The Solid State Logic PURE DRIVE OCTO is an eight-channel microphone preamp in a 2U rack unit, with built-in AD/DA conversion and a USB soundcard. It uses the SuperAnalogue PureDrive preamp design from SSL's ORIGIN console and is aimed at professional studios, live consoles that need extra inputs, and mobile recording rigs.
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Three drive modes per channel: Clean, Classic Drive and a new Asymmetric Drive, each selectable on its own channel.
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Stepped gain with trim: Gain up to +65 dB plus a 31-step Trim in 1 dB increments.
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Per-channel switching: +48V phantom power, polarity invert and a fixed 75 Hz 3rd-order high-pass filter.
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Selectable input impedance: four impedance options for tone shaping or matching dynamic and ribbon mics.
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Flexible I/O: eight rear XLR/TRS combo inputs, four front-panel Hi-Z instrument inputs, DB25 line I/O, insert sends and returns.
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Built-in conversion: up to 192 kHz / 32-bit, with ADAT, AES and USB digital connectivity plus word clock in and out.
Clean mode is SSL's low-noise, linear preamp. Classic Drive is symmetrical, adds mostly odd harmonics and matches the drive found on ORIGIN. The amount of character depends on the gain setting, so a common approach is to push the preamp with Gain and then bring the level back down with Trim. The high-pass filter is switched in by clicking the Trim pot.
There are no pots, mechanical switches or relays in the critical audio path. Detented controls and electronic switches drive the analogue circuitry digitally, which gives close matching across all eight channels, not only stereo pairs, and makes settings easier to recall. Balanced insert sends let you patch outboard processing before conversion, with +24 dBu insert returns feeding the converters.