This new product marries two of the Liquid preamps with Focusrite's Saffire Pro audio interface technology. The Liquid preamps, though, have remained the preserve of those with a serious budget, and even second‑hand units have held their price well.Īctually, I should say had remained, because the Liquid Saffire 56 audio interface brings that technology well within reach of the home studio.
This brought the cost per preamp down a little, at the expense of trading the Liquid Channel's transformer for a 'gyrator' that emulated the behaviour of the transformer. They were also able to put four of the preamps into a separate unit (the Liquid 4 Pre, reviewed in SOS March 2008). That approach was necessary to let a connected mic 'see' the different impedances that would be presented by the real thing.įocusrite were able to hive off the EQ and dynamics section to create a separate, much more affordable product (the Liquid Mix, reviewed in SOS July 2006, and later the Liquid Mix 16, which was more affordable still) - something that was simple to do because it was an entirely digital process.
While the 'dynamic convolution' process behind the EQ and dynamics emulations was easy enough to understand (to simplify: lots of DSP running multiple‑snapshot convolution), the preamps were rather more complicated, employing a combination of electronics and dynamic convolution to create emulations. Pretty much any preamp, EQ and compressor of note had apparently been 'modelled', to create arguably the most flexible channel strip in history - and the results of using it were pretty damned good too. It's fair to say that when Focusrite and Sintefex first unleashed their 'Liquid' technology, in the form of the Liquid Channel (reviewed in SOS July 2004), many in the world of audio production were stunned. Focusrite's Saffire Pro interfaces already offer excellent value for money, but imagine if you could add two channels of any preamp you wanted.
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