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It is always a treat getting the opportunity to run SSL gear through its paces, so when I was approached to take a first-hand look at the Nucleus, I jumped on it!
The Nucleus is a compact and portable desktop unit that consists of several elementsall having been brought together in one remarkable package. There is a control surface.a USB-basedsoundcard,andapair of analog microphone preamps with two SSL software plug-ins included for good measure.
I installed the Nucleus on both a Mac Pro and a Windows 7 64-bit computer, testing it with Cubase 5 and 6 as well as Reaper. Drivers were readily available on SSL's website and there were no glitches encountered during install. I was able to start recording almost immediately with only a few extra minutes needed to get the control surface set up and working properly.
What is interesting here is that the control surface section uses an Ethernet connection for communication, so you may need to make a decision about using your computer's network card for connecting to the Nucleus versus the Internet. I used a small Ethernet switch to get around that dilemma, allowing me to access both simultaneously with no problems....