USB feedback issue).

The only issue I have with this device it's that it has ONE bus mixer. Means you can create one "custom mix" aka virtual mixer (with whichever physical or software inputs you like) and then assign this one mix output it to whichever outputs you like but there's only ONE such stereo mix. It means that you can't for example pass line-in 7-8 to out 1-2 and line-in 5-6 to out 3-4 as that would require 2 independent virtual mixers which is not possible.

pros:
- standalone 1 bus mixer
- signal level meters and other back lit indicators look super dope
- 10 built-in output channels (a lot of devices have only 8). In general great i/o
- rubber caps to cover rack ears mounting holes if you don't use them
- kind of works with Linux as well as smartphones

cons:
- standalone ONE bus mixer
- i believe more controls should be exposed as physical buttons. Eg. AIR switch which is physical on some other Scarlett devices.

While physically speaking the quality of this unit is great, the software implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Many configuration options, such as extending the number of inputs through the ADAT connection, require using the Focusrite Control proprietary software suite, which is only available for Windows and Mac. Why not make all options configurable without a PC, and especially without a proprietary piece of software?

This device desperately needs hardware controls for user settings. With that, all Focusrite would really need to do to provide Linux support is to make the device USB class compliant. Unfortunately, since the driver is proprietary, the Linux driver is a reverse-engineered one that works but still has some issues, the device being as new as it is. The free/open source community will fix the driver issues in time, and the device is already quite usable, but all the troulbe make one beg the question: why make things so difficult, Focusrite?

Otherwise, the device is fine. Lots of inputs right into your PC - what more can you ask for.

The unit is not very heavy but its still feels premium and solid. it has 8 mic preamp/input on the unit itself, which I find is just enough if you're starting to record live drums. However you'll need a separate preamp to use all 18inputs that this unit has.

The mic-preamps has a -15db pad toggle on it, and when I use certain mics with it, I found that it'll clip at around -10db to -20db. I don't know whether its is a problem with my unit or something that all units has. I don't know what caused it, but I haven't re-encounter that problem since then.

For day to day uses, It runs smoothly. its actually plug-n-play, but if you use its control software downloading from their website, you can get much more out of it in terms of internal routing. However, I have experienced occasionally, the control software would say the hardware is not connected even thought the computer is clearly using it to play sound from my daw. Usually it will resolves itself after I restart the control software after waiting a few minutes or restarting my computer.