I have long since replaced this one with a 3rd Gen Focusrite 4i4, but my experience would apply to both as they share the same drivers and software.
Let's talk about the good points first.
All of the 3rd Gen interfaces I have had are solidly built, so much so that one of them fell and smashed my smartphone screen and kept functioning without issue (the phone - not so much). The metal casing is no joke!
In general, like most recent USB-capable audio interfaces, the analog-to-digital conversion is top-notch and I never had trouble with added noise, really, that wasn't already coming through my guitar pickups - definitely NOT through the converters or Scarlett hardware.
If you just want to plug a guitar and record this one can definitely do the job.
There's one knob to control all volume, so you adjust headphones and monitor line-outs in the back simultaneously. As this is the entry level model, that works just fine for most beginners. (Focusrite interfaces seem to have the least knobs and switches in comparison to competitor interfaces, maybe that's how they can be cheap. The more expensive 4i4 in turn lacks the direct monitor knob, for example.)
I eventually upgraded to a 4i4 because I wanted to plug multiple instruments and because it was the most affordable in the line to have digital loopback.
By now I have been a Focusrite user over five years and I'm ditching the brand. The reason? THE DRIVERS.
With one version of the firmware, the interface kept giving me blue screens whenever I changed something regarding sample rate and buffer size. Adjusting buffer size is a fairly common thing to optimize latency and at times needed when the processing is too slow to prevent crackling and pops in playback. So until they fixed that, the interface was just messing up my computer.
Latency with the Focusrite has always been bad. I never really was able to use it below a buffer size of 512. Now, this could have been due to me also using Nvidia GPUs all this time, especially with the combination of my motherboard and AMD CPU. (Nvidia always seems to dominate LatencyMon ever since I started to check and optimize that.) But the latency itself usually isn't really a big problem, and 512 is still workable for recording (even in "safe mode" which adds a few extra samples on top but is a necessity).
The real issue are the constant problems I've been experiencing since Windows 11 came around, partially rendering the interface unusable.
I experienced audio dropping out in the same setup as before. Cracks, pop, crackles, glitching, a sudden rising buzz, then audio stops altogether. Or just stops with no warning and for no reason. I use the Focusrite for all my sound on Windows, so the problems that crept in in the last few months (not immediately after migrating) were extremely noticeable. Because this wasn't just happening in my DAW. This happened in the middle of watching a show. Things that had been working fine for years.
The many times I had to reset the driver... eventually I learned that switching to another driver and back would fix the hangs and dropouts. That is quite telling, don't you think?
I optimized every setting I could find in Windows 11, following various audio-focused internet guides, and am still experiencing problems with this interface at a fairly conservative 512 buffer size. And while I managed to get rid of pop and crackle, occasionally sound just drops altogether. That's a driver hang.
This got so bad that I'm switching brand. Thanks for the five years! But since the drivers are common, I won't be coming back to this brand.
