New Music Gear Monday: Cranborne Audio 500R8 USB Interface And 500 Series Rack

One of the problems with analog summing boxes is that the connection to your DAW can get rather elaborate, which means it can sometimes be difficult to repeat the setup during a recall. And wouldn’t it be nice to have easy access to that 500 series rack that you always carry around? Luckily there’s a brilliant solution to both in the Cranborne Audio 500R8, the 500 series rack that’s also a computer audio interface.

The 500R8 is basically an 8 space rack for 500 series modules with a couple of twists. The first is that it has a computer interface built in complete with a full monitor section with a Monitor Level control, headphone outputs, Speaker A/B, Mono, Mute, Dim, Talkback (with level control), Aux Blend, Aux Level, Monitor Blend controls and a stereo level meter. In other words it has everything a normal monitor interface and controller has but it’s built into the right side of the rack.

The unit connects via USB to your computer, which then provides 2-way communication with the rack. That means that it can operate with a set of microphone preamps so that you can record directly into your DAW. On the other hand, it can also act as a summing mixer with a different set of modules being fed from your DAW (if you have them). Every slot on the rack contains a switch to select between analog (input mode), DAW (mix mode), and CAST (for sending what amounts to subgroups over ethernet). When in USB mode, there are also Mix Level and Pan controls to put the rack into summing mode.

The rear of the chassis is comprehensive in I/O. Each slot has an XLR input and output along with a TRS insert. There’s ADAT I/O, SPDIF I/O, Wordclock in and out, MIDI in and out, Clock Settings switches, and the USB connector to the computer. The monitor section contains speaker 1 outputs on XLR, speaker 2 outputs on ¼ inch, mix and aux outputs on ¼ inch, talkback in on XLR and DAW 2 inputs on ¼ inch connectors. Very comprehensive.

The price is much lower than I expected at $1,699, which is just for the rack and obviously doesn’t include any modules. If you have 500 series modules around and want to put them to use when you mix, this is the easiest way I’ve seen.

Find out more about the 500R8 at the Cranborne Audio website, or check out the overview video below.

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