Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 3rd Gen

It was my first audio interface and I must say that for a beginner I could have not chosen a better one. Right off the bat the build quality is solid, full aluminium, hard plastic, easy intuitive layout, very simple to get used to. At this price point, I think there is no other better option out there, 4ins 4outs and MIDI.
Pretty straight forward to use, love that I've got a bunch of free software to experiment and build up experience. There is such a large library of toys that it would be a pity not to play with them all.
Works great with both platforms Windows / Mac OS. Better with Mac OS, too be honest, and I have read a lot of posts where people had horrible experiences with Windows drivers. So, Mac is the safest way to go here. (although I would love to have a Linux alternative).
The hardware and sound is good enough for a beginner, I was very excited about it at first, and don't get me wrong, I still am, but I soon realized that compared to other interfaces the sound is not that clear and it tends to clip very easily, thus, I was kinda bummed for not being able to use it at it's full presented capacity. But also, it depends a lot on your setup, pickups and pedals.

Conclusion: Good for beginners, amazing hardware specs at this price, solid, decent sound, bunch of free software to try.

When unpacking this deal, be sure to install Scrlett first. Then you will find an ableton part. Click on that and you will find the code you need to activate ableton later on. Ableton says the code is "in the box" but it isnt. Trying to find it via Abletons instructions will land you in an afternoon of computer hell. Scarlett is not indicated in Ableton website as a product they partner with. Codes, serial numbers it is all confusing.

Of course you need to comply with their 20 page terms of use. Also, as aEuropean, you will be asked to comply with US law, which is bizarre.Us privacy laws are much less strict. They will know how you tie your shoelaces. Else you cant register it and it will be useless.
Arent there laws against that?

I havent tried the thing yet. 13 1 star reviews on over 500 reviews is not too bad. I hope I´m not one of the unlucky ones.
Will update review when I have used the product for a while.

I think people should know about this, so I give 1 star, for now.

I got this for my home studio to record guitar directly and for the midi capabilities for the future hardware synths I am planning on buying.
I have it connected with my kali lp 6 and it sound great.

When I was reading reviews for this sound card everybody was talking about how good the preamps are and I wasn't convinced until I tried them myself and they do sound great indeed.
The gain knobs for analogue 1 and 2 inputs light up and gives an indication when it almost clips(yellow) and when it clips(red) these colors can be be changed through the Focusrite control software.

The analogue inputs 3 and 4 can be controlled though the software only they don't have a hardware controls.
The Phantom Power 48v Only exists for the 1 and 2 inputs
There is a pad for the 1 and 2 input that you can control through the software you also use the software to control whether the 1 and 2 inputs are line or instrument.
The big monitor knob works only for the 1 and 2 outputs the 3 and 4 outputs come out as unity gain (0db) so that's something I had to keep in mind of when I was calibrating my monitors.


Pros:
Great sounding pre amps
Great build quality you can take this to any gig without worries
midi in/out great for using with hardware synths or no DAW setups

Cons:
It would be really good if it had an indication of unity gain on the monitor control when everything is set to 0db on the software.
Other than that I don't see any other cons

Overall a great budget sound card I recommend!!

Coming from a Behringer Uphoria it's a crazy upgrade. I used to have so little functionality and sometimes almost unbearable latency. With the Scarlett and it's Focusrite Control program, there're so many ways to route and use your inputs and outputs + plus I pretty much don't even feel a latency when for example playing a guitar through a plugin.
There are only two downsides for me. The Inst, Air and Pad functions can only be turned on and off from the Focusrite Control program, but I do know that they fixed that with the 4th Gen. And the second thing, which isn't really a problem, but just took some time to understand, is how to turn off the input direct monitoring (but that just might've been my own lack of knowledge).
So all in all I'd totally recommend. A solid piece.

This right here is the real deal - I held off to write the review until I got the 770 Pro 80Ohm headphones and here it is:

Regarding the sound, there is a CLEAR difference when plugging into the audio interface and when plugging into whatever soundcard you might have. Also, it drives 80 Ohm headphones without any issues, to get really satisfactory volume (a bit loud) seems to be at 60% of the volume dial (keep in mind, this is without any headphone amps) - at 100% it is blazing and too loud.

As I am a guitar player, I bought this audio interface exclusively because it had the "Pad" option, and having a guitar with Active pickups (EMGs), I didn't want to invest in an additional DI box etc - the "padding" does wonders and there is no clipping/distortion caused with the feature turned on. If you have a guitar with active pickups (especially hot ones like EMGs), I really recommend this audio interface.

I also use the t.bone M85 Beta microphone for either some "riff idea" recording or simply using the microphone during gaming. There have been many times where I was deliberately close to the microphone and was speaking in an... ASMRish voice and everyone in the Discord or game voice chat went "DUDE WTF" - the signal is clear and there is no clipping (once you play a bit with the knob).

Honestly, I cannot imagine NOT having an audio interface going forward and this little red thing spoiled me.

- Pro: Probably great for use with laptops.
- Pro: Served me well when I used headphones only.
- Con: Had noise related to it being USB powered.
- Con: USB connectivity died after a rapid power cycle.

This was my first external audio interface, and allowed me to get lower latency while playing piano, than I got via ASIO4ALL, and allowed me to hook up some nicer microphones. As expected.

I initially used it with headphones only, with the idea to upgrade to proper studio monitors later. When I made that upgrade, I ran into noise issues. The ground hum was reduced by powering my PC from an outlet across the room, separate from my speakers, but there was still noise related to PC activity; low volume whine on mouse movements, higher volume noise during GPU intensive operations (e.g.: games).

So while it's nice to be able to power the thing off of USB, it's probably better for use with laptops than battery powered laptops.

I tried reducing the noise by injecting external power using Ifi's iDefender. Unfortunately plugging that in resulted in a fast power cycle, which killed the USB connectivity. Some quick searching showed that I'm not the only one who had one break after a quick power cycle.

It feels like a firmware issue, but Focusrite support (who are apparently very busy and hard to reach at the moment) consider it a hardware issue, and suggest an RMA. In the meantime it's just a pretty brick, with a nice button to enable a pretty 48V status indicator light.