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Review: Roland OCTA-CAPTURE 8/10-channel USB 2.0 audio interface

Many of the affordable pro audio interfaces that are available on the market have a maximum of two balanced microphone inputs, and few of them include hardware-based limiting, compression, or gating. Among the special features of Roland’s OCTA-CAPTURE is the fact that it contains 10 total audio inputs, of which 8 are balanced microphone inputs. The OCTA-CAPTURE allows recording to a standalone audio recorder and/or to a computer. At least when used with a computer and a compatible piece of audio software, the operator can even record all of the available inputs on individual tracks, which provides extra flexibility in post-production, i.e. to mute a cough, or to re-adjust volume or equalization of any particular source after-the-fact without affecting any other source recorded simultaneously. The OCTA-CAPTURE also features onboard compression and gating. In this article, I’ll cover the OCTA-CAPTURE’s features, setup, preamp quality, compatible audio software, and then offer my conclusions.

In this article

• OCTA-CAPTURE: description, specifications, and features
• Regarding the four virtual monitor mixes
• Use with a traditional telephone hybrid
• Setting up the OPTA-CAPTURE
• Preamp/ADC quality, and how I made my tests
• Audio test files to download
• Compatible Mac audio software to record each track independently on its own track
• Advice to colleagues who reject recording audio onto a computer
• Conclusions/About the author

OCTA-CAPTURE: description and specifications

Roland describes the OCTA-CAPTURE (US$699 list/US$599 street) as being a 10x10 24-bit/192 KHz hi-speed USB audio interface with eight “premium” mic preamps. Roland describes the OCTA-CAPTURE as being compact and having “pristine sound quality”. You’ll read my opinion about their descriptive terms “premium” and “pristine” ahead in this article. Roland states that the OCTA-CAPTURE is for high-level audio production, and that it combines premium components, Roland-quality engineering, and proprietary preamp and streaming technology. Finally, Roland states:

Brimming with quality and performance that far exceeds its size and price, OCTA-CAPTURE is the next-generation audio interface.

Other features

OCTA-CAPTURE’s control panel.

• AUTO-SENS function intelligently sets optimal input levels for all preamps (I didn’t use that feature during my testing, but it would be appropriate in certain situations.)
• Extremely stable low-latency VS STREAMING driver
• Four independent software-controlled direct mixers for creating custom monitor mixes (more about that below)
• Support for major DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) platforms on Mac or Windows, including OSX 10.7 and Windows 7, through ASIO 2.0/WDM (Windows) and Core Audio (Mac) drivers (Later in this article I’ll describe which applications I tested on the Mac.)
• Rackmount ears included
• Bundled Cakewalk Production Plus Pack software
• Eight XLR/1/4-inch TRS phone inputs for the preamps, plus independent phantom power, low-cut filter, phase invert, and digital compression for each channel.

Regarding the four virtual monitor mixes

Each of the four virtual monitor mixes can be routed to any of the analog outputs of the OCTA-CAPTURE and can take advantage of the internal 40-bit DSP (digital signal processing). This feature can be used to send custom monitor mixes to headphones, speakers, or recording devices. Another potential application I envision for this feature would be to create a mix-minus signal to send as a return to a traditional telephone hybrid. That’s not something we currently need at TecnoTur (even though we do many telephone conversations with very high quality), since we use internet telephony’s natural lack of sidetone, but I have experience installing and configuring traditional telephone hybrids with mix-minus in other studios and I realize that at least one of our readers will prefer the more traditional method

Setting up the OCTA-CAPTURE

Unlike most other audio i/o interfaces I have tested, OCTA-CAPTURE requires the installation of drivers both for Windows and Mac. Other units have only required drivers for Windows, but not for Mac. Like most USB devices that require drivers, we are quite logically supposed to install the drivers before connecting the device… and like many USB drivers, a restart of the computer is required after installing them. Since the restart is required regardless with the OCTA-CAPTURE, I didn’t feel uncomfortable closing all of my apps before installing the drivers and app. Installation occurred without any snags and after restarting, my MacBook Pro running 10.6.8 recognized the OCTA-CAPTURE immediately.

On page 2 of this article

• Preamp/ADC quality, and how I made my tests
• Audio test files to download
• Compatible Mac audio software to record each track independently on its own track
• Advice to colleagues who reject recording audio onto a computer
• Conclusions/About the author

Click here to continue to page 2.

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