Focusrite Voicemaster Pro

Very easy to use. You plug in your mic, guitar, bass, or cowbell and adjust the knobs until it sounds great.

I've had nothing but great sound from my Voicemaster Pro. As previously stated, the Vintage Harmonics section is a little harsh, but I have found uses for it. Preamp is great, compressor is great, and tube amp section is good. I rarely use the EQ on tracking and the de-esser is not bad. The limiter is ok too, but you really have to know how to use these processors. Adjusting everything to the auto setting will not get you highly desireable results.

I run a Studio Projects C1 mic through this into the Saffire Pro 26. I think the vocal outcome is superb for my home studio. Sounds natural with no additional noise. I also use this as a bass DI into the Saffire Pro and it works great. I have recorded snare tracks through this with great results as well.

I depend on it just about everyday, and it has never failed me. All the knobs and buttons still work great, with no scratchy pot or artificial flavoring. Perhaps I got lucky, considering what some other people have said about the reliability. I primarily keep mine in the rack, but I have taken it out a few times. One of those times I accidently dropped it (very short fall), and to my surprise, when I fired it up, it still sounded great. Seems pretty reliable to me!

I've only dealt with Focusrite in regards to my Saffire Pro, and surprisingly enough some of the issues I brought to their attention were resolved in the next firmware release. They responded quickly and knowledgeably, so I'm giving them the 10.

My musical endeavours cover a wide range of genres, but the Voicemaster Pro has always been there. I bought it 4 or 5 years ago and it is still doing exactly what I expect it to do. It looks cool, it sounds cool, and it didn't break my meager bank account at the time of purchase. It assists me everyday, and I will buy another one if it ever dies.

The Focusrite Platinum Pro was recommended to me a few years ago by a trusted friend with great ears. He was right. I was able to achieve pretty much exactly the sound I was after, and the processor was easy to use, but my rating is reflective of the poor quality of the switches, which rendered the thing increasingly difficult to use, and finally unusable, period.

Other than the funky vintage harmonics section which sound to raspy and harsh, the sound quality was quite good with very little noise. The de-esser was never used due to the artificial sound it gave my voice tracks.

Totally unreliable and ultimately, a grave disappointment. The pushbutton switches are crap and apparently, fairly well documented as such, but I've seen no evidence that Focusrite has done anything about them, so they've turned off this former customer for life. I'll never buy another one of their products due to the crummy build quality. If you're going to send the audio through 17 switches, you had damn better make sure they're going to perform in a reasonable manner. Mine started going bad after the first year in a smoke free environment. Shameful!!!

I wrote to the company asking for help with the switches. At least how to get the unit repaired. I never received a reply.

Great sound, teriffic price, but ultimately a paperweight after just three years in service. Lesson learned.

It's pretty straightforward, although their non-standard terms on the EQ may be either off-putting or genius, depending on how you feel about it.

The compressor is reduced in complexity, which is nice. The Vintage harmonics section is a little odd and the manual isn't entirely forthcoming on just what's going on.

The preamp section is beautiful. Just beautiful.

The whole unit is clean and non-noisy.

The harmonics section is...weird. I'm sure there's a way to get a good sound out of it, but everything I've tried has left me with a very brittle tone.

The compressor is transparent. The EQ equally so.

The de-esser is great.

The "tube sound" is...eh. It adds some nice harmonics but doesn't really sound like a tube.

So the unit overall is hit-or-miss.

Here's where it kinda falls apart, pun intended. I've had mine for a few years, and over time - under low usage in a non-smoking studio - I've already had switches go bad, ICs start fritzing out, knobs get noisy, and connectors just break. I get the impression they crammed a bit too much into this box for the price range, and some parts quality took a brunt of the cost-slashing.

It of course worked great until it went out of warantee.

Mixed bag. The focusrite rep was quick to answer emails and give me tips.

The focusrite service guy in the US was very candid and helpful as well.

But - there's only one focusrite service center in all of north america. Focusrite also doesn't release any schematics or parts, so if you need something simple like a switch replaced...well, you have to send it in to the one auth service center, you can't take it to your local audio-repair place.

For some people, this might not be a problem. For me...problem. Plus, for the average cost of a simple repair, I could buy a whole new comparable unit.

The focusrite service guy was up front about the fact that there's been a string of problems with some of the platinum boxes. They sound great, but they have issues.

It's been used in my project studio to record a variety of artists from electronic pop to folk to powernoise to punk to singer-songwriter-acoustic stuff. I've been able to tweak the sound on it for each no problem.

Now that mine is nearly dead, though, I'm not sure I'd replace it with another one. It's an expensive prosumer unit that's hard to service, and I find I don't use a lot of the extra stages much. For less money I can get a real-tube pre with a digital out, although I will admit it's hard to give up that great preamp section.

The manual is straight forward, everything is set up in modular sections (preamp, expander, compressor, vint harmonics, eq, tube.) Easy to use.

Easy to get a good sound out of most modules; the effects are very subtle in most cases. The Vint harmonics can get grainy and poppy if overapplied.

Easy setup. The compressor section is subtle, like another reviewer shared. I have contemplated using the insert channel to hook up my focusrite penta, but haven't.

Seems solid and well built. my penta has been a work horse, i expect this unit to do the same.

Had a question, found the answer on the focusrite.com FAQ section. Had a second question, they answered overnight.

Bought mine for $640 which included free shipping (to Hawaii) and a free refurbished digital output card from Sweetwater.

I am glad I bought it. The one thing I don't understand is the FX loop versus the Insert channel. The insert send/return is to add processing to your recorded signal, reverb, etc.

The focusrite customer service dude said the FX loop only adds processing to the headphone mix, and doesn't commit the processing to the recorded track. WTF? I asked for a scenario where I'd want to hear the mix with processing(like reverb) but not have it committed to the recorded track. No response from Focusrite yet, but I only asked the question a couple of hours ago.

This is an easy to use product. The different sections have been logically designed and placed, and the manual is written for a beginner as well as an experienced user.

I will have to treat each section individually as far as sound quality:

Preamp gets a 9. Does not add noise to the signal. Very clean, very nice sounding (though a bit sterile) and sounds great on vocals.

Gate gets a 7. Does its job adequately.

Vintage Harmonics gets a 4. I don't like the way they sound. They make the sound artificially bright and to my ears even a little bit grainy.

Compressor gets a 1. Even at a low threshold, this compressor does not compress very much. It is utterly useless for smoothing out a vocal track. I use a compressor after the VoiceMaster.

Tube emulation gets a 7. This is a great feature, the emulation is tunable, you will most likely get a good sound if you tweak it for a while.

EQ gets a N/A. I never use EQ when tracking, so this feature is of no concern to me.

Latency-free monitoring gets a 10. Again, a great feature. The singer can monitor both him or herself as well as an outboard effects unit with no latency.

It has never gone out on me.

Never dealt with them.

I do a lot of rock, a lot of acoustic guitar stuff, and some vocal groups. I would not buy this again if it got stolen. Basically, the VoiceMaster is valuable for the preamp, the tube emulation and the monitoring. However, I have heard preamps that cost only slightly more than this that sounded much better. If you are in the market for a preamp, save your money a little bit longer and get something better.

It?s very easy to use. All sections are logically designed and there is nothing difficult to understand. The manual is great:many pictures about frequencies, the comp. and eq, and I?m missing nothing.

I?m using the VMP to hear me, when I?m singing and with some recording equipment.
It?s quiet. And if you use the right settings it has a great sound. The vintage harmonics, a kind of compressor, is a real good tool to give your sound an open freedom in higher (1k+) frequencies.

I am not using the eq, cause I don?t need it cause I?m satisfied without it. Maybe it is not that good.... but if you?re using a mixing desk or a workstation, you don?t need it.

That thing is a focusrite.

never need it. But tthey have a nice page