Arturia has announced that possibly one of the most awaited audio interfaces of all time is imminently due to arrive with us.
Initially unveiled back at the NAMM show in January 2015 and billed as a “revolutionary next gen-pro audio interface” the AudioFUSE got a lot of interest as a feature packed interface that looked to be a step ahead of lot of the competition at the time.
So what happened? Well Arturia have published a little video explaining the delay and to be fair it’s commendable. They take on board that they may have been a little keen in the initial announcement and have spent the time since listening to feedback from their beta testers as well as improving the manufacturing process. All good to hear and hopefully should result in a far superior product. You can hear what they have to say in their own words below.
So two years down the line and now that it is finally due to arrive with us how does it look now?
Still very promising from what we can see.
The goal of the interface hasn’t changed. What we have here is a ultra-portable recording solution that doesn’t rely upon troublesome breakout cables for all its I/O handling. It’s built in a solid aluminum chassis and promises to be able to be capable of being thrown in your bag and taken out on the road in order to give you studio quality recordings wherever you are.
Audio Fuse Specifications
1. Inserts
Add external line-level devices such as compressors into the signal flow before digital conversion.
2. MIDI in/out
Connect any MIDI instrument or equipment with the supplied MIDI cable adapters.
3. Word Clock & S/PDIF in/out
Sync any Word Clock equipment or connect to any S/PDIF digital audio device.
4. ADAT in/out
Connect to any ADAT equipment with up to 8 digital inputs and 8 digital outputs.
5. USB hub
3-port USB hub to connect your master keyboard, USB stick, dongle, and more.
6. USB connection
Connect AudioFuse to your computer, tablet or phone. Most features are available even with only the USB power supplied by a computer.
7. Phono/line inputs 3&4
Connect external phono or line devices to these RCA+ground and balanced 1/4” inputs.
8. Speaker outputs A&B
Connect two pairs of speakers to these balanced 1/4” outputs for easy A/B monitor switching.
9. Input control sections 1&2
Direct access to each feature of analog inputs 1&2: input gain with VU-metering, true 48V, phase invert, -20dB pad and instrument mode.
10. Output control section
Direct access to each of the analog output features: output level with VU-metering, audio mix selection, mono mode, output dimming, mute, and speaker A/B selection.
11. Direct monitoring
Enjoy zero-latency monitoring of the recorded signals and blend them into your mix.
12. Phones control sections 1&2
Direct access to each of the features of headphone outputs 1&2: output level, mono mode and audio mix selection.
13. Talkback
Press a button to communicate with talent in another room via the built-in microphone.
14. Input channels 1&2
Connect microphones, instruments or line devices to the 2 XLR/balanced 1/4” combo inputs.
15. Phones output channels 1&2
Don’t bother looking for a 1/4” or 1/8” phones adapter; AudioFuse has both connectors for each phones output.
Sound Quality
Outside the physical product features, Arturia are keen to show off their DiscretePro preamps with a signal to noise ratio of <-129dB and frequency response between 20HZ and 20kHz of +/-0.05db promising an extremely flat and clean signal path for your recording.
Designed to achieve low distortion rates and dedicated pre-amps for both the line and mic channels they’ve clearly strived to make this a great unit for recording and the is a bit on the testing and development process to be found in the video below.
Final Thoughts
Its been a long time coming, but the AudioFUSE should finally be with us around June the 8th. The feature set promises to give us a very capable and flexible product if it proves to be a strong performer. The biggest unknown here however is just how great a performer it will be, and as Arturia are a new entry to this arena driver performance is going to be an unknown quality until we see one on the bench.
The is a lot of competition at the £500 price point this unit is landing at, including a number of high performance Thunderbolt and USB units. The included feature set certainly has enough of a punch to keep it relevent in todays busy marketplace and hopefully that all that extra R&D time is going to pay off for the patient user in the end.