Testing the UA Apollo x8p Audio Interface | Analog vs Digital
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- Опубліковано 28 лип 2024
- In this episode my friend Spanky and I test out the new Universal Audio Apollo x8P and Apollo Twin II using Unison Technology. We track through the UAD 1073 (and other mic pres) and then compare it to a real 1073 mic pre. See it you can tell the difference.
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I just recently picked up the Apollo x16 and the Neve OPX and am currently in freakin' heaven.
the apollo on board preamps sound really nice just by themselves...but then to be able to color them with all the various mic pre emulations is just sick. i'm an old school analog guy, but ua is the first company to really nail these sounds in the digital world. so impressed with this apollo stuff.
Love this channel I learn great things every time and its unique in the way you interact with art and technical thoughts , theories and real practical application - this makes it so great ! Thanks Rick.
I've been a UA Apollo user since '12 -- I still have my original silver QUAD and a newer 2nd gen unit. Love em. Great vid.
Wish you had shown the physical wiring for us visual guys
Thankyou rick for the Beaton book 2, it fills in alot of gaps for me, and the time and effort you have put into the object is beyond comprehension . sincere gratitude, from your new student, tweed
Great video. I seriously needed this. I just bought the twin Mkii and x8. Perfect timing
Thank you Brother... always love seeing your material.
Another Awesome video Professor Beato! I liked the set and production you are mastering another art. The art of video production I did notice the lighting and fades between shots. Good job
Great video and super timely! Just picked up a Twin MKII and a x8 that arrived earlier this week, myself. Getting away from all the Avid proprietary hardware and looking forward to comparing the Unison versions of mic pres. Cheers!
This is really interesting, seeing all this tech work together to make a nice sound. I would love to have a studio like Rick.
Sounds great. Congrats, Rick!
That Helios sounded killer... can’t wait for that SSL bus compressor video! Keep the gear videos coming!
That Helios is my next purchase from UAD. Wow. Just wow.
the helios is great
I just bought a new Apollo Twin and am delving into the world of UA plugins - this video shows the potential. Just Wow! I gotta get that Helios plug-in - man that sounded great! 🤓🤓
I love my Apollo and their plugins are rocks! 🤘👊 Awesome video as always Rick! Cheers from Sardinia! 😊
Amazing video, as always-that Helios did sound very special. One thing, I just brought this up in the recording studio to listen, and you have a little noise floor and reverse gating issue going on (i.e. low level 60 cycle, and a upward expansion). I hope this makes sense, and I’d say more if I knew the details of your setup there. I hope you love the new Apollo as much as we do- between them and Focusrite Red, the sound and workflow is amazing.
Great video, as always, Rick. Given the title it would be nice to hear the UA vs the real 1073 in a more direct A/B comparison.
Once Rick is more accustomed to the Apollo / Console specific workflow, it would be much easier for him to set thimgs up apples to apples and do a soecific a/b with his normal quick video edit cuts. This seemed to be a discovery / self edification video for him that he wanted to also share with us (in case there are others in the same boat.) But i agree, the thumbnail title suggested it was more of the former rather thsn the latter
Great video guys. A good point for all us to remember is it all starts at the source. Your guitar sound is a beast................Enjoyed Spanky mentoring the mentor, lol.
Just bought the Helios 69’plugin. Been thinking about it since this video first came out. Can’t wait to track my Jubilee through it!
Great content Rick! Appreciate the studio side of guitar almost as much as guitar! Almost!
I've been on this platform for a while and I love it. The value is insane. The plugins alone represent hardware worth thousands more than the interface.
Spanky! Great to see you and Rick together. Just met him at NAMM. Small world. Great work Rick. I'm picking up one of these next week.
Please Rick, more of this kind of stuff
I went all UA three years ago. Console 2.0 is great. Improvements for 3.0??
The ability to physically move the channel strips wherever you want them.
A bigger headphone mixer. Maybe 6 mixes instead of 4?
2 more aux’s for a total of 4
The ability to save a Console mix preset and not be required to go to show/hide inputs and turn on/off the needed channels.
Rick I’m posting my 3.0 wish list on your review since you are a major center of influence and “Spanky and the gang” might read it.
Thanks for all your efforts!
You will love the UAD platform!
Still can’t move Channels wherever you want them, but I would say cue mixes are much improved.
Spanky!!! Great to see him on the channel!!
UAD has a lot of quality properties, and the fact that they process inside the box is awesome, but the real thing is still smoother in my opinion.....Great video!
I LOVE that guitar tone!
Excellent vid... I think we need a part 2
Spanky! Good to see you. Rick you are going to love console once you used to it. I use it everyday. If only there were 8 cue busses. 😋
I had the Apollo Quad Core but I sold it and got the Presonus Studio Live Series III. I like having physical faders to move around.
Man I love the Helios and how the API sounded.
Accidentally started playing this at half speed and i can’t stop
damn that silver jubilee sounds amazing. also, nice stp riffs at the top there, rick. haha.
I'm glad you mentioned why you were playing chords. Whenever I try gear in guitar stores I always play certain chords to test harmonics, instead of shredding or showing off in the typical form of people in guitar stores including the employees lol. I care about how well the 3rd 4th 5th and 6th strings on the guitar sound together when testing gear. You'd be surprised how often tone is diluted or muddy even on expensive guitars, amplifiers, and pedals when playing certain chords. If I can't hear "good" tonal harmonies from an E9 chord with either clean or added effects, then I usually will avoid a product. You don't have to sacrifice tone quality for compression, even with genres like metal. Guitars I consistently use to test gear are, anything from the Fender Professional series, and anything from the PRS S2 series. The pickups in those guitars are consistent, and have great tone qualities for testing products imo.
Rick "I'm gonna do a video on that" Beato
Logan "I'm gonna do a comment on that" Haynes
Delete please. This ain't JRE.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I could run a channel off the video ideas he's never done
Great vid Rick!
The nice thing about the Apollo is the ability to record with effects. I'm really considering going with a 500 series setup as well with a compressor, EQ, and the DBX sub synth.
Rick please do a video on mixing for UA-cam.
...yes! Please, do a video to demonstrate how you record a drum kit (multiple inputs) through UA Console, into Pro Tools soon!
Loved this video!
Nice! Just started my own music channel. Thanks for being an inspiration!
Dang! now I have to buy the Helios Plug! Great video, guys Like the low-mids on that plug.
Thanks for the video!
Hi Rick, I can't thank you enough for your hard work. I really appreciate it. A tip for you, if you like it: don't put a light right into the camera, even if you need a backlight for the shooting . So much love
Very Nice Rick ! Enjoy .Grow !
I always like watching your videos. I need to come to ATL and check out that rack first hand :) I have been using Apollo since it came out and I love it. I'm broke because of my UA plugin addiction, lol. I'm kidding. Great investment tell Spanky he did a great job.
fun fact, the 1073's germanium ancestor 1053 was the inspiration behind the title for 10538 overture by ELO
Aquatarkus, Also speaking of germanium. The Beatles also used Chandler's made with germanium parts. Resulting in great tone.
ED WENZEL Yes such a great vintage sound on germanium gear. Wish I could afford just one
@@Aquatarkus96 I happen to think API rock also.
That Helios has some badass mojo bite.
Loving the Antelope Audio Orion with the 4 extra analog ins and comparable plugins. Maybe comparable? I don't know for sure.
Awesome video Rick. Spanky seems cool to he reminds me of mr strickland from Back to the future.
Hey Rick great vid,very informative. I wonder if you would consider doing a Voivod song, Tribal... I bet you would find their new guitarist to be a kindred spirit.
Rick! You the man!!!!
lol i was asking on someone else comment about this , you put this out perfect :)
Just brutal guitar sounds!
Thank god!! Just got this today
The Hardware seemed to be louder in level and brighter, which tricks you out, as mentioned in the video. Was this the case ? A loudness meter would have helped....
Hey Rick, great vid. I've been using UA forever in my studio (in Tucker)... and I'm still running through a older mac aluminum tower (with all the headaches), what is your control room CPU now? You didn't say... Thanks!
You are going to love the UAD world
I have a hardware UA LA-610 and find plugging my electric guitar into that for some mild compression and EQ and then into the UA Apollo (Apollo 8 in my case) and launching one of their plug-in amplifiers in the Unison slots works really well. I’m using a simple hardware pre-amp which limits your possibilities which gets you to your desired sound faster. And the low latency of the Unison plugin spots make getting to a perfect sound pretty easy. I have two favourite plugin amps. I’m not a heavy distortion fan like Rick, so I use the Marshall Bluesbreaker which has some really nice Marshall clean settings. Also love the Fuchs Train 2 which is really versatile and doesn’t sound like a “train wreck” at all :).
Rick hope you get to video record how you make UA Console feed PT (dude, please upgrade to 12!!) and how you route it back to the UA Console (hint: PT output to Virtual 1 and Virtual 2 in UA Console). If there’s more that your UA bud can share it would be great!
Well said. Use an outboard pre into Apollo plugs. I've done that. But i do like the idea of using the Apollo unison pres because everything is recallable. Also you can save an entire channel strip as a preset. Physical patchbays are so 1970s. I guess that is why I continue to upgrade my patchbay with 100s of patchpoints. Pricey. But the better the patchbay, the better use of my hardware to integrate withe the Apollo Converters. I keep on telling myself that my AMS 1073 DPX pres sound better than their Unison 1073 pre. Like the hardware is more 3D, focused, and has more air. But sometimes I feel I can not tell the difference. I guess for $2300 an AMS Neve 1073 DPX channel, it might be close. But I am really hoping a used vintage 1073 pre for $8000 or whatever they go for today's prices has a sound that you can not capture with a plugin and UA's harware with Unison. i am sure if I owned a vintage 1073 or a Telefunken V76 I would tell myself that the UA emulations do not even come close. With all this great gear I just make poor music compositions I write sound more of a high quality. Very close to the "Pros"s. Now if i could just get software to play guitar like Eddie Van Halen that would be perfect.
Hello Rick, just bought your book, love your channel, great great stuff for us musicians and rock lovers...Is there a way to know if UAD will launch an apollo twin thunderblot 3 soon? I have an Apogee Duet since 2011 and I've wanting to upgrade, thank you.
I own the UAD Apollo and the 4-710d, so I hate to say it but the hardware Neve absolutely sounded the best to my ears. Though that middle (to me unknown) plugin was thick and lush as well.
Big thumps up. Thx for sharing.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 1073 didn't sound better but different. Although I would use the real 1073 because I have one :)
Please do a video detailing the routing!
At 1:30 I thought you were going to show how the console is setup? The virtual connections in the UAD ? Would like to see more of the routing options in the console itself rather than the Unison plugins (which is more suit ears).
More Spanky!
Killer guitar tone
I liked the Neve plugin the best. Sounds more natural than the Helios IMO
I use the Neve Preamp on all my channel inputs. I could be crazy, but it really does make everything sounds better.
Do you put it first in the chain on the track? Do you turn your interfaces gain knob down? Thx
@@agesonjohanesburg2915 I usually don't use it in Unison mode when recording. I've made a few basic channel insert chain presets that work for me. Neve Preamp to Studer A800 is the most common one I use. The Studer plugin over a bunch of tracks does add hiss(which, if you think about it, is hilarious). The Neve is probably the UAD plugin I use the most, including the 1176 and LA2A. I'm a Cubase user and the stock EQs have always don't the job for me.
Hi Rick, could you make a comparison of the plugin x equipment? That way we could feel the difference.
Love the channel Rick. Probably my fav videos are the What makes this song great series. As a guitar nerd and someone that likes to play the guitar as a hobby one thing I’ve noticed on your channel is you have not talked much about Stevie Ray Vaughan. Do you mean he’s the baddest mofo that ever picked up a guitar. One thing I would like to see is a video with your thoughts about him and what makes him great? Not just one of his songs but a guitarist profile. To me he’s a guitar god
I have an x8p as well synced to a Twin Mk2. Spanky is the man. An amazing human and and killer guitarist in his own right. Great comparisons and breakdown guys.
Thanks for the video. I’m curious about what computer you decided to buy with what specs, what OS (Mac or windows) and your thoughts on where avid is going with Protools and their hdx system? I still have my cheese crater running hdx but I see myself upgrading my computer pretty soon and would love to hear your thoughts on the topic. Thanks, love your videos
boris wow his was in 2019 new Mac mini m1 can run 400 channels as of November 2021 I think they are almost
un bugged wed
You’ve Got friends in high places Rick ... Thumbs up
You should compare your Silver Jubilee with the AU plugin sometime; I'd be curious to how that works out and your thoughts.
I really wish I could find a video that explains how to use Console 2 in a live situation. It's kind of tricky figuring out how the sends work and how to do things like double an instrument, etc. all in Console. One of the great things about Apollo and Unison is that it's fast enough to use live, but if you search for tutorials on how to do it, all you get is a bunch of stuff about Ableton Live and UAD.
Good luck
Great video
man that sounds good, was it a feed from Apollo or camera? My Q was answered, I thoughy biy seems you have a mic in the room. The stock Pre sounded best at first
Howdy Rick, I’m late to the party as usual
But when you highlighted your focus points 6:10
How to use console?
How to plug directly into its mic pres?
How to route it to outboard gear?
Great questions that I for one would love spanky to still address
I have my Twin X and a new X6 and like you although I read the 250+ software manual and the 70+ page hardware manual
It’s much easier to see it performed by the competent and experienced hands and guidance of Spanky.
Or now 2 years on Mr. Rick B.
I’m sure you got it down by now so help out a brother
P.S. happy new year hope your all Covid free!
Not (yet) a UA user, so it was cool to learn more about their Console s/w here. Re: Console vs. the mix window, in Logic you can't easily track with plug-ins, e.g., by putting the plug-in on your recording channel. That plug-in only affects the track on playback. If you want to track with plug-ins, you use the logic "environment" or you have to do somewhat complicated routing through a bus track in the mixer (I think this may be easier with PT). It looks like Console solves that problem more easily.
I think the main point is that the Apollo can do the processing with almost zero latency, which would inevitably get unstable on a PC. A decent DAW should actually be capable of tracking with plug-ins without any difficulty though (just with higher latency); Cubase and Reaper do this just fine at any rate. Just as I said, as soon as the processing is done on the CPU you'll have to contend with noticeable latency, so DSPs on the interface definitely make sense. I just wish UAD actually made these DSP's user-accessible for _creative_ purposes with an open programming interface, instead of cashing in on stupid emulation of the products from their days of glory. But, apparently engineers like just that, oh well...
Agreed; a common complaint about tracking using Logic's environment to insert plug-ins is that the latency is unacceptably high.
HI,
How was the SSl Comp Routed into the Apollo??
Thanks-Wonderful Videos
I have the mk II and I'm still trying to understand the console, so I hope this helps! Cuz I haven't even figured out how to open up another audio track yet! Sigh, guess I'll have to become a manual guy.
I have the X8p. It’s an amazing piece of gear.
Wait a min ! I thought he was going to show how he wired all that. Insert
great video and thanks for sharing. So we are considering upgrading as well. Rick are you suggesting that the UA Apollo X series does not offer an actual remote, you have to buy another interface just to have a volume/talkback/feature desk side control? I say because Apogee does offer an actual remote control. If true, that is a bit of an expensive remote, no?
Rick, I am getting ready to purchase an Apollo X4. How do you physically wire the outboard bus compressor to the Apollo?
“Hello everyone this is my friend Phil Collins” 😹😹
"Hello everyone this is my friend Spanky" is pretty amazing on it's own.
tbh I would not be surprised if that happened
Rikkousa That would be awesome.
@@rikkousa I'm absolutely certain you are the first person to even suggest someone would say that.
Hey Rick... Great vid! It's funny... I have a buddy who is a mastering engineer in Nashville. He swears that he needs to use physical hardware units and that he can hear the difference. I can't. lol...
+thedrummersalmanac
That's why he's the mastering engineer & you're just the drummer, haha...your ears are shot! :-P I kid (I'm a drummer/percussionist, too, haha!...and a saxophonist).
But, honestly, to my ears, *some* of the plug-ins and emulations still don't quite have the special sauce of the real hardware. Just in this demo alone (and considering that we're hearing BOTH over UA-cam's lossy compressed audio), while listening using ATC SCM25A monitors, the real 1073 sounded WAY better than the emulation...at least to my ears. But I guess you could say that it's just subjective preference, so YMMV.
For me, where good plug-ins really come into play are with some the newer ones that allow you to do crazy precise or unique things that are not yet possible, and probably never will be, with any existing analog (or digital) outboard gear.
The other issue for me with a lot of the plug-ins is that it's WAY too easy to get completely lost in the plethora of options, instead of just quickly finding a good tone and laying down the track! Just get it done, son!
But that Helios emulation sounded pretty kick-@ss, even if there wasn't a comparison to the real thing. 👍
bb foto ha... agreed
mastering engineers train their ears to hear extremely subtle changes in eq and compression. it takes years to develop the ears for those sorts of things
@@awesomebawss2013 It sure does... That's why I leave the mastering to those guys. My friends ears are amazing. I'm missing most of my high end... (Cymbals.lol)
+@@awesomebawss2013
Definitely. And it's interesting that quite a few of the best mastering engineers were or are symphony orchestra musicians (or other types), such as Bob Ludwig (symphony trumpet) and Eric Boulanger (symphony violinist) to name just a few. They had already developed expertly-trained ears years before becoming engineers. ;)
When playing in a symphony/orchestra, you develop acute skills in controlling dynamics (ppp to fff), and in constantly balancing your instrument with the others in your section and with the entire orchestra.
In addition, you are constantly aware of & checking that your instrument is "in tune", or hearing if others are flat or sharp, whilst also experiencing & learning the delicate tonal qualities and harmonics of a multitude of live acoustic instruments. Just my .02 FWIW.
When I worked in radio in the 70’s and 80’s we used UA all the way.
The real deal is still better, feels so good!
Hey, that's Jason!
That's Jason S. aka "Spanky", great guy.
Yeah and he works for UAD... So how is this not sponsored?
that was cool!
Good video I would love to use UAD products but outside of my pay grade.
I wish I had my sound stuff set up back like I like it.
that riff at 7:40 smells like "what makes this song great ep21 part II"
Rick and Spanky. Good vid. Did you say Hackintosh ? .........lolol. 🤣🤣🤣
Rick has an older video about the making of his Hackintosh...
I guess we are not visual learners lol !? I really wanted to see your screen towards the end of video... Anyway keep up the good work.
I would like to see you distill core principles into a book and call it:
"The Beat-itudes" lol
Thank you for your work
Wow... proof we live in amazing times!
The actual Neve preamp sounds wetter. The plug-ins sound drier but still awesome 👍
What is the round trip latency when you send audio out and back to the SSL Buss Comp?
BIG Thanks for that great Video, I`m also using a 57 and 421 on Electric Guit but never tought of doing the setup in The UA console , I would record 2 mono track then move them to a stereo track inside PT . Quick question what is the exacte offset of a 57 vs 421 to get the phase correctly. I was thinking of just taping them together. usually I go for half a inche. Thanks again for the Video
Worst case scenario you just print them as separate tracks to PT from Console and then align the sample peaks so you're perfectly in phase
Hey Rick, is the headphone amp on the Apollo X useable for tracking big rock guitars from modern rock?