Got UAD2 Quad. Do I need Apollo?

[paulnajar]

You can't go wrong with a uln8.

Who really needs digital plugins to track with anyway?

I'm in the same camp with a 64 bit Mac pro uad quad and rme fireface uc.

Be careful with Apollo. It has no midi control support. That's very important to me. Ymmv

[paulnajar]

Forgot to say

I work with an Orpheus a fair bit as well and it's converters are fine but it's software panel sucks. No monitor section and no midi control. Metric halo have great converters AND great software. Rme have decent converters and great software.

[Syncamorea]

I did plunk down the cash for the Apollo and am happy with the decision. I was lucky to be able to sit in at a small local studio that got one of the first batch shipped by UA. I don't see the low-latency with plugs as a major selling point but instead was sold by the sound quality, and the simplicity of setup for live monitoring and for overdub monitoring. I primarily do live recordings of rock/pop/blues/metal and also track bands that play together when tracking, so having 18 inputs is important. Having 10 analog outs so I can mix hybrid is important. And I admit that the promise of Thunderbolt is part of the picture too. Having committed to the UAD line of plugs years ago helped seal the deal.

For the OP: look at your own balance of priorities and consider the ergonomics of those options. Your work goes through that interface bottleneck, so limitations such as Paul mentioned (no midi control) could be a deal breaker.

[copycat]

Originally Posted by Syncamorea

I did plunk down the cash for the Apollo and am happy with the decision. I was lucky to be able to sit in at a small local studio that got one of the first batch shipped by UA. I don't see the low-latency with plugs as a major selling point but instead was sold by the sound quality, and the simplicity of setup for live monitoring and for overdub monitoring. I primarily do live recordings of rock/pop/blues/metal and also track bands that play together when tracking, so having 18 inputs is important. Having 10 analog outs so I can mix hybrid is important. And I admit that the promise of Thunderbolt is part of the picture too. Having committed to the UAD line of plugs years ago helped seal the deal.

For the OP: look at your own balance of priorities and consider the ergonomics of those options. Your work goes through that interface bottleneck, so limitations such as Paul mentioned (no midi control) could be a deal breaker.

Thanks for the input!
How would you describe the sound?
Is it easy to set up with a summingbox/mixer?
Have you tried recording with plugs?

[copycat]

Originally Posted by paulnajar

You can't go wrong with a uln8.

Who really needs digital plugins to track with anyway?

I'm in the same camp with a 64 bit Mac pro uad quad and rme fireface uc.

Be careful with Apollo. It has no midi control support. That's very important to me. Ymmv

Thanks for posting!
The ULN-8, its now on sale from MH!!
I've heard mostly good things about it. The dsp is a bit limited but MIO Console is great.
A bit overkill with 8 preamps in my home setup, but for location work its great.
The LIO-8 is also an alternative I guess.

[Kcatthedog]

UA figured people would just have seperate midi input by computer. I have yamaha dtx drums midi to usb works fine. I see all tracks in my daw so where's the midi problem with apollo ?

Kcat

[copycat]

What about using a controller like Mackie, Euphonix or even iPad to control the Console?

[Herb]

Originally Posted by Kcatthedog

UA figured people would just have seperate midi input by computer. I have yamaha dtx drums midi to usb works fine. I see all tracks in my daw so where's the midi problem with apollo ?

Kcat

I think they are talking about not being able to control the unit via MIDI e.g. the TotalMix digital mixer within RME units can be controlled with a MIDI controller.

[paulnajar]

That's exactly what I'm talking about. Speaker switching, talkback, dim, mono, headphones cue mixes to the main monitors. All done by midi controller. Rme totalmix FX even supports OSC. It's wonderful to give a client an iPod touch to control their own talkback etc.

Without midi control of all of this it would require separate analogue hardware which is not as elegant a solution.

[Kcatthedog]

Understood. I think they are looking at midi control in updates to Apollo software. They just sent out a survey to owners asking about new features. Perry may have talked about this in the pro tools expert webcast in june/july ?

Kcat

[paulnajar]

As a big fan of UAD plugins I had noticed somewhere that future midi support for Apollo was mentioned. Once they get that together and full routing flexibility it will be a killer package.

And yet I'm still wondering why I would need digital plug-ins on input. Everyone is different I guess.

[copycat]

Originally Posted by paulnajar

As a big fan of UAD plugins I had noticed somewhere that future midi support for Apollo was mentioned. Once they get that together and full routing flexibility it will be a killer package.

And yet I'm still wondering why I would need digital plug-ins on input. Everyone is different I guess.

Use the plugins just for monitoring, so the musicians hear themselves nice & fat. A bit of eq, compression, tape and reverb?Talents perform better if they get a good headphonemix.

[Kcatthedog]

Originally Posted by copycat

Use the plugins just for monitoring, so the musicians hear themselves nice & fat. A bit of eq, compression, tape and reverb?Talents perform better if they get a good headphonemix.

+1 It takes good judgement to track with plugs but the other thing is the settings can be saved.

So if the band or singer is coming back in you can pull up exactly the settings you were tracking with even if you weren't printing them.

To me that seems useful getting the talent as comfortable as quickly as possible and you as engineer/producer know the settings are exactly what they were before.

Kcat

[copycat]

Originally Posted by Kcatthedog

+1 It takes good judgement to track with plugs but the other thing is the settings can be saved.

So if the band or singer is coming back in you can pull up exactly the settings you were tracking with even if you weren't printing them.

To me that seems useful getting the talent as comfortable as quickly as possible and you as engineer/producer know the settings are exactly what they were before.

Kcat

The console recall plugin, seems like a nice feature.

[Clonkified]

Originally Posted by Kcatthedog

+1 It takes good judgement to track with plugs but the other thing is the settings can be saved.

So if the band or singer is coming back in you can pull up exactly the settings you were tracking with even if you weren't printing them.

This would also be useful if during tracking you happened to use some compression and EQ to get the source fitting exactly how you would like it, but chose not to commit to those settings just yet (unlike what you have to do with outboard gear). I guess you could recall those settings come mix time and tweak as needed from where you had started - possible? That'd be great.

[Kcatthedog]

Yes Console is an interesting tool essentially you have a console to track and or monitor through, two independent headphone mixes, channel inserts and master.

Personally i don't feel skillful enough to put fx to tape while tracking but i know others are but it gives you flexibility and instant session recall with your UA plugs.

Earlier when I was enquiring about reservations about apollo a good example would be the rme routing flexibility which apollo doesn't do yet. I wonder how UA will tweak the OS with updates. The other obvious point is you are making a big comitment to buying UA plugs , but I find many people have powerful host computers, so its becoming either or UAD and host plugs. It all comes down to cash and preference but imagine having an I7 , running 64 bit and an apollo with a satalite. Best of both worlds lots of host and UAD processing and buy the plugs you like. As the OP has the satalite and is considering the Apollo getting the quad is only a few 100 more. Its just a question of time till we upgrade computers so the possibility of powerful host and UAD processing is quite attainable just depends how you want your workflow. I am up on the other main apollo thread here 10,000's of hits only 2 people said they were returning their Apollo's so people who buy them and actually use them seem very happy with them. The street price is lower and the 100 voucher is nice as are the plug sales but there sure are lots of great competing products out there !

Kcat

[Kcatthedog]

The OP, Cowboycoalminer, of the other major Apollo thread just posted something new all ITB Apollo here it is see what you think:


http://dl.dropbox.com/u/65640533/Int...e%20Mystic.wav

Tracked this yesterday. My desk is still having surgery so it's a box mix

Best
C


Kcat