New Music Gear Monday: Harrison Audio Flex-10 USB/ADAT Interface

Most desktop interfaces are designed to disappear into the background of your desk. Most sit nicely under your monitor, but make you open a control panel app whenever you want to change a setting. That works fine until the moment you actually want to control a parameter in real time. The new Flex-10 from Harrison Audio goes the other direction entirely.

Harrison has been building high-qualtiy consoles in Nashville since 1975, and their desks have been used on records by Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson, ABBA, Queen, and plenty more.

That said, the Flex-10 is the company’s first true audio interface, and it borrows both its look and layout from that console heritage, right down to a pair of real VU meters sitting across the top of the panel.

The Front End

You get two channels of Harrison mic preamps, each with an actual transformer in the input stage that the company calls H-DRIVE.

This isn’t a plugin emulation, but a real transformer that you can switch in and drive into saturation, while adjusting the output level separately.

Each channel also carries the sweepable high-pass and low-pass filters from the 32 Series consoles.

These have always been the most distinctive part of the Harrison preamp design because the range is far wider than usual and the two filters overlap, which lets you use them as a tone shaper rather than just cleanup.

Add to that selections for line level, 48 volts, a 20 dB pad, and polarity reverse, plus front panel instrument inputs that automatically override the mic/line selection when you plug in a guitar or a synth.

Connections And Monitoring

The Flex-10 is a 10 in/12 out box running 32-bit/192 kHz converters, but it should be noted that eight of those inputs arrive over ADAT by adding a multichannel preamp or Harrison’s own D510r 500 Series rack modules.

Both input channels have dedicated balanced insert points, and there are plenty of monitoring options. There are two independent monitor outputs with their own level controls, two headphone outputs so you and the artist aren’t sharing, a direct monitoring button, and MIDI in and out on 3.5mm TRS jacks. The VU meters switch between the Main and Alt outputs.

It’s works with Mac and Linux, uses a supplied ASIO driver on Windows, and ships with Mixbus 12 along with the Harrison Creator Pack, a bundle of plugins, loops, and instruments from SSL, Slate Digital, Sonible, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, and others.

The Harrison Flex-10 sells for $599.99 and is available now. You can find out more here, or watch the video below for more details.

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