independent mixes is a bonus when recording a duo or group live. Having a built-
in near-zero-latency monitoring mixer simplifies getting good headphone mixes,
which is really important to get the best performance from the players in the
studio. You’ll use the four front panel input connectors most of the time, but those
fourteen additional inputs can greatly expand the tracking when you need it,
providing you have the gear with line level analog, ADAT optical, and S/PDIF
outputs to connect to those inputs.
The four rear panel analog line inputs, in addition to being the obvious place to
plug in synthesizers, are ideal for using outboard mic preamps, some of which
you may already own and like. The rather low sensitivity of the built-in preamps,
which may or may not be a problem for your applications, led me to connect an
outboard preamp to the rear line inputs on several occasions. In addition to
providing more gain than the Scarlett preamps, an alternate preamp can add a
different color to some of your tracks or bring out the best in certain mics. Adding
an 8-channel mic preamp with ADAT optical output will easily give you enough
inputs to track a full rhythm section with multiple mics on the drums, or perhaps
the full band.
The outputs all sound fine, and you can route anything you choose to any of
them. However, should you want to use outboard signal processors during
mixdown or tracking, although you have plenty of inputs available for signal
returns, you may find yourself short of outputs to connect to the outboard
processors. Each headphone jack will give you two mono or one stereo
unbalanced output at a reasonable line level, but you’ll almost certainly need
some adapters to get from the headphone jack to the processor input. It’s not a
big deal, and that setup works fine, but it may not be obvious to a beginner.
Squeezing another two TRS jacks on to the rear panel, even if they duplicated
the audio streams going to the headphone jacks, would have been a nice touch.
While input level metering is no worse than the single clip LED commonly found
on other interfaces in this price class, I wish they had done a better job of
providing a more meaningful indication that you’re in the right ballpark. As long
as you’re careful with your initial level setting and keep an occasional eye on the
DAW or Mix Control meters when tracking, you can make an excellent sounding
recording with the Scarlett 18i8.
I believe the Scarlett 18i8 would find the most utility in the home studio of a
songwriter or performing duo. If you do voiceover or narration work, you might
want to consider augmenting it with an outboard mic preamp or a pre-preamp
such as the Cloudlifter from Cloud Microphones to avoid having to squeeze the
last bit of gain out of the Scarlett’s mic preamps. If you’re thinking about
expandability for handling future projects, you might want to consider stepping up
to the Scarlett 18i20 for its ten analog outputs on TRS jacks, plus its ADAT
output as well as input. Add an inexpensive A/D-D/A converter like the Behringer
ADA-8000 and you’ll have enough I/O for a full rack of outboard processors.