UAD Apollo gear use [spinoff topic]

I’m trying to not buy a Universal Audio Apollo 16 with the justification that it would replace my analogue mixer and a bunch of outboard gear that I already own and that I paid about a third of the value of the Apollo for.

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Off topic a bit, but the Apollo 16 wouldn’t work with out the analog mixer.
It doesn’t have any independent inputs, just those connections for a mixer.

I could use d-sub 25 to TRS jack cables to hook up line-level gear directly, right?

Can’t say for sure.
You wouldn’t get the unison feature of the pre amps, but the idea is that you wouldn’t need it if you had a nice desk.

Guess I’ll need to go for an 8p and get another ADAT box with nice pre-amps as well… :wink:

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Get it. It will replace all that.

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You’re using this stuff? Care to give a mini-review on how it fits your workflow?

I picked up the Apollo Twin just before the holiday. It’s awesome.

I’m recording all my hardware into Ableton but through UAD’s console app. This means you can use all the plug-ins like the Kulture Vulture, the UA 610 pre-amp, etc pretty much latency free. And they all sound awesome. Just turn off monitoring in Ableton.

But beware. Their plug-ins hit their hardware pretty hard. I can only run the Kulture Vulture and another delay. then I have to turn off the KV to use maybe the Oxide Tape. I’m not bummed. But if I had known, I might have spent a little more $ for a little more power.

You wont be disappointed. the hypes real.

Not to spam the forum but I made this with the Analog Rytm tonight. Each part was recorded into Ableton through the UAD console (KV, Galaxy Space Echo, UA 610 Preamp. I love this flow…

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Nice track! Really like your stuff. :slight_smile:

I got an Arrow just after the summer primarily so that I could run a zero-latency amp sim for bass practice at home. Since then I got a few more plugins when they were on sale (culture vulture, distressor, dimension d) and let’s just say I was impressed with what I was hearing.

I keep most of my hardware at the office because of lack of space at home. There I mostly do jams that go unrecorded because I don’t have (or take) the time to set everything up right for recording to two-track.

The idea of getting an Apollo would be to be able to jam on hardware while multi-tracking into Bitwig so that I can edit and do a final mix at home later.

The only downside I’ve found so far with the whole UAD ecosystem so far is that there’s no MIDI control in their Console app. This means you can’t hook up something like a nanokontrol or a launch control to control the mixer in Control which gives me a bit less… err… control than I would like from my mixer. :frowning:

You’re aware you can grab one of those UAD-2 Satellite boxes?

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Apollo Twin only? Not nearly enough grunt. That would be extremely frustrating.
By the end of my time with UAD I had 2 Octo satellites, Apollo Quad and a Twin running and still hit the DSP limit

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Welcome to the UAD man!

Its a weird club to be in. Always only buy plugs at discount.

Personally, I started with a solo/laptop card. I’m now at Apollo twin quad + ADAT and am generally very happy with the system.

Instance counts are prohibitive, sure. But if you study the instance count charts you will find many alternatives to most situations. Always collect your plugs with the instance counts in mind, something like the old 1073 legacy, pultec legacy and the Neve 88RS legacy plugins can give you loads of instances for non-headlining tracks. Tonelux tilt is also way cool for general purpose filtering without killing your DSP.

And the unison stuff can get unloaded as soon as you are done tracking, so as long as you get your inputs covered you good.

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I assume you were also using the plugins from within your DAW? What @djadonis206 seems to be doing and what I have been done is to limit their use while recording in which case resource limits are hopefully a bit less of an issue. :slight_smile:

Care to share why you did abandon the UAD world?

Computers got really fast and plugins got really good :grin:

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nice techno groove here :slight_smile: Can I get a download ?

Maybe we should start a poll to get @djadonis206 to do a Bandcamp release? I’d happily pay for those tracks.

another vote for this from me : I have a pretty much standard input processing chain for laying tracks
into Live via UA Apollo :

610 Preamp > Pultec Legacy EQ > 1176 compressor > Oxide tape

Of course you then get associated awesomeness whilst mixing ( if I start to run out of DSP horsepower I’ll just Freeze+Flatten after the arrangement is nailed ) & then on your master buss too - where I usually go something like :

Pultec Legacy EQ > Elysia Alpha Compressor > Ampex ATR 102 master tape

Love UAD :slight_smile:
As mentioned though - never pay full price for a plug-in : offers are plenty & often & they’re always throwing a discount voucher your way.

After years of struggling to integrate recording my hardware to a DAW the pretty much latency-free UAD route has been awesome - I can’t see me ever changing this workflow.

The other thing I did was get an ERM Multiclock to sync my hardware perfectly to Live : I can now multitrack everything as clips or on the arrangement window like a dream.

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Apollo Twin Duo user here, I love using the SSL 4000 E channel strip in unison mode to record every track. I was fortunate enough to mix on the real thing for a couple years, truly amazing experience! The plugin really nails that SSL sound and is such a joy to use.

While mixing I tend to use Waves and Soundtoys plugs on individual tracks, UAD on buss groups and the master track. I’ve been very happy with the workflow and results, although I could always use more inputs :stuck_out_tongue:

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That’s what I do - I use the Soundtoys stuff in Ableton and track through the console.

If I run out of juice, I just turn the plug-in off. Between the Galaxy, Kulture Vulture, 610, and Oxide, I’m pretty happy.

No one told me about this flow… :slight_smile:

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I’ve been thinking of getting a Apollo AI. Is the Twin Quad worth it, or should I just save a bit more and get the x series?

No midi support for Apollo‘s Console so def no replacement for your mixer :wink: