recording help universal audio apollo twin

[pjbelsch]

Hey All,
i am looking at recording and album and i am looking to purchase a Universal audio apollo twin. There are 3 versions of the new interface out. does anyone have experience with these units. my recording demands arent too serious just acoustic guitar, vox, drums, bass. let me know

[MikeBmusic]

UA make top-of-the-line interfaces. Hopefully a moderator will move this to the 'recording' section of this forum.

You mention recording drums - the Apollo twin has just 2 mic preamps, you would need to use a separate piece of equipment to use more than 2 mics at a time. (See the diagrams here: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...FZK6wAod-iINbg )

Since you don't have an audio interface, I have to ask what else you have for equipment? Monitors? Do you have a DAW (recording software)?

Edited to add - are you on a Mac or PC? there are USB and Thunderbolt versions of this interface.

[Bowie]

Edit: mistaken post

[sonicland]

Each of the 3 are available in Thunderbolt and USB models. Nothing wrong with USB but if you have a Mac, get Thunderbolt.

Then you have the Solo, the Duo, and the Quad. 1 processor, 2 processors, and 4 processors. UA Plugins require their own DSP and if you grow to like UA plugins, you will never have enough processing power. So if you can afford it, get the Quad.

You say "my recording demands aren't too serious just acoustic guitar, vox, drums, bass" but those tracks can benefit greatly from the Apollo's preamps and UA's plugins (and yes, you only have 2 mic pre's with the Apollo).

I use Pro Tools, and have had an Apollo Twin for the last 2 years. It didn't take long for me to become dependent on too many fabulous UA plugins and the Twin couldn't come close to running the plugins I wanted to use so I just recently bought a Satellite Octo. I went from 2 processors to 10 and it's not that hard to fill up all 10.

I like Slate, Brainworx, and Waves stuff but consistently run 90% UA plugins when I mix. UA stuff isn't cheap but you get what you pay for, their stuff is world class. And you do get a bunch of useful plugins with the Apollo to get you started.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by pjbelsch

Hey All,
i am looking at recording and album and i am looking to purchase a Universal audio apollo twin. There are 3 versions of the new interface out. does anyone have experience with these units. my recording demands arent too serious just acoustic guitar, vox, drums, bass. let me know

Take a look at the Apogee Element 46 or Element 88. You may find either fits your needs better and is all you need in terms of hardware.

[jim1960]

Yes, UA makes some great stuff, but as was pointed out, some of the plugins chew up a lot of real estate. If you're going to record drums, you're going to need more than two inputs. And all those drum tracks are going add to your processing power needs. An octo unit would be ideal, however; if you don't have the money for at least a quad unit, there are some workarounds/compromises...

• Legacy versions of plugins use less processing power.
• Judicious use of channel strips can be chip friendly rather than using individual comps, eqs, etc.
• If your DAW has a commit function you can free up chip power by committing tracks and then disabling the plugins on those tracks.

This UAD plugin instance chart should be helpful in choosing plugins:
https://help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/art...Instance-Chart

[DupleMeter]

I have not used the Twin, but I have used several of the original Apollos (now called the Apollo 8, I believe).

Short story: the UA Apollo interfaces seem solid, and the plugins are top notch.

Long story: the first Apollo I used was on a session for the Halo: Spartan Assault soundtrack. It was an early unit...definitely rev. A. It belonged to the composer and he was dead set on using it instead of my Metric-Halo interface. I went with it, but turned out to be a bad idea. One of the channels exhibited an odd noise that only appeared in the recorded file (not during monitoring while recording). It required a lot of clean up after the fact (we didn't have time to schedule another session). It kind of soured me on them and I talked a few people out of them.

Fast forward a year or so and I was working with a friend in his studio and he had the rev. B Apollo. I was reluctant, but we did the sessions and I was quite happy with the results. And we mixed using some of the plugins (loved the EMT plate, the LA-2A & the Harrison EQ). I've since used a couple more of them in different studios and can say that I have had good experiences and thing they sound great.

I think the issue was that the first Apollo was an early unit and it may have had some early issues that were worked out. I mention it only because there are a lot of used ones out there. If you buy used just make sure you check it out by recording on it first & listening to playback for odd noise.

All that said, if you're planning on drums you need more than 2 inputs (as has been mentioned). I'd go for 8.

HTH