The two most important things when connecting the 2 interfaces is to make sure they are synchronised and locked together. I updated my 2019 MacBook Pro to Big Sur and can report that Saffire Mix Control actually works fine. Note that Saffire MixControl software is supported on macOS Catalina, but this is the last officially supported version. Saffire Mix Control has an awful UI that feels like it’s from the 90s in comparison to the cleaner Focusrite Control, as you will see below. Since the Clarett is a more up to date device it connects to the Focusrite Control software but the Saffire connects to the older Saffire Mix Control software. I used this to send a signal back in to the Saffire to get more headphone mixes. If you really want to experiment you can have 2 ADAT cables running from the outputs to the inputs of both interfaces for more communication options. Here is the one I purchased which was pretty cheap and nice and short to fit cleanly in the back of the rack. (Stay tuned for a future post on sample rates and bit depth!) You connect the ADAT output of one interface to the ADAT input of your master interface. You just need a TOSLINK ADAT cable which is an optical cable, much like how fibre optic broadband works. If - like me when I began this journey - you have absolutely no idea what these are let me do a quick summary ĪDAT is a standard for the transfer of digital audio between equipment and it supports up to 8 audio channels up to 48 kHz, 24 bit. It’s possible to send higher sample rates but for our purposes we will disregard that as 44.1kHz and 48kHz will serve most people. In order for this to work you are going to first need your 2 interfaces. They are going to need to be expandable interfaces which means they need to have either ADAT or S/PDIF connections. Fast forward to the current COVID situation and being stuck in lockdown I decided to make the most of it and finally connect my two interfaces together to give me 16 inputs, and also 4 headphone outputs! So in 2018, with the money I’d made on the ship I finally upgraded my interface to a shiny new USB-C one! I picked up the Focusrite Clarett 8Pre which is fantastic, and even though at the time I knew little about the world of pro audio I kept hold of my old Saffire because I knew it was possible to connect them somehow. I was working on cruise ships and dabbling in recording while at home, so wasn’t essential but I knew I would need to sort this out at a later time. I got a Windows PC to keep me going which while it had quite a few ports, was lacking any Thunderbolt or FireWire. Unfortunately my trusty MacBook Pro died on me in 2016 and with it went my only FireWire port. It was a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 and connected via FireWire, which has almost disappeared now! It was my first dive into the world of audio recording gear and at the time I was a student at Berklee College of Music. I bought my first audio interface back in 2013.
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