I’m tempted to sell my beloved apogee symphony desktop. I really recommend it to somebody searching for amazing converters and essentially making your recordings sound great and very easily.
The reason why I am thinking of selling it is that I want to sample a lot of my synths and specially some accoustic instruments, but I have failed to do it . Like you have an idea and a plan you have but you actually don’t follow it. But you still want to do it. Parallel to that since I heard a focal trio be6 in a normal, not so well treated studio I was blow away. As a reference I have a focal alpha 5 which I upgrade from presonus iris 8 and you can’t really, really compare. If you think that a good speaker is not worth it, you should really have a good listening session in a pair of a good ones and it will change your mind.
Now that my setup is settling down - after going hardware and dawless exploration I’m selling down with push 3, syntakt, octatrack , some effects and a xone mixer and eventually some controllers. Parallel to that I have a few analog and digital synths, percussion and guitar that I would like to integrated in my setup as a sampled sources.
I’m thinking of pretty great speakers, like:
dynaudio Lyd 48;
or focal twin be;
pmc result 6;
But if I buy them then I only have the push sound card and it’s converters to sample my sources. Finally my music is in the uk garageish, technoish and beat driven electronic music.
Have you ever been in similar crossroads? What did you chose? What would you chose?
If it’s just for now I’ll go with the speakers then upgrade to a better sound card. Getting use to your speakers is more crucial to sculpting a better mix imo.
I’m not an expert. But if you’re saying that you’re not really using your top of the line audio interface (is that what you’re saying?), then:
No need to buy a crappy interface. Buy a Motu M2/M4/M6, they are really great quality. Lots of people here love them. And they are a fraction of the cost of your current interface.
That is a good point. It is easier to get great converters at around 1000 euros used, but speakers is harder. Meaning that it has been hard for me to save to the speakers I want - 2000- 3000 euros.
On the other hand, what is the point of having all of this amazing hardware, if when you are going to record it, it will lose a lot of its caracter? And can you get good recordings while using something like a push soundcard? I have failed to, but I am definitely a noob when we are talking about recording techniques…
I’m using it, but not as much as I wanted to. I record the master channel of my performances - which I do 2-3 times per week but only for heari g pouposes, in the future hopefully to release it to an audience- and I use it connected to push via adapt to sample synths and stuff in my studio. It’s this sampling part that would like to do more, but I have failed to, and used more the push/Ableton ones. I still do it but not as much as I would like to, specially pointing a mic and record stuff - where I would make use of the apogees preamps.
Unfortunately that’s where my knowledge stops:) But I’m in the same camp as the others here: don’t sweat it too much. Cheap audio interfaces nowadays are better than they’ve ever been.
Everyone can agree on the quality of a final mix but what we are all hearing tends to vary a great deal. You’re the one who will be most discontented with the recorded sound of your instruments.
Hearing your mix on good speakers is going to be beneficial because even good headphones only show you one side of the coin, headphones also give you ear fatigue much quicker. On the other hand, being accustomed to the sound of any speakers or headphones and knowing what the mix will sound like despite any shortcoming is something that many people rely on (familiarity over the unobtainable cost of clarity).
I think selling the apogee won’t yield as much as you hope it will when considering that you’ll probably end up buying another interface. You may use the Ableton card for a while, but you’ll likely start identifying what you’re missing from the apogee and become fixated on replacing it with something else.
If you have a buyer already for your desktop interface and just enough with the sale to get the speakers you want, then it might be worth it. If it’s going to be a lot of legwork for you selling and shopping and then still some scrambling, I’d probably stick with what you have and wait for a deal on some monitors you can be happier with in the long term.
Just opinions though, my personal gear is not top grade and when I can really tell the difference is going to other people’s studios who spent more money. I do find, however, that the quality of their gear doesn’t necessarily make their mixes good.
I play my analog four, sounds great, I play it again but recording it with push it just sounds … Weak. And I’m not talking about being anal and subjective with how it sounds. I’m talking about subtle yes, but noticeable differences that take out the sparkle of using out of the box sound sources.
I guess that you don’t experience that, in your sampling?
Also, the pleasure of hearing music in great speakers is almost priceless. Even my shitty music. I want to improve my mixes, but I think that the pleasure of hearing my music on great speakers and I guess this is what is going to make me take the plunge. There was a time not so long ago that I just thought of buying a cheapish PA, just to have a the pleasure of making everything rattle and hear those subfrequencies that you can only hear in raves or clubs.
And yes I have a buyer to the apogee, which is not so easy to sell by the way, and also selling a few more bits that I have unused in the studio. So I will have the funds so I guess the time is now.
Not sure what you mean when you say the “Ableton sound card and it’s converters”. If you’re planning on doing any kind of recording or listening, you’ll still need a hardware interface of sorts (unless you’re planning on using Overbridge for that?) Your post was a bit unclear.
Most modern interfaces are very comparable in terms of conversion. The difference is in that last 1-3% and in an untreated room, it’s pretty much impossible to tell. A new Focusrite Scarlett, the MOTU M2, anything from Apogee, etc are pretty much all the same in terms of sound quality, it’s just slightly different feature sets.
In terms of speakers, there’s something to be said for how well you know your speakers, not just how good the speakers are, especially if you’re planning on doing any sort of mixing or mastering. Simply getting a better pair of speakers (since you already have the Focals) isn’t all of a sudden going to make your tracks better and your mixes better. In fact it will probably make them worse, as it’ll take time to adjust to them and how they sound in your room. A lot of successful producers have monitors they’ve had for 20+ years because those are what they know. That’s the most important factor.
Personally I would just keep the Apogee and the Focals you currently have. Both great pieces of kit. As someone else mentioned, UK garage has been made with much, much less gear in the past and it’s resulted in timeless music. Music is much more about the ideas than it is the gear (read that sentence twice). When buying something new, you are also paying for it twice- with the money you spent and then the time it takes to set it up, learn it, figure it out, and get your new workflow around it. Maybe you aren’t using the Apogee a ton now but who knows if that could change down the road and then you’ll start this process all over again.
Push 3 has a “built-in” audio interface w/ 2 balanced input jacks, 2 balanced output jacks, a headphone jack, and an ADAT port. It may not, however, be on par with apogee.
Agree that apogee and focals is not a bad combo though.
Ah gotcha, didn’t realize OP was talking about the Push 3. Personally I wouldn’t want to be tethered to that as my only audio interface, though maybe that’s old fashioned.
Thanx. Again, very valuable information here. You seen that you have a lot more knowledge of AD converters than I do. And I’m guessing that you also have heard more speakers than I did. I have 2 experiences with great audio. 1 speakers and 1 headphones. The referred Focal trio be6 and the audeze LCDXC.
The focal trio was just a listening session so I can’t really tell how it would be to make music, jam or mix/master with it. With the audeze I both listen and made tracks and made rough mixes with it. Assuming that all that I do its a hobby and a luxury - I don’t really need any of this, I do it because I like it -, I can guarantee with all my hearth and certainty that making music with something like the audeze lcdx made the process 100 times more pleasurable to me. Listening to those Focal Trio - it was a recording of a live performance of a jazzy band- was amazing and it marked me, really. So I can say that is as much as a matter of having a beautiful and clear picture of what I am producing, mixing, designing, as it is to enjoy even more all the process.
By reading your posts, and thinking about this subject made me feel real excited to be able to buy a set of dream speakers, and regret less of selling my apogee.
Im sorry but not being enough clear that I was referring to the sound card of the push, I edited the original post. Thinking about what you said regarding “modern sound cards”, I must say that I have a good memory of the way that it sounded when I sampled to my Maschine plus, with Ableton I used mainly the apogee because I had it by then already. And on my Maschine plus I used mainly the line in of a komplete audio 10, and it is an old dj sound card - it also uses rcd cables. So my testing was done mainly with that, even though I did sampled directly to the Maschine and to Ableton and the results were worst than the ones of my apogee. But was it the AD converters? Was it the preamps- I don’t think that influences, only with mics and guitars etc? Gain staging - never really understood this one? No idea
I now hope that I can try to squeeze my push, to get better results with it, since everybody says it can be good enough. But the dam Apogee is/was so dam easy and nice to work with.
. Like you have an idea and a plan you have but you actually don’t follow it. But you still want to do it. Parallel to that since I heard a focal trio be6 in a normal, not so well treated studio I was blow away. As a reference I have a focal alpha 5 which I upgrade from presonus iris 8 and you can’t really, really compare. If you think that a good speaker is not worth it, you should really have a good listening session in a pair of a good ones and it will change your mind.
No idea
so dam easy and nice to work with.