Steve Stout, owner and operator of Shabby Road Studio in Nashville and guitarist/co-producer for the American rock band Lifehouse, relies on Focusrite’s ISA C8X ( interface alongside ADAM Audio ( monitors and headphones.
The Focusrite ISA C8X is a 26-in, 28-out USB-Caudio interface that brings Focusrite’s transformer-balanced ISA microphone preamps into a standalone interface for the first time. Its first two channels feature ISA preamps built around classic Lundahl LL1538 transformers, with Console mode and 430 Air mode for tonal shaping, while all eight channels are fully controllable from the front panel or via Focusrite Control 2 ( alongside switchable impedance, balanced inserts, high-pass filtering, and the routing and recallability needed to run an entire studio.
Stout describes his pre-C8X setup and how the C8X cleared new workflow avenues for him: I had Focusrite’s Clarett+ 8Pre ( and OctoPre ( and was a huge fan of those units. However, the wall I kept hitting was needing more inputs for my ever-growing collection. I was already using the insert points on the OctoPre to hot-patch in extra gear, like my SSL bus compressor, just to have somewhere to plug it in.
The C8X opened things up. What drew me in first was having the newest Focusrite converters as the brain of the system. But the bigger thing was the inputs. With switchable XLR and quarter-inch inputs, you’re really looking at closer to sixteen usable ins, not eight. That gave me room to keep gear like a Chroma Console pedal patched in full-time, gear I’d never bother connecting if I had to cable it in every session.
Questioned about how the added I/Ochanges his approach to bigger sessions, Stout recalls, I had the artist Theo Lawrence in for what was intended to be a video shoot, and it turned into a live four-piece session instead, all standing close together with no headphones. I ran the room off my ADAM A77H monitors, just the vocal coming through loud, which gave it a real live-show feel.
For more information, visit focusrite.com.
