For as long as music gear companies have been making audio interfaces, they’ve assumed that most people in the market care only about plugging as many microphoness into their computer as possible. They might have a couple quarter-inch inputs in front for “instruments,” but the market dominance of interfaces that devote the bulk of their real estate to inputs with mic preamps and XLR jacks has gone unquestioned and unchallenged for far too long. What about boomer gearheads with racks of vintage preamps who don’t want chintzy Guitar Center–grade circuity coloring their signal? Or the synth nerds who need a hassle-free hub for their many winding paths of modular goodness?

Some of the most innovative gear answers questions that aren’t being asked, and Arturia has been ahead of the curve on these matters for the better part of a decade. Known best for their durable MIDI controllers and Behringer-beating budget synths, the French firm turned heads when it dipped its toes in the crowded waters of the audio interface market with its AudioFuse series. These durable and stylish little boxes made it simple for recording artists of all stripes to capture ideas with little effort, all at a price point that hovered in a comfortable middle ground between the bargain basement junk that litters Amazon and the “prosumer” studio centerpieces offered by glitzier brands like Audient and Universal Audio. The addition of USB hub ports for connecting gear like USB MIDI controllers, keyboards, and other common peripherals was a “Why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?” moment for the ages. To date, the MiniFuse 2 ($122) is my favorite interface for quick and easy ipads-based audio production.

As they move upmarket with the AudioFuse 16Rig, Arturia answers another important question no one is asking: Would anyone pay $1,299 for a rack-mount interface that trades preamps for a mind-boggling array of inputs and outputs? A month with the 16 inputs and eight outputs offered by this 1U dynamo of routing and workflow convinced me the answer is a resounding “Yes.”

Audio Infusions

Patience and spontaneity are the yin and yang of lo-fi bedroom musicians and revered producers alike. Creativity can hit at any time, but you’ll need to spend untold hours in advance plugging things in to foster an environment that makes the process of sitting down and hitting the record button as frictionless as possible.

I spent a few afternoons routing my Line 6 Helix, HX Effects, synths, and a pedalboard full of effects from brands like Chase Bliss and Walrus Audio through a basic patchbay and into the various ins and outs of the AudioFuse. It took less than an hour to wrap my head around how the accompanying software could lead me to a “set it and forget it” setup that would be ready to go at a moment's notice.

The software is relatively straightforward, with predictable layouts and functions nested in its I/O, mixer, and routing matrix pages. The mixer page starts off empty and requires channels to be “added” to become active, which took some getting used to, but this and the I/O page will feel immediately familiar to anyone who uses a DAW with any regularity.

The routing matrix is where the 16Rig really shines. The ultimate goal of any matrix router is to plug its various ins and outs into the respective ports on your outboard gear, then the device will function as a switchboard for signal routing. This eliminates the need to constantly plug and unplug synths, effects, an interface, and studio monitors before you begin the process of recording actual music. I created a basic preset that has separate channels for four synths, a Line 6 Helix, and a condenser mic that’s always running through a dbx channel strip. An output channel routes to some effects pedals, then returns to another analog input.

The mixer—which is accessible via a small LED screen on the device if you’re not plugged into a computer—allows send and return channels that route any of the instruments through the effects and back into the mix. This is all saved into one of the eight onboard presets, and it loads by default every time I fire up the unit. I haven’t hit the limit of presets yet, but just eight is a bit of a buzzkill considering how much time and brainpower they save.

Creating new routings on the fly is a bit of a puzzle at first, but it made sense after a few tries and some no-nonsense coaching offered by Arturia via its YouTube channel. A few clicks on the expansive matrix screen routed a Roland Juno JU-06A directly into a Boss Space Echo pedal I recently acquired, which was simple to add to my setup via the I/O channels located on the front of the unit. This is one of several user-friendly touches Arturia added to the 16Rig to make the hefty price tag a bit easier to swallow. A pair of USB-A inputs on the front allow MIDI controllers and other peripherals to connect directly to your computer once it’s connected to the 16Rig, and another hub port on the back is great for devices that are always connected during recording sessions. Dual 3.5-mm headphones outputs and a customizable monitor knob round out the hands-on controls located on the front of the unit.

Excellent Sound

In addition to a USB-A port and the staggering number of analog inputs and outputs, the back of the unit also includes a 2x2 ADAT I/O section for further expansion with digital preamps like the Focusrite Scarlett OctoPre. The 16Rig includes only two onboard preamps, so you’ll need to add on some outboard gear if you decide that mic-ing up a children’s choir is essential for your burgeoning ambient synth-doom project.

MIDI I/O includes one 5-pin input and two 5-pin outputs, and any of the eight analog quarter-inch outputs can send Control Voltage to analog synth modules, Eurorack systems, and the like. An ⅛" clock output rounds out a suite of features that position the 16Rig as the brain of any hybrid synth setup that combines analog and digital gear that needs to stay in sync at all times. Mixer controls can be mapped to MIDI CC’s with a basic learn/listen function; however, there’s no way to recall matrix or mixer presets with Program Changes, which feels like a glaring omission from an otherwise impressive suite of features that are friendly to MIDI nerds.

Though I’m just a lowly “prosumer,” the sound quality on the 16Rig is as good as it gets for my tastes and needs. Introducing a variety of USB ports to anything that carries an audio signal can spell disaster, but the audio signal captured from a mix of new-school synths like an OP-1 and infamously noisy Korg Volca units was uniformly crisp and clear, with a notably low noise floor. If you’re a megageek who gets hot and bothered by charts and graphs and signal-to-noise ratioses, then you’ll want to check out Julian Krause’s meticulously detailed review of the 16Rig.

If you’re a normal geek with a mountain of noisemaking devices and a low tolerance for the stress caused by resetting your workspace each time you want to record something, the 16Rig should be at the top of your list. The initial lift of figuring out what goes where and how to repatch things in the matrix is a small hill to climb, but it’s totally worth it when the end goal is a smooth and simple pathway to musicmaking. Musicians of all levels will love this workflow.