For a long time As music gear companies have been making audio interfaces, they’ve assumed that most people in the market only care about connecting as many microphones as possible to their computer. They may have a couple of quarter-inch inputs on the front for “instruments,” but the market dominance of interfaces that dedicate most of their real estate to inputs with mic preamps and XLR connectors has gone unnoticed for far too long. What about baby-boomer gear fans with racks of vintage preamps who don’t want shoddy Guitar Center-quality circuitry coloring their signal? Or synth fans who need a no-fuss hub for their many, winding paths of modular goodness?
Some of the most innovative gear answers questions no one is asking, and Arturia has been at the forefront of these issues for the better part of a decade. Known primarily for its durable MIDI controllers and budget synthesizers that outperform Behringer’s, the French firm turned heads when it waded into the crowded waters of the audio interface market with Their AudioFuse seriesThese durable, sleek little boxes made it easy for recording artists of all stripes to capture ideas with little effort, all at a price that hovered at a comfortable midpoint between the low-cost junk flooding Amazon and the “prosumer” studio centerpieces offered by flashier brands like Audient and Universal Audio. The addition of USB hub ports for connecting gear like USB MIDI controllers, keyboards, and other common peripherals was a “Why didn’t anyone think of this before?” moment for the ages. To this day, the MiniFuse 2 ($122) It’s my favorite interface for quick and easy iPad-based audio production.
As they move into the luxury market with the AudioFuse 16Rig, Arturia answers another important question that no one is asking: Would anyone pay $1,299 for a rack-mountable interface that swaps preamps for a mind-boggling array of inputs and outputs? A month with the 16 inputs and eight outputs offered by this 1U routing and workflow dynamo convinced me that the answer is a resounding “Yes.”
Photography: Pete Cottell
Audio Infusions
Patience and spontaneity are the yin and yang of lo-fi bedroom musicians and revered producers alike. Creativity can strike at any moment, but you’ll need to spend countless hours in advance plugging things in to foster an environment that makes the process of sitting down and hitting the record button as seamless as possible.
I spent a few afternoons connecting my Line 6 Helix, HX Effects, synths, and a pedalboard full of effects from brands like Chase Bliss and Walrus Audio to a basic patch panel and the AudioFuse’s various inputs and outputs. It took me less than an hour to figure out how the accompanying software could get me into a set-it-and-forget-it setup that would be ready to go at a moment’s notice.
The software is relatively straightforward, with predictable layouts and functions nested within its I/O, mixer, and routing matrix pages. The mixer page starts out empty and requires channels to be “added” to become active, which took some getting used to, but it and the I/O page will be immediately familiar to anyone who uses a DAW with any regularity.
Photography: Pete Cottell