Focusrite: Scarlett Interfaces - Behind The Brand

It's 10 years since Focusrite launched their best-selling Scarlett range of audio interfaces, now into its third generation. CEO Tim Carroll and Will Hoult, Head Of Product at Focusrite and Novation talk to Sam Inglis about what's behind the success of the Scarletts, the principles of interface design, how the company has negotiated the pandemic and the silicon shortage, and Focusrite's vision for a greener future in this Behind The Brand interview.

Chapters
Tim Carroll
00:00 - Introduction
00:31 - From Musician To Manager
04:43 - Changes In The Market
07:20 - The Scarlett Range
10:20 - Removing Barriers To Creativity
11:29 - More Home Studios
15:03 - The Chip Shortage
18:10 - Why There's Not A Focusrite DAW
23:32 - The Family Of Brands
27:24 - Sustainability In The Audio Industry
Will Hoult
29:43 - Role At Focusrite
30:40 - The Intimidation Factor
32:58 - Driver Performance And Latency
36:56 - Simplicity And Product Longevity
39:47 - USB As The Dominant Protocol
43:09 - The Challenges Of Designing Mic Preamps
46:39 - Determining The Number Of Inputs
50:19 - Rackmount Vs Desktop
52:24 - The Benefits Of Upgrading Your Interface

Focusrite Biog
Focusrite is an award-winning recording and production equipment brand established in 1985. The initial focus was on high quality recording and production equipment for industry professionals, but in 1989 they began to broaden the range of products to serve a wider customer base of professional, commercial and hobbyist musicians.

Novation Electronic Music Systems Limited was acquired in 2004 and extended the Focusrite range and customer base into the electronic dance music segment of the market. Since then Focusrite has continued to innovate, with the introduction of Launchpad in 2009 and the Scarlett USB Audio Interface range in 2010, one of the top selling product lines for home studio recording. In 2019, Focusrite acquired ADAM Audio and Martin Audio, adding professional studio monitoring and touring speaker systems to the range.

Optimal Audio was launched in 2021, an initiative from Martin Audio which aims to make the world of commercial audio installation less complex. Optimal Audio manufacture high-quality loudspeakers, amplifiers and controllers for commercial audio applications. Focusrite also acquired Sequential, the respected American synthesizer manufacturer led by legendary electronic instrument designer and Grammy winner Dave Smith. The acquisition brings the total number of Focusrite Group brands to eight.

https://focusrite.com/

Sam Inglis Biog
Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

https://www.soundonsound.com

Catch more shows on our other podcast channels: https://www.soundonsound.com/sos-podcasts

Creators and Guests

Host

Sam Inglis

Editor In Chief Sam Inglis has been with Sound On Sound for more than 20 years. He is a recording engineer, producer, songwriter and folk musician who studies the traditional songs of England and Scotland, and the author of Neil Young's Harvest (Bloomsbury, 2003) and Teach Yourself Songwriting (Hodder, 2006).

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Hello and welcome to the sound on sound people and music industry podcast with me Sam Ingalls.

I'm very pleased today to be joined by Tim Carroll and Will Holt from Focusrite.

Thank you. Hey very nice to see you again Sam.

It's now 10 years since Focusrite launched their, um, Milestone Scarlet series of USB audio interfaces, and we'll be looking at how the success of those interfaces has happened and how it's changed the company in a minute.

Um, first of all though, I thought I would like to ask Tim, you're the CEO of Focusrite, uh, but prior to going into the business side of the music industry, you were yourself a professional musician for many years. How has that experience informed... Your management and the way you run Focusrite.

Yeah, thanks, Sam.

That's a great question. So, I guess, you know, when I came into it, I'm going to show my age a little bit here. Uh, you know, MIDI was a thing. Digital audio recording was just really starting to become a promise, if you will. And, uh, I was a keyboard player. And, as you can imagine, uh, you know, so MIDI was something that I was getting my head around.

It became more and more, uh, sort of involved in every kind of recording project I did. And when, and really when computers sort of really came into the studio, um, I think a lot of times, not just for me, for a lot of keyboard players, we were the guys that were sort of regulated to figure it out, or considered, you know, well you have to be the expert on this because you know how to run all the MIDI stuff.

And, you know, back then, I guess what was interesting is that, you know, it was really early days and a lot of this stuff didn't work as promised. I mean, there was a dream there. If you will, about what it all could do, but I think it was, you know, many years away. And so for me, uh, you know, I got to experience firsthand how, uh, you know, uh, people have this expectation that technology's supposed to do something.

And, uh, you know, maybe it's not quite there yet. And so that was, that was interesting. And for me, uh, you know, what I was able to do, because it's a very small industry, I was able to actually, you know, ring these people up and, you know, the first kind of. Real digital audio recording, uh, experience I had was SoundTools and then a company called Opcode, uh, with StudioVision.

And, uh, you know, I used to call them up and say, hey, I'm in a session and, you know, um, you know, a lot of times it was like, yeah, we're, we're trying to sort that out ourselves. I, I actually made a great connection with those guys, which, you know, I mean, served me well going forward, but, you know, for me, I, I can still appreciate, um, you know, for the professional community that we, uh, saw, I mean, just how important it is when they invest in your gear, they're not just spending their money on, you know, um, the hardened money, uh, they're investing their, you know, their time to integrate that into their workflow.

And they're also kind of counting on you to come through for them because there's an expectation that, You know, your piece of technology is going to do something new and extra. And I take that very personally because I've been in that seat before on there. And then, you know, I guess on the other side of it is, you know, I, uh, I got to, you know, work with a lot of friends and people who, You know, we're not professionals, but they, uh, they wanted to record at home.

And I got to see firsthand, you know, what that whole experience was for people in terms of just, you know, suddenly it was like the idea of the concept of, you know, um, using their laptop or computer to record was a fabulous idea, but. When they suddenly realize that there was this whole world of, you know, uh, language, nomenclature, and things they need to learn around it, um, It's, uh, it becomes a, you know, a very big uphill battle for them.

And, uh, and that's something that I, you know, I would always get the call to try to help them out. So in the back of my mind going over time, you know, both sides of that, the, the sort of the new user, the hobbyist, and also the professional, I think my experience, you know, just, you know, uh, dealing with the technology in the way I did, You know, it has really helped me, uh, continue to understand where the customer's coming from.

And, and the cool thing, uh, if I could just add is that, you know, um, one of the great things about our employee base here at Focusrite is that we have a lot of people that leave work every day and they go out in the gig. Um, they're DJs, they're, uh, you know, they're guitar players and musicians, they're podcasters.

And they come back in the next day, um, you know, and they kind of pick back up, but they've used the kit overnight. in a very real world way, either, you know, at home for fun or, you know, actually for a paying gig and the, that feedback they bring, first off, it, it, it, it brings a lot of memory bells for me when they come back and they say, Hey, something didn't work right.

Or I figured this out and stuff. So we take a lot of that to heart.

Well, it's been quite a long time now, since you made that transition from being a musician yourself into, uh, Working in the business side of the industry and the market has changed an awful lot in those ways. What do you see is the most?

Significant changes that have happened in that time

Well, I guess the first thing is, you know The the amount of content and the ability for people to create content has dramatically changed You know, it's really interesting. I mean, I've always been As a keyboard player, I've always been a real synth guy, but I think it didn't really dawn on to me until, you know, probably about 10 years ago, about just how much electronic music has completely democratized music creation.

Um, and you know, I'd have some people go, God, you know, look, look at all these artists that are out there, you know, um, that are, you know, you know, filling up concert halls and stuff, and they're not really players. How do you feel about that? And it was just like, well, okay, he's got five other musicians on stage.

I feel good about that because, you know, that's just bringing the whole industry up. But, you know, so I think, you know, the, the genres of music have really just allowed so many more people to have a great experience, whether they just want to do it for fun. Yeah. Or it becomes something serious for them.

Uh, that's the first thing. Um, I think Also as we as we move along in time, you know The other thing that I i'm aware of is that you know We have a whole new crop of people that are getting into this technology and these are people that you know Grew up with ipads in their cribs Um, so they have a very different kind of expectation about how technology works all together.

You know, the, the concept that, you know, you're sort of strapped to a desk with a laptop and an audio interface, and that's how you create music. And that's the only place you can do it. They don't really understand that because this is a you know a group of people that you know have come up And there's like well hold on I can I can do anything on my laptop Which I want to do But I want to be able to you know pick up and carry on with what I'm doing on my phone on the tube or On my iPad at my friend's house and stuff so there's this very collaborative workflow thing that that's happening as well So you know I think I think in general it's the democratization of music creation.

It's new Uh, types of, uh, of content like podcasting that, again, has really opened the net, um, for people, uh, you know, to express themselves in different ways. Um, and, uh, and then also just the expectation of how all this technology is going to work together. Those are sort of the big ones that I've seen. I mean, fundamentally, at the core, you know, the, the, the root cause for people getting this hasn't changed.

They have a desire to express themselves in some way.

And Focusrite, of course, have been partners with people on that journey for a long time now. And the launch of the Scarlett range ten years ago was a bit of a milestone, really, because that's gone on to become astonishingly successful. I saw a statistic which said that one of the Scarlett models is now the best selling audio interface of all time.

Um, Do you think the people who buy Scarlett's today have the same priorities as those who bought the original model 10 years

ago? I think fundamentally yes. And even if they don't really quite understand what the technology is all about. I mean, you know, it's really interesting. Collect a lot of data when people, uh, you know, buy one of our products, you know, we, we've spent an inordinate amount of time on, uh, their onboarding journey to really kind of streamline for the, for the use case and stuff.

But, you know, at the start of that, we asked some really basic questions, uh, of these, of these folks. And, um, I think, uh, you know, the. What, what's become clear is that, you know, a lot of people, regardless if they're brand new, they, they appreciate the, the legacy of our brand and where we originated from, you know, from that really big, large, uh, Focusrite console, and how a lot of that technology and that signal path and that story has come in, down even to things like Scarlett, um, is, is really interesting.

You know, um, and then I think the other thing, again, is that we, We spend a lot of time on this onboarding journey, you know, um, to really understand who you are and what you're trying to do. And it, you know, it was really fascinating because, you know, when we really first started this, you have all these different assumptions that somebody's buying an interface and they're going to use every single connector and thing on it.

And what we found out is that there's a lot of people that, you know, were buying our interface for, um, you know, uh, producing beats and stuff. And we were taking them through a whole bunch of, you know, of tutorials about how to. You know, adjust the microphone level or something like that, that was completely irrelevant to them at that point in time, maybe not later on, but the beginning, and so by streamlining that, you know, what, what's happened is that when we go and we look at all the reviews, um, and the feedback we get from people, the one thing that we see so much appreciation for, especially for the new users and the hobbyist is like, you know, I bought this.

I had this idea in my head. I was going to be able to do this. I've heard from my friends and elsewhere that this is not easy to do. And you guys really kind of put my, my mind at ease on that. I was up and running, um, in a short amount of time and not incredibly open on what I want to do. And that, that to me, it's the recipe for success on this type of thing at the Scarlet end is that, you know, People are buying this because they fundamentally, they have an idea in their head of what they want to accomplish and what they want to do.

And, you know, we take it on, uh, very seriously that, you know, the onus is on us is actually to make them feel really great about that. And, uh, kind of, yes, I, um, validation, I can do that. Or, you know, if the technology is just so overwhelming and stuff, it can squash their dreams. Which, you know, they're, they're likely to put it in a closet and never use it again.

So the key to the success of the Scarletts for you is enabling that journey and removing obstacles from

people's path. Absolutely. Yeah, we talk about that a lot. And our company's mantra about removing barriers to creativity. And that's something that not only just for the beginner but for the pro as well.

I mean we look at those as very different things. For the beginner, it's really about removing all the technical jargon, you know, let them get up and running really quickly because if they have that great first experience, you know, it's just human nature. You'll want to learn more and then you'll actually be sort of prepped, you know, to get more into the technology.

Maybe then you'll be, you'll want to pick up a manual and read because you want to do more. Uh, but it's enabling that. And then on the professional side, again, it's really about when somebody buys something like one of our red net products or red products or isoproducts, you know, uh, That's an investment of their time, their money, you know, and their skill and our big job there to be just brutally honest is We need to give them everything they need to integrate that into their workflow and then get the hell out of their way Because they already know what they're doing, you know, and you know, we just need to make sure that you know The reason they bought it they feel good about it and it enhances what they do

Absolutely So there's been a couple of pretty major curveballs being thrown at the industry over the last couple of years, one of which was the pandemic, which has led to a big boom in home recording and sales of home recording products.

But I imagine that's also posed a few business challenges for you.

Yeah, uh, you know, it certainly has. The, uh, the pandemic was really interesting. And, you know, a lot of people ask, you know, um, we just finished our annual results and a lot of our investors ask, you know, okay, well, look. You know, you're still doing well, you know, two years into this thing, but you know, is it a bubble, uh, you know, and I, and I think the way we answer that is that, you know, before the whole pandemic actually, uh, began, um, that, uh, that, uh, Christmas season and the January and February before, you know, COVID was really a thing.

We already were seeing a, uh, a pretty material increase in the number of people, you know, buying our products, identifying, you know, primarily as music creators, but also podcasters and people doing streaming and things like this. And so. When the lockdown happened and suddenly there was just this huge influx of people wanting, you know, this technology for different reasons There was a decision to be made for us.

It was Okay, do we think this is just a short time term thing? You know a bunch of people are gonna buy these products and it's gonna go back to where it was Or is this just the kind of a catalyst for an acceleration? We were already on and we kind of bet on the second one and it was a big bet to be honest with you Because it meant going okay Um, you know, we were already on this curve, let's go ahead and do all the things that, you know, we should as a business, that's like, you know, increasing our component, uh, you know, uh, uh, purchase orders, you know, ramping up production, all these different things, and, you know, I, I'm really proud to say, you know, I mean, our bet paid off on that, uh, you know, because our hypothesis was right, whereas we did see that enormous, that enormous first big, you know, uh, spike, Where that has settled down to and remained, I mean, throughout this day, um, is materially higher than where we were pre COVID.

And we look at all this registration data and, you know, um, that we get from people. And it's really interesting because even as countries have come in and out of lockdown, we watch that very closely and we can tell daily who's registering a new product and what, you know, what their use case is. And we can't really see as, you know, like if country A suddenly goes on a green list and now they can travel or go on holiday again.

We haven't seen any, any, uh, negative, you know, uh, decline on that, if you will. So our, our working hypothesis is like we were this type of technology and, you know, was already on a natural accelerate, uh, you know, uh, curve up. And what the COVID pandemic has done is just accelerated, you know, probably where we would have been naturally maybe in two or three years time.

It's just made it occur quicker. But as you say, you know, there's a ton of challenges. First off was just keeping up with all the demand. Um, that increased demand, you know, when, when you build products. All of our stuff is, you know, created here, but the majority of our products are, are built overseas in Malaysia and China.

And when you decide that you suddenly want, you know, you know, a significant amount more, you don't really see the result of that for six to eight months. So, you know, the, the fact that we were able to work with our component manufacturers and our, uh, you know, and our, um, contract manufacturers to make that happen quicker, um, than that and keep a steady supply of products was, um, That was quite a Herculean feat, um, that we were able to pull

off.

Yeah, for sure. And that, of course, combines with the other major issue that's affected manufacturers over the last couple of years, which is what people are calling the chip shortage. Uh, not helped by the fire at the AKM factory, which made most of the A to D and D to A converters used in professional audio products.

So, that must have been... Quite a headache for

you. Yeah, you know, it was it was funny We were just when that happened. It was just like all we could kind of do was just chuckle and go Okay, what's next? You know, I mean, you know, it's just like, you know, it um, it there was there was a funny thing Somebody sent me it was just like You know, right after that happened, and I think what they said was, is, uh, You know, it feels like every week in this year ought to end with a Willy Wonka Oompa Loompa song about, you know, some lesson you learned.

And, uh, it was just like, it, but yeah, I mean, the AKM factory was just like, you know, oh God, you know, the component thing was already starting to get bad. It was just like, okay, you know, how could you make a whole... bad situation, horrible. And that was certainly the way to do it. Um, you know, and we were certainly affected.

I, I guess, you know, glass is half full. Um, the, the products that were mostly impacted, um, on the ACAM side for us were mostly on our Claret range. So that's, you know, a product range that, you know, we did. Um, have to do an entire rework on, and we just turned the corner, like, last month on, you know, relaunching the new, uh, range, the Cleric Plus range.

And, you know, again, I'm really proud of the team, because it was like, you know, the obvious thing to do would have just been to do the rework, to get a new chip in there, and to have the same unit. But the team actually... Had a nice backlog of features they wanted to add to clear it for the next generation that wasn't scheduled for really another couple of years.

They were pulled that in and so the new ones, you know, I mean they are a new generation, the specs and everything. Um, and you know, same thing, we had, uh, you know, uh, a couple problems across, uh, Atom and with sequential. On on chips, but you know, I mean when I look akm thing, I think we uh, we came out Um better than others.

I mean, so for example scarlet didn't didn't use any of the akm parts So for us it was more about just dealing with you know The other chip manufacturers who were all vying for silicon, but you know in that world Interesting thing is you know, I I kind of describe it Whereas we use a lot of kind of mainstream components, if you will.

Um, those companies are set up in verticals, so they're, you know, for two of the biggest ones, they, uh, there's an audio division, and we happen to be a big fish in that pond, if you will. Um, of course, they're also supplying components to Cisco and Apple and everybody. So when you, when you get into the ocean, we're a little minnow, if you will.

Um, but you know, we were able to hold our own. And again, I think part of it was, is that we saw this early days and the fact that we had increased all of our production quantities and stuff, you know, we, when that started to get really bad, we weren't getting what we wanted, but we were getting a much higher percentage than if we had just sat still.

It's always good when

a gamble pays off.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Another thing I wanted to ask you was, um, and this probably relates to the issue of getting people on board and removing obstacles from creativity. In the last few years we've seen some other major companies in the same line of business launch their own recording software to partner their audio interface.

I think of PreSonus with Studio One, for example, or Universal Audio with Luna. This isn't something that Focusrite have done yet, to my knowledge. Your interface is still shipped with OEM versions of other software. Is this something you've looked into? Yeah,

so I guess, uh, first off, I, I, uh, you know, it's a small industry.

I have a lot of friends across those different companies, and I, you know, and I've, I've, um, I've, I've tried those apps, and they're all great. Um, but to be honest with you, I think the, the, uh, Audio community needs another digital audio workstation like it needs a hole in the head Um, it's just I I can't really conceive You know when I look at just well first the maturity of the products out there You look at pro tools you look at ableton you look at logic and all of these these are 20 plus year You know, um, you know, apps, you know, that, I mean, they do anything to a piece of audio you'd want to, you know?

And so I, I mean, for us, we really feel that part of the market is served. I just can't really understand what benefit it would be, you know, to our customers to come up with another alternative. However, what, what, you know, there, we do have a, um, a growing, um, you know, software division, and we, you know, we don't really boast about this a lot, but you know, our iOS apps, which are all about electronic music creation under the Amplify brand, have been some of the best selling apps, you know, um, on the Apple Store for a long time.

And we still have millions of people that download those apps every year. And it's a great experience because they're free and they can use it. But we've taken what we've learned from that experience and what we hear from our customers. And, you know, where you're going to see us pointing our sights is really towards that beginner and hobbyist.

Um, because, you know, honestly, and it's not a competitive thing against Pro Tools and Ableton. We love those guys and we'll, you know, continue to bundle because we want people. Ultimately, if they, if people are We're fine, you know, going through the learning curve on them with them and you know in those light versions I mean, you know, they're great But you know at face value what they are is the same complex UI and workflow with less features on there So, you know, yeah, we're giving we're giving new newcomers a better shot at understanding But it's still from what we hear from many it's just a bridge too far So, you know our idea is what we really take ownership on is we have so many people that are coming in that are beginners at this or they're hobbyists and they want to have fun.

And, you know, they may have a couple hours at best to devote to this and we want them to have a great experience with this. So we were taking everything we've learned from Amplify, um, in the electronic music world, you know, and we want to try to bridge that gap. And, you know, and we think fundamentally two things will happen.

There'll be a lot of people at the, you know, that are just having fun with this, that we'll give them enough tools, well, they'll be able to do everything they kind of want to do, and they'll have a great time, and they'll stay in our own little ecosystem, you know, and at some point, what we hope they'll do is that they'll want to learn more, they'll hit a ceiling with what we can do, because what we're gonna do is never gonna have the feature set that Pro Tools or Ableton or any of these are gonna have.

But we hope that they'll have had enough of an enjoyment and a great experience. That they'll be willing to take that step and learn that UI and, and, and all the, you know, the language and everything that comes with it. And that's fine for us too because if we can actually cultivate a whole bunch of new customers to want to go on that journey and become more passionate users and maybe even aspiring professionals.

You know, first off commercially, we have a whole portfolio of things we can sell to them too. But for the community in general, that's a win. You know, and, you know, and we've had a lot of talks with, um, all these, um, you know, uh, DAW manufacturers about that. And they all completely understand there's a big gap there.

You know, but when you look at that community and where I came from, you know, running Avid's music division for so long, I know what kind of demands are on, like, the Pro Tools guys there, uh, you know, for features and, and, you know, keeping up with OS upgrades. I mean, professionals depend on that. You know, there's no way that, you know, those guys could, you know, Could take, you know, bandwidth and development time out of that to go and try to make a simpler application.

It's just not really feasible. If they could, they would have done it by now. You know?

So, in your view, the beginners and hobbyists are better catered for by creating solutions especially for them than by sort of diluting the professional products to make them simpler. Yeah,

and it is, I mean, it's fine, I mean, again, there'll be a number of people that are willing to, you know, they're excited and they're willing to jump into Pro Tools and Ableton and learn that, but, you know, we know that there's a lot of people, um, that, you know, buy this and they get frustrated really quickly.

Um, and one of the main complaints is, you know, I didn't realize it was this hard, you know, and, um, you know, a lot of, a lot of them will tell us, you know, yeah, I, I, I installed everything. I had it working, you know, it took me. It took me a week to make my first soundtrack, and I still don't really quite understand what I'm doing.

We really want to fix that.

Well, that's a, that's a very noble aim. Um, another topic I wanted to ask you about was, uh, on a business level, diversification. Because in the last few years, we've seen Focusrite both make some significant acquisitions, like Adam Audio and Martin Audio, and also spin out, uh, Focusrite Professional as a separate division within the company.

Is this part of a, a long term strategy for the company?

Well, I think it is. Uh, you know, I came on, um, to Focusrite in January of 17 and until that time, the company had only really done one acquisition and it was buying Novation out of Insolvency. Um, and, uh, you know, when I looked around, you know, I, one of the first things I thought was, okay, well, there's so much of the, the entire sort of, you know, you know, production chain, you know, that we don't really, uh, participate in.

And so many people are opting for a focus right, you know, audio interface, which is sort of the heart of the system. You know, why shouldn't we? And I think from there, it was a, it was a journey of, of saying, okay, well, we look competitively and we've seen, you know, okay, there's a lot of companies that have.

Taking their brand and they've expanded their portfolio organically. So they've added studio monitors or this or that or whatever. But when we looked at that, you know, we were like, okay, well, we can certainly do that. We absolutely have a contract manufacturing shops that if we wanted to, we could, we could actually go and build a pair of focus, right?

Monitors or, you know, uh, something like that. But what became really evident is the, the, the The people that were winning in that business, the people that were well known, had been on a journey very similar to Focusrite, um, you know, 10, 15 plus years of focusing on this one thing and doing it really well.

And we thought, you know, that's probably the better path for us is see if we can go out and find like minded people like us that, you know, have, you know, built a reputation over a number of years and have really passionate, smart folks that know how to do One thing really well. I happen to know a couple of the guys that were, uh, um, with Adam Audio, um, at the time.

And so, uh, that was the conversation and very quickly we came to realize that, you know, this is, this company is basically like Focusrite was, you know, you know, five years ago. Um, and, uh, you know, it just seemed like a great fit. And so that was the first one we did and that was a great acquisition.

They've done really well. Um, you know, uh, both financially and just in terms of just holistically for the company on there. And then, you know, I think Martin Audio was another one, you know, where our pro products had already always, uh, been involved in things like tour sound and broadcast, uh, things. But, you know, when we looked at like, okay, from a more of a company corporate, you know, type of view, it's like, okay, how do we maybe, you know, have more eggs and more baskets so we're not just solely focused on the creation side of the music.

And really up until the pandemic, you know, I mean, live, live events installed sound was a, you know, a very steady, you know, healthy, growing business and Martin. Audio happens to be about three blocks down the road from us, and you know, so we've known these guys for a long time. Matter of fact, we have some employees that, you know, their, their significant others work there.

So when we found out that they were, you know, up for sale, it just seemed to make sense, and that's been a great acquisition. And I got to say, even though we bought them in 19, and two months later, you know, I mean, live events just stopped. Those guys have still had an exceptional year, and they're installed sound products, and you know, um, the, the tour sound business and the live events will come back.

And they've got a really healthy pipeline. So, you know, those are the type of things I think that we're looking for. You know, I mean, we think there's a number of other businesses about that size, very passionate people, you know, with really strong brands that we'd love to have become part of the family.

Wow. Well,

thank you very much. Tim, this has been absolutely fascinating. Uh, I've got one final question that I'd like to ask you. One issue that I don't see talked about very much in the audio industry, At the forefront of a lot of people's minds after COP26, and that's sustainability. Now, you've recently started to take this pretty seriously.

Absolutely. So, uh, I would point people, if they really want to get a flavor for what we're doing, again, we just published our annual results. If you go up to the Focusrite PLC website, Um, and download our annual report. You'll see a number of sections that are dedicated to this. We're being quite upfront about, you know, our position right now is we are taking this very seriously.

As you said, we've put a full time person in charge of this, um, who knows our business well. He's already done some amazing things. He's been able to go and look holistically at our UK offices. Do some some changes and we've reduced our carbon footprint and the offices by 80 percent already, but on the products You know, I think one of the things we're hearing this from customers.

Our employees are really passionate about this as well So we've already begun in its early days dissecting every one of our products just to understand, you know What is the makeup of that? Where is the big win that we can have on the the footprint piece? Also thinking in of things like transportation and air freight.

We've actually started to actually pay back You know, some of the, uh, um, on some of the air freight that we've done on this. So, you know, our, our position is like, look, we don't have it all figured out yet, but we know this is really important to us. And we're working, you know, with our contract manufacturers.

And we're looking at next generation of products to really, our goal is by next year to really have a great baseline. We'll already have accomplished some really cool things, but to really say, this is where we think we are. This is where we'd like to be in the next three years, in the next five years.

And, you know, we're, we're pretty much putting a stake in the ground and saying for our industry, we'd love to be the people that look at it and go, they're doing it right. Well,

thank you so much, Tim. This has been an absolutely fascinating conversation and I hope that in 10 years time, we'll have be able to have this conversation again and we'll be looking at another 10 years of success for focus writing for the Scarlet range and that we'll be able to look back and say that you did make Those changes and that the industry did follow suit and is now a much more sustainable and greener world So, thank you very much Tim Carroll.

Okay. Thank you. Take care.

So well if I could turn to you Before we talk a little bit about the Scarlet range and your involvement in that approach You could tell us a little bit about yourself and your your role at

focus, right? Absolutely. So, uh, yeah, I'm head of product for both focus right and the innovation brand within the focus right group of companies.

Um, essentially, my responsibility is to, uh, is to look after the product strategy and identify where we can, uh, add to our product portfolio where we can make updates. And ultimately, um, I love to describe my role as, uh, as balancing the needs of the customer and the needs of the company and making sure that we ultimately can Uh, yeah, produce products that satisfy both sides of that equation.

Uh, it's really good fun. I've been at Focusrite for over 11 years now. Uh, most of that time working within product management. So, yeah, it's been, uh... It's been a really fun experience and I'm, yeah, really excited about the future.

So to judge by the success of Focusrite products in that time, and especially the Scarlet range, you're obviously doing something right in terms of that balance.

And I imagine one of the hardest parts of getting that balance right is helping people overcome the intimidation factor that exists when you're trying to get started in digital recording.

Absolutely, yeah. So, our mission at Focusrite is ultimately to remove barriers to creativity. Um, it really flows through everything that we do from start to finish.

So that's not just in product development, but that actually flows through, um, every aspect of the company, whether it's within the sales team, the marketing team, um, customer support as well being obviously a key area that, um, that we focus on there. Um, so that removing barriers to creativity really sets the scene, uh, for every piece of work that happens.

Um, some specific examples of what we have, uh, what we've delivered that, that, Yeah, it's really visible in terms of fulfilling that mission. Um, we have a wonderful interactive onboarding system that, um, that essentially takes a new Scarlet user through the initial journey of setting up their device. So, essentially you plug your Scarlet in and the first thing you'll see is a pop up which allows you to, to go off onto this journey through, uh, through our website.

And through that process, essentially, um, yeah, it will help, help identify exactly what it is the user is trying to achieve and then guide them through the process of getting it set up. And kind of the final step of that is, have you achieved your goal? Uh, hopefully customers are clicking that yes button and they've, they've ultimately got to the, the point that they were looking to.

So that's one of the, the key aspects of it. Along that path, we deliver quite a lot of, uh, video content that, that ultimately takes people through that journey. And just make sure that some of those complexities, which, many of which are not necessarily directly in, um, in our hands, like some of the operating system configurations, some of the DAW configuration, uh, and making sure that that's really obvious up front.

And, yeah, just hopefully getting people to the point where once they finish that, that short journey, they're actually able to start recording music, playing back music, creating music, whatever it is that their aim was when they started that process.

One of the other big, uh, barriers that can cause problems for people trying to record on computers is driver quality and driver performance.

And, from what I gather, Focusrite have been on quite a journey with regard to the USB drivers that you use with the Scarlett system.

Yeah, it's been, uh, yeah, it's been a really excellent experience for us over, what has it been, the last, uh, yeah, ten years or so since, uh, we launched the first, uh, in the, in the Scarlett range.

And then prior to that, even with the... Uh, the Sapphire range of interfaces and, and probably most notably within that Sapphire 6 USB and how that's flowed through into, uh, into our, our USB interfaces today. Um, ultimately, yeah, developing drivers is, is quite challenging. Um, there are some really, uh, really key requirements for users.

But one of those sort of really difficult things up front is just... What are, you know, what constitutes a great driver? There are multiple aspects to it that, um, depending on exactly who it is that we're talking to as a user. They'll have slightly differing requirements. So, two key aspects that we probably would, uh, would consider.

Uh, maybe three. So, those two or three would be, uh, for example, latency. That's always going to be a really important one. I'll probably touch on that more in, in just a second. Um, stability as well. Like, there's no use in having, uh, you know, the fastest driver on the planet, the fastest performance on the planet, if it's going to drop out constantly and actually you're not going to get a good quality of recording at the end of it.

Uh, and then the final aspect is, um, just back to that, you know, point that we were talking about before around, um, you know, making it as simple a, uh, an experience as, as, as possible. We want the, the, the performance, we want the interaction with the device to just be. As straightforward as it can be, all of those factors and lots more technical side, uh, much more technical aspects to that, uh, yeah, really feed in and, and, and shape what that driver will look like.

So... I guess on the latency side of things, there's quite a number of different things that feed into what actually constitutes the latency of any given audio interface. Uh, possibly one of the biggest is actually on the hardware itself. Um, so when we go through, um, an ADC or when we come back out through a DAC, Those two components will actually add latency in and of themselves.

So, uh, even with, um, you know, considering how to optimize the driver, that is one of the other sources of latency they'll have to consider. As well as then any processing that happens on the interface itself. So, whether it's the onboard mixer, the actual process of taking it from, uh, kind of a raw digital audio to something that will, uh, yeah, be communicated across the USB, uh, cable into the computer ultimately.

And then we've got the driver once it gets there. And again, that's for getting the DAW and any processing that people want to add along the way. So, multiple different aspects to it. And yeah, the driver is one of the key ones that we've been really focused on for, yeah, probably the last decade now in terms of going on this journey of, uh, of improvement.

So, I think, you know, rightfully, rightfully so, there was, um, historic criticism of the, the latency on some of our interfaces. That really, um, you know, really put the fire under our belly to, to make sure that we were, uh, we were working on, on improving that. So, um, over the years we have gradually been improving not just, uh, the latency of the driver for, uh, for new product releases, but also focusing on continuing to update the driver for, uh, the products that already exist out in the market.

A good example of that would be the first generation of Scarlett interfaces. I mentioned before, like the 2i2, I'm pretty sure was a 2011 release when we came out with that, late 2011. Um, we've been continuing to update those drivers along the way, and have been improving the latency and the stability all along that path.

That's fantastic. So not only can you still use your 10 year old Scarlett interface with a modern computer, but you actually get better performance now than you would

have done 10 years ago. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And, um, you know, it's a key part of what we're doing is both improving the performance and also doing our best to improve the longevity of support for interfaces.

Um, you know, ultimately we... We recognize that customers are are investing in our hardware and that they expect that to continue returning for them into the future. So yeah, it's a key part of what we're doing is, as I say, not only improving the future products that we come out with, but also the current ones.

Um, I guess, uh, yeah, as I say, a good example of that is just how that latency has improved over time. But it's also, um, Yeah, it's also important for us to note just that point around how different users have different requirements and different expectations. So, one of the key things that we, we are is, um, class compliant to the, the USB audio interface standard.

Um, such that you could take your, your Scarlett, plug it in and get running straight away without having to, um, you know, without having to go away and install additional, um, additional drivers. So. On the Mac side, that makes things really nice and simple. We can utilize the Core Audio driver platform, which is fundamentally excellent.

We can then further enhance that with, um, there's an additional installer you can grab from the website, which will help to improve the latency even further. And that's by basically kind of giving more detailed information to the operating system about the interface. And then on the Windows side, there's a huge amount of development that goes into our ASIO drivers to make sure that, again, they're operating with the best combination of latency and stability.

But yeah, all of that is also working alongside just purely the The way that USB works itself. So, if we look at USB from, yeah, kind of a relatively low level, and probably we could go much deeper than I, I can on this, uh, this conversation, but, um, there are certain aspects of USB that actually make it really difficult to be a low latency and stable environment for audio.

So it's quite challenging for manufacturers. That's like direct memory access, uh, so not having that. Um, we've also got USB port drivers, which vary across lots of different manufacturers and platforms. And then we've also got other USB traffic that's trying to compete for the same time slots on the same bus.

So all of these different factors, which vary from computer to computer, are what we have to consider when we're, when we're developing. So it's, yeah, it's a really, um, It's a really challenging part of, of, of development, but it's also one that we really relish in terms of being able to find those extra efficiencies and those extra bits of stability to deliver to our, our user base.

Well, it's interesting to me then that USB seems to have remained the dominant, uh, protocol for connecting audio interfaces, at least in the project studio market and the mid market. And in fact, Focusrite have now, I understand, discontinued the Thunderbolt version of the Claret. So do you, do you see USB as being here to stay?

There's not, not likely to be replaced by Thunderbolt at that level? Uh,

yeah, so just on that Claret point, we've been, um, delivering the Claret USB range for I think, uh, two and a half, three years at this point. And we've recently updated it to the Claret Plus range. Uh, so, uh, yeah, those are based on USB.

And you're right, previously to that, the Claret range was a Thunderbolt interface range. Um... Do I, do I see USB being fundamentally replaced at, uh, at the lower price points? No, I think there's a number of challenges that, um, that, that, that, yeah, we face in terms of being able to do that as an industry. So probably the biggest of those ends up being cost.

So just the, there's a kind of a cost premium associated with, uh, manufacturers adding Thunderbolt into the interfaces. So that goes, um, In a number of different areas, the probably the biggest two that come to mind immediately are, uh, in the, the, the silicon that is needed to actually support those platforms.

Uh, this is quite a, a cost up in terms of, um, yeah, the chips that we need to, to support Thunderbolt. But then also Thunderbolt brings with it, um, compared to USB, enhanced power, uh, requirements and power offerings. So, all of that means that we then have to increase the size of the power supply that would go into a unit.

So the couple of different areas combined fundamentally mean that the price just goes up as a starting point. There's also on the other side, which is kind of the reason, uh, the key reason why we moved to USB with the Claret range back in 2018, is that Thunderbolt is very well supported and implemented on the Mac OS side of things.

And actually it's really straightforward for us on Mac to be able to, uh, to, to develop Thunderbolt interfaces and ultimately to have... What we find to be a very stable and low latency environment as we were talking about previously. On the Windows side, there are so many more variations on the hardware platform.

And then in terms of the firmware that lives on, um, on the motherboards on, on the, the PC market. So historically it's been much more challenging for us to be able to provide the level of both performance, but also critically stability that customers require in that area. Um, however, things have come a long way over the last, probably, two years in that regard.

And Thunderbolt 3, in particular, is now pretty well supported and implemented in the PC market. There's still a price premium in terms of the computers, but the great news is, and again this talks to trying to ensure, uh, longevity of support for interfaces, We've now added Windows support for our Thunderbolt interfaces.

So that's both the, the, the claret range as well as the red range. And that's not just on, on existing, uh, sorry, on current and, and future products. That is very much on the, the existing products that are out in the world already.

Another aspect of interface design that's really crucial and helps to set some models apart from others is microphone preamps.

You've got some users who are recording drums. They need to be able to accommodate very loud signals. You've also got people recording podcasts on something like an SM7 or an RE20. They need to be able to get a healthy signal level from quiet speech into their DAWs. Is it challenging to come up with a preamp design that kind of is both affordable and yet Capable in all those scenarios?

Fundamentally, yes, um, that is a challenge. And I think you've really kind of hit the nail on the head in terms of Um, one of the, the first things we have to recognize with I guess the design of any product, but also specifically here, Mike Capri's. And that is the massive variance in terms of use case, um, and requirements that fundamentally users have.

So, Uh, you mentioned, uh, yeah, using lower sensitivity microphones and then also having different, uh, sound pressure levels from the, the source, ultimately, uh, so to pick two extremes that, uh, that we do encounter, we've got low sensitivity microphones like, um, or lower sensitivity microphones like the SM7B, um, which, Yeah, it's actually relatively similar when you think about it to, um, a, an SM58 in terms of, uh, sensitivity.

One of the key differences though in terms of how people use that is there's quite a bigger distance between the front of the grill and the capsule on the SM7B when compared to the 58. So we have to look beyond just the specification of a microphone and beyond the SPL, but then also start to look at...

the physical design of a microphone and the way that it ends up being used. So all of that kind of feeds into one end of the scale. And then at the other end, um, we get contacted by customers who need to be able to, uh, to input or fundamentally use measurement microphones as their overheads on a drum kit that's pushing well 130 plus db spl uh so we've got this massive variance where you've got something very low level something very high level and yeah that's really the crux of the the challenge for us so yes more gain ultimately helps to to make that situation easier uh but with higher gain circuitry comes higher noise As we start to push components to their extremes, then their characteristics start to change as well, so start to get a greater level of distortion once you get towards the limits.

You'll start to get, um, you know, differences in the frequency response. So yeah, really it is a challenge trying to balance all of these. We could start to look at putting things like pads in front of the mic pre. That now presents another set of issues, so that's an increased cost that goes on to there.

To design a pad that remains, um, that remains constant in terms of impedance becomes again more expensive. If we don't do that, then you start changing the loading on the microphones and the sound changes. Uh, fundamentally it's more circuitry that's going in and at higher cost. And ultimately it's going to promote more noise into the, the end recording.

So, yeah, it's a really big challenge and really the art for us is understanding what it is that users are trying to achieve, and that's the complete chain of that, and then trying to balance all of those needs with, ultimately, the price that we're trying to hit with, with one of those products.

Another thing I wanted to ask you about was the form factor of audio interfaces.

Uh, and the Scarlett range provides some good examples here, because, for instance, at the top of that range you've got the Scarlett 18i20, which has got 8 mic preamps, ADAT expansion, a couple of headphone ports, and, in fact, is very similar in terms of what IO offers to a number of other products on the market.

But at the same time, if you wanted, say, 10 or 12 mic preamps or a slight variation on that theme. You'd find it pretty hard to track that down. Why do you think there is this sort of conformity in terms of the form factor on this

in the market? I think that's a really interesting question. Um, and I think, well, I, I, I suspect the answer to it ultimately lies in history and not necessarily in something, um, yeah, something obvious to, to point out.

So, I think that historically, Multiples of 8 have been quite handy from, um, yeah, from a technology perspective. Uh, so you can look to the computing world and see multiples of 8. Um, but also just from specifically looking at recording, if we look at consoles, typically 8 channel buckets, um, and multiples thereof.

We look at recorders, 8 was a common number, um, Back then and ADAT has evolved to be an 8 channel interface as well So there's a number of repeating themes in terms of where we find 8 and so I suspect that that's a big historical reason that's that's flown into this and I guess there's not a Technical reason why other numbers couldn't be supported.

So obviously with the Scarlet Ranger we support 1, 2, 4 and 8 within the interface again what it comes back to for Yeah, for making a practical decision in terms of, you know, what features within, uh, within our product lineup or within the roadmap. It comes down to, uh, you know, are there enough users out there who need that specific requirement?

And then again, going back to balancing that need with actually the economics of developing and building and being able to find the right sale price for such a product. Um, I think the other thing that plays into it actually as well, which, um, maybe is a bit of kind of retrospective justification rather than, um, rather than the crux of it.

But if you think about it, quite a lot of people want, um, to have their bank of micropre's that they're using for, uh, maybe general, general micropre requirements. But then they might want to have one or two sort of key channels of, of a specific flavor of micropre. And so I think the, the, the sort of channel counts that are on offer on the market, the form factors are on offer, ultimately allow for that mix.

So there's quite a lot of single and two channel microprese out on the market. There's quite a lot of four channels and eight channels. So again, we're seeing that reflected not only on the interface, but also on the microprese side of things. But with the, um, either with the line inputs that are on our interfaces, or with the digital inputs in, you know, SPDIF or in ADAT, then there's the option of adding, um, additional, uh, additional microprese that way.

And, for example, if someone wanted to add another couple of, um, Scarlet microphone preamps to one of their, uh, larger Scarlet interfaces, then, in theory, they could take one of the, uh, one of the audio interfaces with digital I. O. and actually use that as an additional, uh, additional input to that system.

So, yeah, I think, long story short, there's, uh, there's a lot of history there that's, that's, uh, um, that's shaped the current picture. Um, but I think it actually does suit people in reality. And taking

that further a little bit, um, obviously the larger Scarlett and Clarit interfaces still come in 1U or 2U rack mounting cases.

Now obviously back in the day everything in a studio fitted in a 19 inch rack, but I imagine nowadays there's a lot of people buying these products who don't have any other rack mount gear at all, or indeed a rack to put them in. Um, have you explored the idea of putting these larger interfaces into a different...

Yeah, so I think it's again, it's a really interesting topic and it comes down to, uh, I think a few different things. So in terms of what we've done in that area, uh, we've evolved from earlier generations of, uh, the Scarlet 18i20 in particular from being Um, you know, definitely a 100 percent rack mount based product to now in the third generation of Scarlett 18i20.

We have rack ears which are actually not screwed to the unit when you purchase it. They're inside the box ready to go. Um, that includes also rubber feet on the bottom to ensure that if someone's using it desktop that actually it's not just going to scratch their desk. So, um. You know, we're already kind of considering that in the way that that is presented.

And indeed, there are a mixture of, um, of, of different, um, yeah, use cases for that that find it sometimes positioned underneath the computer monitor on the desk, sometimes off to the side, and again, sometimes in an equipment rack, uh, alongside other equipment. So, the challenge really, again, is Um, how do we make sure that there is the, the, the right, the right functionality, or the right form factor, rather, for, uh, these differing environments that it goes into.

And I think we've struck a nice position with the AC920, but I'm, yeah, as, as part of the wider team, I'm always looking at how we, uh, how we could evolve that form factor and how we could potentially change that. And, yeah, it's, it's definitely a possibility moving, moving into the future.

Well, the success of that product would suggest that you've got it right so far.

And, and thank you so much, Will. Um, I've got one final question for you then. Um, now that affordable interfaces like the Scarlett's are so good, I mean, they offer performance and technical specifications that professional studios of 30 or 40 years ago Couldn't even have dreamt of having. Are they, kind of, everything you need?

Is there really any advantage to spending more and buying one of Focusrite's higher level interfaces? What, what improvement will you notice if you move up to, say, a Clarit

or a RED? Yeah, again, really interesting question and, um, it's definitely... Yeah, definitely warrants thinking about. So yeah, what are, what are the differences that we'll see?

So first of all, generally, as we go up the price ranges with our interfaces, there will be an improvement in, um, converter quality. So what do I mean by converter quality, particularly on the, uh, the dynamic range, so the, the, the noise performance. Uh, so we expect lower noise as we go up through the. Uh, through the product ranges and, and spend more.

Um, lower distortion figures as well. So providing ultimately a cleaner signal path through and then a flatter frequency response. So that's one aspect, the converter quality itself. We then have, um, we then have the, uh, the mic pre that goes into it. And again, it's a fairly similar set of, uh, parameters on a technical front that are changing there.

And, as well, we talked earlier about it a little bit, but the, uh, the connection type that is being used on the interface, so As we go up from the claret to the red range, we introduce Thunderbolt. Um, and Thunderbolt is going to bring about a couple of things in particular for users. Um, so improved latency performance.

So we're able to, uh, operate with lower round trip latencies. And also we're going to be able to support a higher channel count compared to USB 2. Um, so we can, yeah. ultimately get more through the, more through the interface at, um, a faster speed ultimately. I think the other thing to keep in mind is the, uh, the, the change of, um, the, the change of actual features that are on the interfaces as you go through the range.

So again, when we look at the red range, we start to introduce Pro Tools HD connectivity over DigiLink. We start to introduce, um, Dante audio over IP connectivity. And ultimately we start to, Uh, start to grow the channel count and give more options, more connectivity, um, and, and more interoperability with other devices.

Fantastic. Well, I think... That satisfies me. Thanks. Well, that's been an absolutely fascinating conversation. Thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Sam. It's been great speaking to you, and yeah, I look forward to next time. You've been listening to the Sound on Sound People and Music Industry Podcast with me, Sam Ingalls.

And be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. And just before you go, let me point you to the soundonsound. com forward slash podcast. where you can explore what's playing on our other

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