4 Unison mic preamps offer stunning models of classic tube and transformer-based mic preamps and guitar amps.The latest addition to Universal Audio's growing Apollo family is a desktop audio interface which incorporates their UAD2 Powered Plug-ins platform. Mac/PC.Universal Audio Apollo X4 Thunderbolt 3 Audio Interface, (APX4) Desktop 12 x 18 Thunderbolt 3 audio interface for Mac and Windows, Elite-class A/D and D/A conversion derived from the Apollo X rackmount interfaces. Universal Audio Apollo Twin USB. Featuring class-leading Universal Audio conversion, two Unison mic preamps, and a suite of built-in effects, Apollo Solo USB puts album-quality recording on your desktop.The Apollo Twin brings impressive sound quality and UA plug-ins to the desktop, along with unusually versatile mic preamps!UAD Arrow. Shape your recordings into records with genuine UA conversion and classic mixing tools. Apollo Solo USB is a Desktop 2 x 4 USB Audio Interface w/ Realtime UAD-2 SOLO Processing for Windows.Around six inches square, it's larger and heavier than most of the other desktop interfaces I've encountered, but still merits the tag 'portable'. The New Apollo Twin is a Next-Generation Desktop Record-Making Machine with LUNA Recording System integration for Mac and Windows.Housed in a very smart metal case, the Apollo Twin has the look and feel of a quality product. Epic TwinDesktop 2 x 6 Thunderbolt Audio Interface w/ Realtime UAD-2 QUAD, DUO, or SOLO Core Processing for Mac and Windows. While its rackmounting siblings can mate with the host computer using Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt, the Apollo Twin is Thunderbolt-only, and is currently compatible only with machines running Mac OS. The Apollo Twin is available in Solo or Duo configurations, the latter offering twice the DSP grunt of the former.
Universal Audio Apollo Twin Usb Mac And Windows![]() The former allows you to set up cue mixes and apply UAD plug-ins in real time to your input signals, with minimal latency, while the latter handles configuration functions such as buffer sizes, sample rates and plug-in activation. Once installed, its functionality is accessed through UA's now-familiar Console and UAD Meter & Control Panel utilities. In a unit costing over £700 $700 or more, this is disappointing.Like the other Apollos, the Twin needs to be registered to a UA account before it can be used. However, I can't let pass without comment the fact that no Thunderbolt cable is supplied. The supplied PSU is a black plastic affair which lets down the appearance of the system a bit, but at least attaches using a locking connector to prevent accidental disconnection. In theory, Thunderbolt can supply up to 9.9 Watts of bus power at up to 18V — considerably more than USB — but even this isn't enough to deliver the requisite level of audio performance, as the Apollo Twin requires its own DC power adaptor. In theory, of course, this leaves the upper end of the A-D converter's dynamic range unused and hence reduces the dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio of the inputs, but as long as enough is left to capture the dynamic range of the original preamp being modelled, this is not a problem in practice. It turns out that whereas the Apollo preamps are capable of exerting up to 65dB gain prior to A-D conversion, UA's modelled plug-ins also apply gain in the digital domain, and thus present a correspondingly lower gain range in the analogue domain. Although Unison was not enabled when the original Apollo was released, it has always been designed into the digitally controlled preamps, and is now supported there as well as on the Twin.I asked UA what they meant by saying that the plug-ins change the "gain staging response” of the hardware. As with Focusrite's Liquid technology, the aim is to mimic the behaviour, and hence the sound, of classic mic preamps — though UA employ circuit modelling in place of Focusrite's dynamic convolution technology. Unis-on, Unis-offSince we reviewed the Apollo and Apollo 16, there has been one very important development relating to the console: the introduction of a technology UA call Unison, which allows their plug-ins not only to process the signal after it has been captured and converted to digital, but also to adjust the input impedance and "gain staging response” of the microphone preamps. The row of six buttons beneath the encoder correspond to their counterparts in the preamp section of the Console, setting mic or line input, high-pass filter, phantom power and pad on/off, polarity reversal and stereo linking. Should you want to add some colour to your input signal, there are currently three plug-ins in the UAD collection that are Unison-enabled, meaning that they can be installed in this slot. By default, nothing is loaded into this slot, and any preamplification you employ is as clean and transparent as UA can make it (which is to say that it is very clean and transparent indeed). The noise has never been worse than the target model.”From the user's point of view, Unison manifests itself as a new plug-in slot at the top of each Console mic input channel, beneath the existing preamp controls. It does reduce range some, but allows us to drive emulations into saturation without converter clipping. Not so with UA's Unison-enabled preamps, all of which have multiple gain stages. Unless your preamp has an output attenuator, this can be difficult to achieve in digital recording systems, as the overdriven preamp's output signal will simply be too hot for an A-D converter to cope with. Take The HeatIn my experience, the only way to get a good preamp to colour the sound is to drive it quite hard. You're not restricted to using these in the preamp plug-in slot, so they can be applied at mixdown in your DAW if you prefer, but of course you won't then be able to take advantage of the way they can change the interaction between mic and preamp.Showing off UA's new Unison technology are emulations of the old and new variants of their 610 valve preamp. I also liked the effect of cranking up the input gain on the API Vision channel, which can do a lot to add balls to a wimpy source. I was particularly impressed by a scratch vocal I tracked using a humble Shure Beta 57 through the 610A plug-in, which imparted a smooth, thick saturation to the mid-range that really helped it cut through the mix. Activating or bypassing a plug-in in one of the preamp slots also sends quite a loud pop through the mixer.When you manage to find the gain-staging 'sweet spot' of one of the Unison plug-ins, though, its contribution to the sound is unarguable. Inserting a plug-in in one of the preamp slots in the Console adds a millisecond or so of latency to the system, though the round-trip delay remains very small. The 610B is also the only one of the three that has switchable input impedance, which makes a noticeable difference to the tone of some mics and very little to others. Depending on the source, in fact, they can require careful setting up to avoid outright distortion, and juggling the various gain controls on the 610B in particular can be a bit of a balancing act. What is vnc viewer for macGiven that UA already make licensed plug-in emulations of channel strips and desk EQs from the likes of Neve, SSL, Helios and Trident, it is to be hoped that Unison-enabled versions of these, with preamp modelling, will make an appearance soon. That thick, slightly dark, saturated tone is perfect for some retro rock and pop styles, but perhaps less useful in mainstream, modern-sounding productions. At the same time, though, their tendency towards heavy coloration means they are not exactly versatile.
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