Focusrite Platinum Penta

This unit is extremely easy to use. Having presets on the compressor is a great feature for those those not adept at compressor settings. The fact that the presets can be tweaked is even better. I did a lot of research before buying it and read some excellent magazine reviews. All the pro-audio reviewers felt that the presets were very well crafted and could be used in many cases without having to make adjustments. Many also felt that it compared favorably to units costing much more.

I think the Penta sounds great, especially for it's price range. I picked mine up used for $200. After having it for a few weeks, I decided to buy the optional digital output card, which, after shopping around, I found new for $190 (after a bit of negotiating with Sweetwater). This allows me to not only record digitally to my computer, but I can run the analog signal out from the Penta into my mixing board,so that I can monitor my sound with effects, while recording a dry signal via spdif.

So far I've used it mainly for recording electric guitar direct into ProTools. My Les Paul (w/Duncans) sounded amazing. The tube emulation is a nice feature that can enhance your tone. It's worth experimenting with the different compressor settings. For one application, the piano preset actually worked best for clean electric guitar.

I haven't encountered any problems with it. I don't plan on taking it out of my studio rack, so it won't be getting any road wear. Hopefully it will be fine.

No experience with them.

I'm very impressed with the performance and features of the Penta. Some people may not like the fact that the compressor has presets, but that was one of the things I liked about it. Before this, I was using a Presonus Blue Max and Blue Tube. The Penta is a definite step up in quality. The only thing I wish it had is dual (two channel) pre-amps.

My music is ambient electronic/new age and is mostly synth-based with electric guitar overdubs. So far it's been great for that. I haven't tried it for vocals, but am looking forward to checking that out when I get a project that calls for that. All in all, I'm very happy with the Penta and find that it works great as a front end for computer recording. I haven't tried using it for mixdowns yet, but from what I've read from other users, I don't have very high expectations. But that's not what I bought it for. I generally do my composing and tracking at my home studio then take the ProTools tracks to a commercial studio for mixing and mastering. So, for my needs, it's a winner.

this is an update from 8/15/03

see below

ok..My whole front input section blew out.According to Alactronics(independent high end studio service center), it is likely to happen again. By design, the unit has no buffer or any protection from static electricity or extra high transients. After waiting 2 months for parts to come in from focusrite/avid, Alactronics gave me an option to modify it with some buffering to help protect it so I went for it at the cost of $200 in labor, parts, and mods. I know it sounds crazy but I did already invest the digi out card for the Penta so I wanted to upkeep my investment

According to 2 service companies(one gave up on it) that I brought it to, to be repaired, there is virtually no support.

I really loved the sound of this then when it works. I use it as a preamp only for condenser microphones and as a glorified di with digi out which seems to be it's best function according to all the other contributors here.

Plug a mic in the front and way you go, hard to get a bad sound really

Using a microphone via the pre amp, sound quality is A1. Try using it as a stereo compressor - hard to get it sounding acceptable

Owned so far for six months no problems (studio use)

Rung from UK and they were very helpful. I thought the Penta was faulty when I first used it in stereo mode. Use the limiter setting with a mic and you can set it to what you want. Use the limiter in stereo and have the slightest flash of activity on the compressor LEDs and you get digital noise only slightly better than overloading a digital desk.
Anyway seems it was not faulty. A useful tip from the support guy, he says the manual was wrong to state you should be looking to get
a reading of -2 on the inputs. Anywhere in the green is OK.

I agree with other reviews here. excellent as a preamp/compressor. I felt a bit cheated that it was also sold as a stereo compressor as in that mode you will waste too much time trying to get anything useful out of it. But overall for the price it is still good.
I use the penta with a Roland VS2480 and record various styles of music

Inuitive and a total breeze to use.

I can't belive how good the Penta sounds i'm blown away. I recorded a Roland XV5050 drum sequence through the ambient preset and it transformed the sound from dull to a warm and realistically convincing drum sound. The piano preset made my RD700 sound like the piano on 'Image' straight out of the box and the tube emualion really smoothes off the rough edges.

Seems solid and well built, no problems so far

A great sounding mic pre-amp, optical compressor (with amazingling usable presets) and a convincing tube emulation all rolled into one for 200 quid!!!

I find this unit very simple to use but the patches on certain applications need editing. The manual was not needed but is helpful by listing what the presets are doing.

I record with a Rode NTK tube mic, sm57, Cad 100, and Oktava MC012 into the Penta, out the optional AD card into spdif in on a MOTU 828,
using Logic Audio. This is a very quiet compressor but naturally intruduces noise on some of the extreme settings.
I haven't had a lot of success with the Tube Sound feature except when directly recording a guitar. Speaking of which, it is an excellent DI with a nice sparkle on top. I agree with a previous reviewer that there are artifacts in the sound particularly when stereo compressing. However, I found the tube sound to be the culprit and you should keep the input in the green. The metering is a tad slow but that's only compared to software compressors that have "lookahead" features. You can spend at least $600 for a Waves software package that can outdo the Penta. I don't think the native Logic compressors are as good as the Penta. As a stereo compressor, it still blows away a DBX, any of them made in the past 15 years.
I'm giving this an 8. I'm shaving 2 points because it is called a"preset stereo compressor" but excels as a preamp/compressor.

hmm? I brought one back to guitar center. The compressor simply stopped working, no lights or effect in the compressor section but the DI and levels worked. The one I have now, I've had for a year and works fine.

don't know but Chad at Guitar Center in Natick was very helpful.

Here's where it gets a 10! The *^&%$ pricepoint! I've done 3 albums, 3 jingles, and 6-7 voiceover sessions besides hours and hours of home use, with this preamp. I already got my money's worth

Preamp: This unit has a great preamp that was easy to use. The presets for vocals and acoustic guitar were well suited to those types of music.

Compressor: Easy to use along side the preamp but impossible to use for stereo mixdown.

Preamp: Great clean sound. Very nice. I liked this preamp. The compressor presets worked well for vocals and DI for a Martin acoustic electric guitar.

Stereo Compressor: Very disappointing for mixdown. Metallic sounds in the bass frequencies and whistling in the high frequencies. This was without tweaking the presets much. Other people will claim that you only get a bad sound out of the Penta compressor if you don't know how to work a compressor and you fiddle with each parameter too much. Not true at all! My software plug-ins are better than this thing. I tried adjusting all the parameters, leaving the presets alone, and everything in between. You can't get a good sound out of this stereo compressor. Do not buy the Penta for mixing stereo files. Only buy it for the preamp.

I suppose this is a reliable unit but I only kept it for a week and then returned it to Sweetwater.

The people at Sweetwater were very helpful. I've written Focusrite a few times and they are slow to respond. They aren't as slow as M-Audio or Cakewalk to respond but they are slow.

I play a lot of classical music and jazz. I write music that varies from ambient and dance to very serious classical. I've been playing for fifteen years and writing music for the same amount of time.

My gear includes among other things:
AT4040 microphone
Event TR5 monitors
TC Electronic M-One XL
Aphex Aural Exciter
UAD-1 dsp card
Delta 66 audio card with Omni Studio
Sonar
Sound Forge
NI Kontakt
Gigastudio
lots of software synths
tons of sampled sounds

I would only buy this product if you want a nice preamp that enables you to dial in a preset compressor setting that accompanies whatever you are recording live (vocals, acoustic guitar, bass). This unit is not appropriate for stereo mixdown. Get a hold of a UAD-1 card or some quality plug-ins like those from Waves or TC Electronic. Then use the Penta for tracking and run some quality plug-ins across the whole mix. Just don't expect the Penta to be the only dynamic processor you'll ever need like Focusrite tries to advertise it as being.

Extremely easy to use. The mic amp sounds great on its own, and the compressor presets are very usable as well

I use it in variety of setups. I have several bass rigs, among those are a rig with a SWR SM-400 and a Marshall 2X15. Not the easiest rig to get a good slap sound with, but the Penta somehow does the job. I've used the Penta on vocal, saxophone, acoustic bass and acoustic guitar recordings with a BPM CR-73II microphone and it sounds beautifully.

My unit just broke down - It fell down on the floor during a gig. Apart from that it's a workhorse

Never contacted them

Great unit for any style

Very easy to use, the front panel is well laid out, and easy to navigate. The compressor settings are really well thought out, and sound very musical.

I am using this with a RODE NTK Valve Mic. I would have to say, the only thing "budget" about this box is the price. If you want a transparent,(or coloured) strong signal into your DAW, this is the best value at this price range. I have tried the dbx, behringer and mindprint stuff, I like this better. (Havent tried it for mastering yet, Can't wait!)

Havent had it long enough to tell how reliable, but I have never heard of unreliable focusrite gear. And I can see the design and construction is solid.

Never had to deal with customer support.

I produce a wide varity of styles, Rock, Pop, Kids, RnB and have been playing in bands for 13 years. I use the Penta with my digi 001 system and various synths/amps/POD etc. If it were stolen from me, I would definately purchase it again.

The presets are great, and easily tweaked to get exactly what you want.

The penta is a recent addition to my studio, so my experience with it is still limited, however i have used it on foley and mastering, and it has been great on both. The pre-amp sounded fantastic with the various BLUE mics I ran through it, and worked well as a finalizer for the film score.

As I said earlier, the presets are right on. Of course, every track is unique and requires custom tailoring, (which is very easy on the penta), however you'll be impressed how close they'll get you.

I wish it had XLR outs. I am fine not having the A to D converter standard, and its only $300 for the card.

Focusrite makes good stuff. This is no exception

I haven't dealt with them.

overall, this is a fantastic piece of gear. The low price concerned me at first - I was expecting to spend up to $2600 on the Avalon Ad2022 or the focusrite red series pre, and only checked this box out on a strong recommend from an engineer friend of mine who used it on a session a short while ago. I can't say that it is as good as the Avalon Ad2022, VT 737 sp, or the focusrite red/blue series models on everything, however it is very very close. At under $500 it is untouchable. At under $1000 it is a matter of taste, as far as the pr-amp goes, because the Aphex tube pre-amp is a steal as well. It doesn't however, have the compression, which is why i'm willing to say the penta is the best box of its kind until you get up to about the $1600 range.

Overall its really pretty easy to use. Just plug in your mic and turn it on. There is a nice compressor that takes a little getting used to. One thing that was rather odd is that the ratio's knobs range is x0.5 to x2 but the presets in the manual says it has higher ratios. Other knobs include a tube emulator and a stereo field enhancer. The presets make it very simple. Also the unit doubles as a DI box. The manual is well written. They don't make it very clear however that the digital I/O doesn't come with the unit and it must be purchased separately.

This unit is made with a pure "Class A" circuit and is very clean sounding. It has TONS of gain at +60db. I plugged a Shure KSM44 into it and it sounded very transparent. The DI is very sweet sounding. The compressor adds a slight bit of noise but does sound well when used as a DI. There are 16 specific compression presets for various instruments/vocals such as snare, bass, vocals, keyboards, piano ect. The compression presets can be fine tuned so there is alot flexibility there. So far of all the mic preamps of tested this one sounds the best.

I have it solely for studio use so I wont be gigging with it, but its well built and Focusrite has a good reputation.

I emailed them about how to get the Digital I/O interface and they responded right away. They were eager to help.

For anyone that doesn't have $4000 for a Manly, I would say that this would probably be the one to go with. I say probably because I havent tried out the DBX 376 or 576 yet. But for the price, its a pretty decent mic preamp and has many cool features. Plus, with the preset for bass engaged it doubles as the best DI box I have ever heard. The digital interface can be set up for 16bit or 24bit rates. Totally worth the money. If it were stolen I would get another one. I wish it had XLR outputs but I thing the TRS can be adapted to balanced XLRs if needed.