Solid State Logic PureDrive Octo 8-channel Mic/Line/Instrument Preamplifier

The SSL PureDrive Octo takes the same high-performance PureDrive™ preamp design from SSL's ORIGIN console and puts eight of them in a 2U rack unit. It's an extremely versatile outboard preamp unit offering three drive modes per channel, ADAT expansion via the onboard high quality AD conversion, and a USB soundcard mode to plug directly into your computer.

Each of the eight channels gets three modes: Clean, a linear, ultra low noise preamp built for transparency; Classic Drive, which adds the odd-harmonic distortion found on the ORIGIN itself; and Asymmetric Drive, a newer option that leans into even-harmonic content for a thicker, softer-transient character. All three live on the same channel, so there's the option to choose a different flavour for each input rather than committing to one sound across the whole unit.

The PureDrive pre's have stepped gain up to 65dB, followed by a separate 31-step trim control for ±15dB of fine adjustment in 1dB steps, overdrive the signal on Gain and pull it back to a clean level with Trim. Each channel also switches between four input impedance settings (12kΩ, 1.2kΩ, 600Ω, and 400Ω), useful for tone shaping ribbon and dynamic mics in particular, plus phantom power and polarity invert and a 75Hz high pass.

On the front panel, four Hi-Z/DI instrument inputs (shared across the eight channels rather than one per channel) let you DI guitars, bass, or keyboards directly. Every channel also has a balanced insert point, so outboard EQ or compression can sit in the signal path before AD conversion, or the insert return alone can be used to bypass the preamp entirely for clean, unmodified analogue-to-digital conversion.

Digitally, the PureDrive Octo is more than just a preamp: it has a built in USB soundcard offering 8 channels in at 44.1/48kHz, alongside four AES/EBU output pairs and ADAT out (8 channels at 48kHz, or up to 4 channels at 192kHz via SMUX) for expanding your current interface setup. Word clock in/out keeps everything synced to an external clock if needed. Note: there's no onboard monitoring or headphone section, so the USB soundcard mode is most useful for when you need to capture audio directly on location.

Solid State Logic PureDrive Octo 8-channel Mic/Line/Instrument Preamp Features:

• 8 high-performance PureDrive microphone preamps
• 3 modes for each preamp: Clean, Classic Drive, and Asymmetric Drive
• 4 mic preamp input impedance options
• 4 front-panel hi-Z DI inputs with automatic input detection
• 48V phantom power, polarity invert, and 3rd-order highpass filter
• Stepped Gain control with up to 65dB Gain
• 31-step Trim control, with precise 1dB increments
• Mic/Line input switching
• 8-in (analog) / 24-out (@44.1/48kHz); 8 analog / 8 AES + 16 ADAT outs
• Mic inputs via XLR; Line via TRS or D-sub
• Balanced analog Line inputs, outputs/insert sends for via D-sub
• +24dBu line-level insert returns/ADC inputs via D-sub
• Digital connectivity via ADAT, AES, and USB
• Ability to switch ADAT and AES connections to source audio from DAW outputs (USB) instead of A/D converter
• USB soundcard mode
• Stepped pots and digitally controlled analog electronics for precision, stereo matching, and easy recall
• Up to 192kHz and 32-bit conversion, professional I/O levels (+24dBu = 0dBFS)
• Auto-ranging word clock I/O
• Selectable Auto-Sleep mode

For the 4 preamp version, see: Solid State Logic PureDrive Quad

Please allow 7-10 days for delivery