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Post by nick8801 on Dec 21, 2020 5:59:41 GMT -6
Yeah I wasn’t talking about the monitoring off of the old cheap interfaces. I just meant the quality of the recordings. Maybe it was the music I was recording though. I used to do live jazz recordings in this beautiful outdoor space. It wasn’t completely open and had fantastic acoustics. Used to bring that Focusrite and a pair of Beyers. I would take it home, run it through a bax eq for some high end, and that was it. Always came out sounding really great. Conversely I did a marimba recording once with the same setup but I foolishly chose my r88 stereo ribbon. Those Focusrite mic pres couldn’t handle the mic. I ended up having to crank them up. Spent hours finagling the hiss out of that recording. I still stand by the DA on the old Apollo sucking. Used a Dangerous monitor controller with it which was much better. Sold the dangerous when I got the mkii16 as that one was much improved.
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Post by Guitar on Dec 21, 2020 7:10:58 GMT -6
Not sure if I was indicated or not in the irked sounding post. But the SSL2+ does not even really touch my high end rig. It's quite the opposite, it makes me realize how truly spoiled I've really been.
The real question is, like other people were talking about with older interfaces, are the tracks going to make me smile when I look back on them when the tracking is all done and put to bed. Too soon to say. Need some more days with it.
Some of my old Echo Audiofire tracks hold up in 2020, but the general vibe of that converter still depresses me to this day. I had the Focusrite Saffire here too for a few weeks and it was surprisingly good in build quality, quality in general, especially for what they're worth now. A little crunchy, yeah, but that's really old conversion now. I couldn't keep it but it was really fun to spend a little time with.
The clarity and punch of the Topping/Drawmer stack I have here is special, for digital. The audible coloration of a prosumer $200 converter sounds smaller and crunchier when you A/B them, it's not hard to hear.
I'm trying to be fair and balanced as I come up with my opinion on the SSL2+ because several people are asking me about it, but it's up against some great sounding competition. The workflow is fast, so that's a big plus. No software menus. 4K button sounds good on lead vocals. Preamps are a little on the bright side in general. I guess I should do a shootout with the Presonus / Tascam / Clarett or something.
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Post by phantom on Dec 21, 2020 7:32:56 GMT -6
Not sure if I was indicated or not in the irked sounding post. But the SSL2+ does not even really touch my high end rig. It's quite the opposite, it makes me realize how truly spoiled I've really been. The real question is, like other people were talking about with older interfaces, are the tracks going to make me smile when I look back on them when the tracking is all done and put to bed. Too soon to say. Need some more days with it. Some of my old Echo Audiofire tracks hold up in 2020, but the general vibe of that converter still depresses me to this day. I had the Focusrite Saffire here too for a few weeks and it was surprisingly good in build quality, quality in general, especially for what they're worth now. A little crunchy, yeah, but that's really old conversion now. I couldn't keep it but it was really fun to spend a little time with. The clarity and punch of the Topping/Drawmer stack I have here is special, for digital. The audible coloration of a prosumer $200 converter sounds smaller and crunchier when you A/B them, it's not hard to hear. I'm trying to be fair and balanced as I come up with my opinion on the SSL2+ because several people are asking me about it, but it's up against some great sounding competition. The workflow is fast, so that's a big plus. No software menus. 4K button sounds good on lead vocals. Preamps are a little on the bright side in general. I guess I should do a shootout with the Presonus / Tascam / Clarett or something. What's your high end rig?
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Post by Guitar on Dec 21, 2020 7:55:41 GMT -6
Not sure if I was indicated or not in the irked sounding post. But the SSL2+ does not even really touch my high end rig. It's quite the opposite, it makes me realize how truly spoiled I've really been. The real question is, like other people were talking about with older interfaces, are the tracks going to make me smile when I look back on them when the tracking is all done and put to bed. Too soon to say. Need some more days with it. Some of my old Echo Audiofire tracks hold up in 2020, but the general vibe of that converter still depresses me to this day. I had the Focusrite Saffire here too for a few weeks and it was surprisingly good in build quality, quality in general, especially for what they're worth now. A little crunchy, yeah, but that's really old conversion now. I couldn't keep it but it was really fun to spend a little time with. The clarity and punch of the Topping/Drawmer stack I have here is special, for digital. The audible coloration of a prosumer $200 converter sounds smaller and crunchier when you A/B them, it's not hard to hear. I'm trying to be fair and balanced as I come up with my opinion on the SSL2+ because several people are asking me about it, but it's up against some great sounding competition. The workflow is fast, so that's a big plus. No software menus. 4K button sounds good on lead vocals. Preamps are a little on the bright side in general. I guess I should do a shootout with the Presonus / Tascam / Clarett or something. What's your high end rig? I mentioned most of it in the post, I've got a Topping DX7s sitting on top of a Drawmer MC2.1. Speakers are Focal Aria 906, amp is Emotiva XPA-200, headphones are HD650. This is just the monitoring stuff. Room is somewhat acoustically treated. But for tracking, to compare, there's a lot more gear to hear against the SSL2+ preamps, a few racks of things.
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Post by nick8801 on Dec 30, 2020 15:05:04 GMT -6
Whelp, I got a great deal on a used Lynx Aurora n 8 thunderbolt today on Reverb. It’s shipping through the post office, so it will be a while, but I’m very happy with my choice. Thanks everyone for their input here. I’ll report back when I get some time with it!
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kcatthedog
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 30, 2020 15:28:43 GMT -6
Nice, ya please do, I still think about exactly that unit !
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Post by nick8801 on Dec 30, 2020 16:44:47 GMT -6
If the Apollo doesn’t sell before then, and it’s not too much of a pain to set up, I’ll try and do a little shootout between the two.
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 30, 2020 16:55:46 GMT -6
Sure that would be cool, it’s a bf16 not the x: right?
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Post by nick8801 on Dec 30, 2020 17:17:16 GMT -6
Yeah it’s black 16. I also found this today. www.kmraudio.com/news/digital-converter-shootout/Not sure how the test was done, but I hear pretty big differences between all the converters. The Merging is my favorite. Lynx is next. Symphony is really pretty sounding as well. I could see using the Cranesong for mastering but not tracking. I felt the Apollo and Titan were kind of similar, with the Prism being a little sweeter sounding. The Omni was kind of meh to me.
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Post by nick8801 on Jan 17, 2021 13:28:03 GMT -6
Lynx arrived this weekend(finally...the post office is very slow these days). My Apollo actually sold on Reverb the day before the Lynx arrived, so unfortunately I won't be able to make a direct comparison. Here are some of my first impressions, both as an individual unit, and some immediate differences I noticed between it and my Apollo. First of all install went a little weird. I downloaded the driver off of the Lynx site, installed it, but my computer would not restart. It got stuck in load up mode. Not sure if this was the Lynx driver's fault, or another issue with my comp, but I ended up having to reinstall Mojave. Yes, I'm still on Mojave. After reinstall things went well. I got sound from Tidal playing out of the unit and I downloaded N control, which is like their version of UA's console. N control is a little more heady than console. Console is kind of stupid proof for the most part, and really obvious. N control offers a lot more routing flexibility so I had to play around with it a bunch to get everything setup to my liking. You can also control some of the routing right from the unit, but doing this seems to mess up the meters on N control. I put in a support ticket about this to Lynx. The only way to get the meters showing signal again is to restart the Lynx. Beyond that, after a few hours playing around with the routing setup, I think I basically understand it. I was able to get a session open in Reaper, record. monitor, and send to some outboard very easily. As far as sound goes, I immediately noticed a difference in the DA when I had Tidal playing. Even at the very low volume I was using it last night, everything sounds tighter and clearer. It wasn't subtle. I had a few hours to mess around recording this morning. I stereo tracked my Martin and some direct Fender Jazz bass. It was just very sloppy playing around so I won't be sharing, but I experienced a very similar thing to the DA. Everything just sounded a little tighter and clearer than what I'm used to. This was taking it out of the studio and down to my living room where I always test out mixes. I've recorded a bunch of things with that Martin the last few weeks so I knew what to expect coming out of the speakers. Like I said, just clearer, tighter...more "real" overall. Again, this is subtle stuff on the AD, but I definitely notice it. Overall it's much faster than my Apollo as well. I can monitor through the daw if I want and I barely notice any latency at all. Headphone outs are fantastic and better than my old RND amp. It's a little sad opening up reaper and only seeing 8 i/o's but I kind of like the simplicity. That was my goal anyway....pair down my studio to the most important elements, and get the best quality sound out of what I have. So far I'm very happy. Minus the few hiccups, which were probably my fault anyway, it's doing exactly what I wanted. Sounding good! I'll do another check in, in a few weeks or so when I've had a lot more time with the unit and I feel more comfortable talking about it.
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Post by kcatthedog on Jan 17, 2021 14:15:10 GMT -6
Thx, so basically expectations met, for apparent improvement in sonics and this having a more pronounced cumulative effect.
Early days, but is it your sense, that you would make them same decision again ?
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Post by nick8801 on Jan 17, 2021 15:37:59 GMT -6
Too early to tell. I really have to get used to the workflow. As far as sonics, it’s pretty obvious that it met my expectations. I still have to buy a satellite to run my UA plugs since I couldn’t sell the Apollo with plugs. Good thing is, the plugins aren’t going anywhere, and if I do decide to switch back, the Lynx will definitely hold its value. Once I use this thing in more real world situations I’ll see how I dig it.
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Post by guitfiddler on Jan 23, 2021 5:46:29 GMT -6
Nice post Nick. I'm actually considering a converter, monitor controller, and monitor upgrade right now. I need a new workflow. Apollo just doesn't allow me the freedom of hardware inserts, but I have been working around it by using higherend conversion with the AES/EBU I/O, and tracking everything with the chain to get it where I want it, committing while tracking.
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Post by nick8801 on Jan 23, 2021 6:32:19 GMT -6
Nice post Nick. I'm actually considering a converter, monitor controller, and monitor upgrade right now. I need a new workflow. Apollo just doesn't allow me the freedom of hardware inserts, but I have been working around it by using higherend conversion with the AES/EBU I/O, and tracking everything with the chain to get it where I want it, committing while tracking. I think you’ll really love the Lynx. After working with it for about a week now, I’m very happy. The sonics are just fantastic. Lynx customer support is also top notch. They sent me a different version of n control which has no issues with the connection. I also upgraded to Big Sur last night, and everything is working great. As far as monitoring, the knob on the unit can control one set of monitors without issue. It will even do dim. I have two sets of monitors so I picked up a Heritage Baby Ram. I like it as well. Definitely the best passive controller that I’ve tried. I still have to grab a satellite so I can run my UA plugins, but I don’t see myself going back to Apollo any time soon. I also got the Lynx used for less than the price that the x8 is going for. To me, that’s a no brainer, unless you really like working in the UA ecosystem.
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