Absolutely, learn your gear and learn what it sound like. Import a few tracks from CDs you like and know well and play them back through you signal chain from within the DAW. You can safe a lot of time by knowing how things sound through your interface and monitors.
Can someone recommend some good stuff?
- Desperado
- Closed
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I would change your gear a little bit, instead of the Apogee Duett I would use the new UAD Apollo Twin , but only, if your Macbook Pro is coming with Thunderbolt.
The Apollo Twin offers near-zero latency and you can use the UAD-Plugins, too. It's perfect for recording guitars and vocals and it's very easy to handle. Because of the excellent preamp-section (mic/line/Hi-Z), you don't need a channelstrip for recording. If you want to record vocals or acoustic guitars with the Apogee, you urgently would need one.
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I would change your gear a little bit, instead of the Apogee Duett I would use the new UAD Apollo Twin , but only, if your Macbook Pro is coming with Thunderbolt.
The Apollo Twin offers near-zero latency and you can use the UAD-Plugins, too. It's perfect for recording guitars and vocals and it's very easy to handle. Because of the excellent preamp-section (mic/line/Hi-Z), you don't need a channelstrip for recording. If you want to record vocals or acoustic guitars with the Apogee, you urgently would need one.
Why would he need to upgrade his interface to record vocals or acoustics????
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If you want to record vocals or acoustic guitars with the Apogee, you urgently would need one.
I used an Apogee Duet II to record an entire album using just its IO and mic pre's. All the guitar tracks recorded with a pair of Neumann KM184's and vocals with Neumann M147.., fretless bass was recorded direct as well. Here's a link to one of the tunes...
http://soundcloud.com/sowingtheseeds/through-him
oh yeah.. forgot to mention.. 1949 Martin D28 on this..
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Why would he need to upgrade his interface to record vocals or acoustics????
The preamp-section is much better with the option of using the UAD-plugins. Because of Thunderbolt latency is lower, too.
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The preamp-section is much better with the option of using the UAD-plugins. Because of Thunderbolt latency is lower, too.
This is what I call "Nice-to-have".
MANY people make professional recordings (as in being able to charge for their services) with firewire and USB 2.0 stuff. Latency is not really an issue, and plugins today don't take up that much processing power. For professional recordings, though, what WOULD (or could) make sense is to upgrade number of inputs, but I don't see the UAD Apollo Twin doing that. I also don't think that's the OP's situation.
The twin is definitely nice, looking at the features; but if the OP already has an apogee Duet, I see NO reason to upgrade to the UAD Apollo Twin. Actually, I'd see that more as a "side-grade", when considering the added features. The twin (IMHO) would be something to consider if the OP had not already bought the apogee.
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Actually, I'd see that more as a "side-grade", when considering the added features. The twin (IMHO) would be something to consider if the OP had not already bought the apogee.
I'll have to agree. Getting something like a Great River or Neve preamp and running that into the Apogee line inputs would count as a real upgrade. But even that would still lose in importance to having a really good mic and proper sound treatment. And you don't need to go crazy on the budget either, my current favorite mic for pretty much anything is the Beyerdynamic M201. I've used it for pretty much everything between guitars, vocals and drum overheads and it works very well for all of them.
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Latency is not really an issue, and plugins today don't take up that much processing power.
That's simply wrong: latency is an important issue, especially if you play guitars straight into an interface and many excellent plugins need a lot of processing power.
If you'll buy an interface today, Thunderbolt is just much better than USB or Firewire. I had the chance to compare the Apogee Duet vs. Apollo Twin and the overall performance (Macbook Pro with Logic 9 and Logic X) was amazingly better using the Apollo.
The Apollo Twin isn't much more expensive than the Apogee Duet, selling the Apogee and buying the Apollo isn't a big deal and not comparable with buying Great River or Neve preamps, but the improvement will be big. Not to forget the option of using several free UAD-plugins like softube amp, RealVerb Pro, LA-2A-compressor ect.
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The Apollo Twin isn't much more expensive than the Apogee Duet, selling the Apogee and buying the Apollo isn't a big deal and not comparable with buying Great River or Neve preamps, but the improvement will be big. Not to forget the option of using several free UAD-plugins like softube amp, RealVerb Pro, LA-2A-compressor ect.
I agree that Thunderbolt through any interface will have killer latency.... but that's not all the variables. Apogee has excellent mic preamps too, I'm sure equally as good as the Twin. But why spend even more money on an interface that doesn't have S/PIF's? (I dumped mine to get the S/PDIF's) I can get close to zero latency with a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 and get S/PDIF's and 8 inputs with 4 mic press (that sound very good), and 8 outputs with 2 headphone mixes.. and at half the price!
I'm not trying to take away from an excellent interface but hey.. to get S/PDIF's you gotta jump up to their Apollo and that's $3000! For that I'd buy the Apogee Symphony... hey.. it's just opinions...
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That's simply wrong: latency is an important issue, especially if you play guitars straight into an interface and many excellent plugins need a lot of processing power.
If you'll buy an interface today, Thunderbolt is just much better than USB or Firewire. I had the chance to compare the Apogee Duet vs. Apollo Twin and the overall performance (Macbook Pro with Logic 9 and Logic X) was amazingly better using the Apollo.
The Apollo Twin isn't much more expensive than the Apogee Duet, selling the Apogee and buying the Apollo isn't a big deal and not comparable with buying Great River or Neve preamps, but the improvement will be big. Not to forget the option of using several free UAD-plugins like softube amp, RealVerb Pro, LA-2A-compressor ect.
You get those plugins with the interface (or the ability to use them)? In that case, that is definitely something to consider. I will still maintain, however, that you can get great results out of most stock plugins that come with the DAWs. Especially if you're within the first few years of starting out. But workflow etc. can also be a factor. The plugins may suit some people better than stock DAW plugins.
But with regards to latency..... Where is it exactly that becomes an issue? I am strongly assuming that the headphone output of the interface offers "latency-free monitoring" as it is called.
Conversely, when standing 6 feet from an amp you get a latency of more than 5 milliseconds due to the speed of sound.
That's why I say that latency is not an issue.
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You get those plugins with the interface (or the ability to use them)? In that case, that is definitely something to consider.
For sure you won't get all UAD-plugins
But you get a bunch of free ones and all together -considering the prize of the Apollo and Apogee- it's really a good deal.When I was on tour recently, I recorded several studio-tracks in my hotel-room, just with a Macbook Air, 2 Genelecs and the Apollo, using the KPA and Softube amp-plugins. Very simple to handle, no latency and superb quality, not to forget that the UAD-plugins don't need any processing power.
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cool - looks like my guitar
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For sure you won't get all UAD-plugins
But you get a bunch of free ones and all together -considering the prize of the Apollo and Apogee- it's really a good deal.When I was on tour recently, I recorded several studio-tracks in my hotel-room, just with a Macbook Air, 2 Genelecs and the Apollo, using the KPA and Softube amp-plugins. Very simple to handle, no latency and superb quality, not to forget that the UAD-plugins don't need any processing power.
Well, getting all the UAD plugins didn't cross my mind - but that would be one heck of a deal, wouldn't it!
How is the Macbook air for mixing? Maybe you do run out of processing power pretty quickly on that one? I have a 2011 mac mini, which holds up fairly well so far. Don't work with many huge sessions, though.
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Well, getting all the UAD plugins didn't cross my mind - but that would be one heck of a deal, wouldn't it!
How is the Macbook air for mixing? Maybe you do run out of processing power pretty quickly on that one? I have a 2011 mac mini, which holds up fairly well so far. Don't work with many huge sessions, though.
You'll get a bunch of free UAD-plugins if you buy the Apollo twin, they are excellent (Softube Amp Room Halfstack, Softube Bassamp Room 8x10, Teletronix LA-2A, UA 1176LN, UA 610B, Pultec EQP-1A, Pultec Pro EQ, Real Verb Pro and more).
I'm using my MBA just for touring and combined with the Apollo Twin and Cubase 7.5 it's great for recording. At home I'm working with a 27" iMac (3.4 Quadcore, 16 GB RAM) and an external SSD via Thunderbolt for audio, I did the whole production and mixing for my album "Tales Of A Broken Planet" on the iMac.
