Apollo Twin and Garageband

[DoryDavis]

As the title says I am using an Apollo Twin with Garageband. Just plugging in my guitars and trying to get nice recordings of solo fingerstyle pieces.

The issue I'm having is this: I will monitor my guitar via the Apollo console (not through Garageband), and through headphones acheive a sound I am happy with. So I've tried hitting UAD record on the console.

In theory, if I have it right, then my monitor sound is exactly what's being recorded (I am only using reverb and the unison preamps, very simple).

But playing back in garageband, it just doesn't sound as good. I've turned the pre sets off in Garageband as far as I know. Am I missing something? Thanks.

[KevWind]

First I don't use Apollo or Garage Band so I could be mistaken.
But from this video it appears you have hit record in both the UAD console and in GB maybe ? But if that is what you are doing then I have no more suggestions

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by DoryDavis

As the title says I am using an Apollo Twin with Garageband. Just plugging in my guitars and trying to get nice recordings of solo fingerstyle pieces.

The issue I'm having is this: I will monitor my guitar via the Apollo console (not through Garageband), and through headphones acheive a sound I am happy with. So I've tried hitting UAD record on the console.

In theory, if I have it right, then my monitor sound is exactly what's being recorded (I am only using reverb and the unison preamps, very simple).

But playing back in garageband, it just doesn't sound as good. I've turned the pre sets off in Garageband as far as I know. Am I missing something? Thanks.

I'm not familiar with a Record button in Console (I use an Apollo rack, not Twin, so maybe this is related to that?). But I'm wondering how you are monitoring your recording? And do you mean you're trying to record with a pickup? This reminds me of behavior I have experienced with recording my guitar plugged in, where I think it sounds great while recording, only to find the playback isn't so great - what that comes down to is that I'm hearing the bleed from my direct guitar sound when playing, so I'm fooled about what's going into the recording via the pickup.

I personally wouldn't use this workflow - just record the guitar as raw as you can. If you want to use the unison preamps, that's fine, I guess, but I'd skip even that. You can apply all the processing you're trying to do in the Console afterwards in Garageband, processing the record sound, where you can really hear what's recorded, without any bleed from your guitar, without any distraction from playing, etc. I basically don't use the Console for anything other than setting the mic gain.

And if you're using a pickup, odds of getting any sound you're happy with range from slim to none. Pickups just don't sound very good for recording. Unless you have terrible room acoustics, any mic (or better, a pair) will sound immensely better.

[Al Acuff]

Why not give the UAD Luna recording system a try?

[Sasquatchian]

I record with Apollo and Logic all the time and I'm pretty sure that GB is just a dumbed down version of Logic and works very much the same.

You use Console to set up your recording parameters, mic and line levels and you have to link Console to your DAW and once you do that all of your recording controls are handled by the DAW so it's just hitting the "R" key to start recording and the Space Bar to stop recording. You never have to actually start the recording process from Console.

Once you get this part sorted out then you can think about the more advanced features that Console provides, but once you get it started you won't remember how that all happened but you'll be recording and loving it.

[Al Acuff]

I own Garageband and Logic Pro. Garageband never gets used. I switched from Logic Pro to UAD LUNA because LUNA is more intuitive and it sounds better. I mostly records guitars and vocals and LUNA makes it quick and easy. It forms a system with my APOLLO TWIN X so that I can monitor with near zero dealy while recording. LUNA is free and if you are using a Mac computer and a UAD interface LUNA is definitely worth a try.

Also, there is a free version of Pro Tools called Pro Tools Intro. It is available for Windows and Mac. I have no experience with it but Pro Tools is the industry standard so their free software is probably pretty good.

Recording with a microphone will give you better results than recording direct from a pickup system.

[DoryDavis]

Thanks everyone for these helpful comments. To Doug's discussion of hearing the acoustic nature of your guitar as you are recording plugged in, and then being dissatisfied with the playback, yes- I found that out experimenting with looping a plugged in acoustic. The playback is always lacking.

I should have specified I'm using a Godin Multiac nylon. So there is some acoustic property, but maybe not as much as a full bodied steel.

I'll try Logic or Luna. i think Garageband is in fact a powerful program, but maybe designed to work alone... I work in film and video, and had Final Cut for years, and it beats the heck out of it's consumer based mac included iMovie. Similarly I'm sure Logic is far superior to Garageband.

In terms of working with the Apollo though, Luna makes the most sense and the price is right (still free, right?). I may try Luna. Thanks everyone.

I will say this. I'd been away from recording for a while. Putting aside striving for a quality recorded sound, just trying to record something reveals where the piece needs work (I do solo finger style)... for me it helps my musicianship.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by DoryDavis

I should have specified I'm using a Godin Multiac nylon. So there is some acoustic property, but maybe not as much as a full bodied steel.

.

That probably eliminates my guess.

I don't really think changing DAWs will help - different DAWs should not sound different, and in my experience, they don't. DAW choice is about workflow and features, not sound - 1's and 0's should sound the same everywhere, the sound quality will be affected by your preamps and converters, your interface, not the DAW. Nothing wrong with Luna, and you might like it better than GarageBand, but that's a separate issue. Both have fewer features than Logic (tho Luna has some unique UA features), but it all depends on what you need.

2 more wild guesses:

Are you monitoring at the same level as your playback? Louder always sounds "better'.

Do you have the UAD Record option set? This may be what you meant by starting the recording in the Apollo. or whatever it was you said about that. For those who don't use UA stuff, this has to do with printing effects, not actually starting to record. You have 2 choices, UAD Mon, and UAD Rec. In "Mon" (Monitor) mode, you hear the effects added to the console, but don't record them. Perfect for getting a sound that makes you comfortable while recording, like hearing reverb, or using overdrive on a guitar amp, but the effects are not passed on to the DAW. In Rec mode, the effects added in Console are actually recorded by the DAW. So if you're not in Rec mode, what you hear while playing could be different from what you record, no matter what DAW you use.

[Al Acuff]

Certainly if you are the kind of person who wants the most features then Logic, like Adobe Photoshop, is an 800 pound gorilla. It has all the bells and whistles! Logic has it's roots in the German company eMagic. It was originally a MIDI sequencing software. Apple bought eMagic and added on to it to creat e Logic. So it's no surprise that Logic is popular with folks doing a lot of MIDI sequencing of virtual instruments. If Logic Pro is like Adobe Photoshop then LUNA is more like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

I have a question for Doug. Guitar amplifiers use positive and negative electrons. Do electrons sound the same everywhere? Why does a Fender amplifier sound different from a Vox amplifier?

LUNA may have lacked features early on but it has come a long way in the time I’ve been using it. It has all the features I need and it has simplified my workflow so that I make more music. It actually does sound good as compared with some other DAWs. I am not alone in observing this. It won’t cost you anything to tryLUNA and hear for yourself. I’m sure glad that I tried it

Full disclosure: I am no expert––just an old guitar picker. I receive no compensation or special consideration for recommending UAD LUNA or any other product.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Al Acuff

I have a question for Doug. Guitar amplifiers use positive and negative electrons. Do electrons sound the same everywhere? Why does a Fender amplifier sound different from a Vox amplifier?

I am obviously not Doug but will take a stab anyway

Yes they do (sort of very casually speaking ) But technically electrons just like digital 1's and 0's have no sound at all .
What creates the particular and different sound in guitar amps is the design and the character of all the specific different components the electrons flow through.

As for digital? While there may possibly be some very slight algorithmic differences in the playback engines among different DAWs.
So far all the null testing that has been done on the raw output of DAW playback engines only,,,, ( no plugins involved ) is said to have all nulled, so it can be said there is no discernible sound difference between DAWs

[Al Acuff]

Originally Posted by KevWind

So far all the null testing that has been done on the raw output of DAW playback engines only,,,, ( no plugins involved ) is said to have all nulled, so it can be said there is no discernible sound difference between DAWs

Kev are you arguing that all DAWs sound exactly the same if you only use them for playback? That's probably true but I use my DAW for recording, mixing, applying plugins, overdubbing, editing, summing, mastering, and playback.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by KevWind

I am obviously not Doug but will take a stab anyway

Yes they do (sort of very casually speaking ) But technically electrons just like digital 1's and 0's have no sound at all .
What creates the particular and different sound in guitar amps is the design and the character of all the specific different components the electrons flow through.

As for digital? While there may possibly be some very slight algorithmic differences in the playback engines among different DAWs.
So far all the null testing that has been done on the raw output of DAW playback engines only,,,, ( no plugins involved ) is said to have all nulled, so it can be said there is no discernible sound difference between DAWs

Having done my own testing, I can say that all DAWs are not equal. The difference happens in the summing engine in the way it handles rounding (known as rounding errors).

You have to apply some processing to engage the summing engine to know how the DAW will fare.

I did a test with a 4 mic classical recording I did. 2 stereo pairs, an ORTF & Omni outriggers. I tested by bringing the ORTF pair up exactly 3dB & bringing the Omni outriggers down exactly -3dB. No plugins, no other changes. Bounce to disk from each DAW. The DAWs I had access to to test were:

Pro Tools
Digital Performer
Logic
Reaper

None of the bounces nulled & they all sounded slightly different (and those differences showed up in an FFT). Even more surprising, some DAWs shrank the stereo field in a noticeable way, which also was visible on meters.

My take away: there is no bug free code, so there will always be slight differences from one DAW to another because of the inherent faults of humans coding the summing engine.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Al Acuff

I have a question for Doug. Guitar amplifiers use positive and negative electrons. Do electrons sound the same everywhere? Why does a Fender amplifier sound different from a Vox amplifier?

Of course these amps sound different - different circuits, different cabinets. Even among "identical" amps, analog components have tolerances that can vary, tubes and capacitors can age, etc.

But in digital recording, all that kind of stuff happens in the preamp/interface (the Apollo in this case). Once the sound has been converted in the interface to digital, what the DAW receives is a stream of 1's and 0's. For a single track recording, with no effects applied, the DAW's job is to save those bits and stream them back. in a good DAW, they should come back exactly as they were sent in.

If the results sound different (with levels matched and other conditions carefully controlled), then the bits must have changed. There are 2 possible reasons that might be:

1) a bug. It's software, so anything's possible. It's also possible that the results of a bug might just happen to sound "good" to someone.

2) a deliberate manipulation - in other words, an effect. Most DAWs don't deliberately apply a hidden effect. Now, given that this is UA, it's possible they are - maybe they're modeling tape or something. I'd argue that's a bad idea if you can't turn it off, simply because one person's "better" is another's "worse", and DAWs generally let you be in control of such things. If I want tape emulation in Logic, for example, I can just pop on a UA Tape plugin. I don't recall Luna sounding different last time I tried it, but I haven't used it in quite a while.

There is also a grey area where multiple tracks are involved, since by definition, the DAW has to manipulate the bits to blend them ("summing"). That involves some algorithm for combining the bits, which may vary with different DAWs. If I recall, Luna touts Neve summing or something, so there's a deliberate bit manipulation being added right there.

This is all easy enough to test, tho somewhat tedious and requires a lot of attention to detail. But you could record in one DAW, grab the file and import into another to see how each sounds. You could also record to 2 DAWs and test the files to see if they are identical (tho they'd have to be exactly synchronized)

A lot of things about recording are subject to our perceptual biases. Volume is a big one, even a fraction of a DB differences in level when comparing 2 otherwise identical tracks can affect our perception. I have a funny but very telling story that I'll skip in the interest of space about someone who believed 2 identical files sounded different. It gets tricky.

Anyway, I'm not knocking Luna, I tried it, thought it was mostly nice (and free), and integrated well with my UAD hardware and plugins. But it was missing important features that I rely on in Logic (some of which may have been added by now), and with something like 2 decades of using Logic, I didn't see any reason to throw away all the stuff I know how to do in Logic.

[Doug Young]

BTW, in spite of any of these differences - caused by bugs or summing, or whatever, I seriously doubt that switching DAWs is suddenly going to make a direct pickup recording that sounds bad in one DAW sound great in another. We're talking *very* subtle differences here, not "it's a whole different guitar sound" level of difference. I'd look for things that have a bigger impact.

[Al Acuff]

I posted a few words here to address the OP's concerns as best I could. My experience, my observations, and my opinion. Trying to be helpful. Monitoring while recording is simple and easy in LUNA compared with running Logic AND Console together for monitoring––less mousing around.

LUNA certainly sounds no worse than Logic and quite a few users have commented that it sounds a little better. When you win your Grammy probably no one on the award committee will care what DAW you used. I wan't trying to start an argument about DAWs. I'm a lover not a fighter. For them that wants to argue further I recommend watching this and enjoying a good laugh