Focusrite continues to expand its offerings aimed at those in the homestudio game, giving more musicians seeking the company’s excellent preamps an opportunity to own them in affordable, straightforward, and portable configurations. Songwriters simply must own an interface with such qualities, as capturing ideas quickly, easily, and with fine fidelity is paramount for developing tunes whenever and wherever inspiration strikes. The headline regarding Focusrite’s new Clarett is right there in black and white. It features ubiquitous USB connectivity and operates at USB 2.0 speed, whereas the previous incarnation used Thunderbolt connectivity exclusively. There are actually three interfaces in the Clarett USB series, ranging from the simple 2Pre USB to the advanced 8Pre USB, and including the middle unit on review here, the 4Pre USB ($599 street).
How many preamp inputs do you need to record simultaneously? While the typical electric guitar player looking to capture riffs might only require a couple of primary inputs, acoustic aficionados will want a combination of microphones and direct signals, and singer-songwriters require the ability to record a vocal simultaneously. The rackmountable Clarett 8Pre USB looked awesome, but perhaps a bit much for Frets purposes, so our natural selection was the Clarett 4Pre USB. It’s so portable that I was able to fit it in my carry-on bag when I flew to New Orleans during the course of this review.
The Clarett 4Pre USB is set up simply. There are four front-panel combo jacks (XLR and 1/4”), four Gain knobs, a pair of 48V phantom power switches (one for inputs 1 and 2, and another for inputs 3 and 4), a Monitor control, and two 1/4” headphone jacks with dedicated Volume knobs. Red LEDs indicate if channels 1 or 2 are set to high-impedance instrument levels. Yellow lights next to each