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Post by jtc111 on Sept 13, 2018 18:58:29 GMT -6
Are they better than the Motu? When I swapped back and forth, I thought so...but I wasn't blind testing, so it could be confirmation bias. And that should tell you how close they are. John, which MOTU were you using?
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 13, 2018 21:18:29 GMT -6
Are they better than the Motu? When I swapped back and forth, I thought so...but I wasn't blind testing, so it could be confirmation bias. And that should tell you how close they are. John, which MOTU were you using? 828es. It was excellent. Best value going. Probably should have just kept it and stayed out of debt. But after using the Apollo I just realized how much I liked the workflow...and add to that the adda being a little bit better (Than the Motu IMO) and the ability to track with plugs - I just decided it was worth it for me.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 4:36:21 GMT -6
John, which MOTU were you using? 828es. It was excellent. Best value going. Probably should have just kept it and stayed out of debt. But after using the Apollo I just realized how much I liked the workflow...and add to that the adda being a little bit better (Than the Motu IMO) and the ability to track with plugs - I just decided it was worth it for me.
Quite interested myself, I like the routing matrix (which is important) and when I'm short for outboard I don't have to worry too much with the Apollo.. Also I can get a cheaper MBP and rely on some UA stuff when I'm run out of power..
Lastly I have a UA satellite FW doing nothing at the moment (my PC doesn't have it) so I'd have another octo I can shove into it.. Plus I miss the cooper TC plug ..
Finally if it's a little better than the MOTU (which does sound great IMO) we have a winner..
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 15:51:14 GMT -6
Update: I have an Apollo X6 and a Mac with a decent returns policy on it's way, although I get the feeling I won't be disappointed.. Will share thoughts after I receive them on Sunday..
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Post by kcatthedog on Sept 14, 2018 17:11:36 GMT -6
Be interested in your thoughts!
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 14, 2018 17:12:50 GMT -6
So - I've been tracking a tune all day. Really, really happy. Used the Friedman amp for EG's. THIS is where I can really, really tell the difference in the Apollo. The amps are dramatically better to my ears. Then I popped in a BA15 with an LA2A and I swear it's the best bass tone I've ever gotten. YMMV.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 18:15:15 GMT -6
Maybe Drew @ UA can answer this? Why is it recommended to have a quad core I7 or "better"? I thought the point of the UA DSP was to take load off the CPU? I wanna know because if I dig it I'll recommend to friends and not all all of them have 2018 MBP's.. Some of them use Mac Mini's or older Mac book's.
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Post by kcatthedog on Sept 14, 2018 18:36:57 GMT -6
Maybe that is just a polite way of saying i5’s are not i7’s no matter what the apple salesperson says ?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 18:58:44 GMT -6
Maybe that is just a polite way of saying i5’s are not i7’s no matter what the apple salesperson says ? Lol, well don't wanna sound selfish but at least I'm covered.. Got the 6-core 2.6 (4.3GHZ turbo) latest gen I7, if you get the standard guise from a decent online retailer it ended up costing about the same as my older ASUS Rog.
Through Apple to get the I9 it was nearly $1K more, from test bench's / comparison sites there was generally only a 5 - 8% improvement and it generated a LOT of heat.
Can't complain, it wasn't actually all that bad.
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Post by Quint on Sept 14, 2018 19:00:51 GMT -6
Maybe that is just a polite way of saying i5’s are not i7’s no matter what the apple salesperson says ? Lol, well don't wanna sound selfish but at least I'm covered.. Got the 6-core 2.6 (4.3GHZ turbo) latest gen I7, if you get the standard guise from a decent online retailer it ended up costing about the same as my older ASUS Rog.
Through Apple to get the I9 it was nearly $1K more, from test bench's / comparison sites there was generally only a 5 - 8% improvement and it generated a LOT of heat.
Can't complain, it wasn't actually all that bad.
What did that cost you?
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Post by Guitar on Sept 14, 2018 19:08:03 GMT -6
Maybe Drew @ UA can answer this? Why is it recommended to have a quad core I7 or "better"? I thought the point of the UA DSP was to take load off the CPU? I wanna know because if I dig it I'll recommend to friends and not all all of them have 2018 MBP's.. Some of them use Mac Mini's or older Mac book's. Well you still want good native latency performance. It's still a regular interface if you surgically remove the SHARK.
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 14, 2018 19:13:37 GMT -6
So - I've been tracking a tune all day. Really, really happy. Used the Friedman amp for EG's. THIS is where I can really, really tell the difference in the Apollo. The amps are dramatically better to my ears. Then I popped in a BA15 with an LA2A and I swear it's the best bass tone I've ever gotten. YMMV. I should add that I obviously think recording audio is improved too - it just seems to become more apparent with the polyphony and complexity of something like an amp sim. I’ve been impressed with the AD.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 19:45:08 GMT -6
Lol, well don't wanna sound selfish but at least I'm covered.. Got the 6-core 2.6 (4.3GHZ turbo) latest gen I7, if you get the standard guise from a decent online retailer it ended up costing about the same as my older ASUS Rog.
Through Apple to get the I9 it was nearly $1K more, from test bench's / comparison sites there was generally only a 5 - 8% improvement and it generated a LOT of heat.
Can't complain, it wasn't actually all that bad.
What did that cost you? £2200.00 brand new..
Guitar , I agree but when I had an I7 dual core Mac Mini (2011 I believe) I could record 96Khz / 64 samples with no issues.. What caused a headache was multiple VSTI's and "reference" plugs when tracking (my old interfaces didn't have HW monitoring).. Something my I7 Octocore Wintel machine never even flinched at (well if it was combined with a decent interface and good drivers)..
It could be just a safeguard so people don't keep calling up saying "when I recordz with 'evy VD's I get pops n' crackles an I dunno whyyyy? Plz elp.! UA...!!!".. (I bet it doesn't stop them though )..
Doesn't harm to check..
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Post by Guitar on Sept 14, 2018 19:52:10 GMT -6
£2200.00 brand new..
Guitar , I agree but when I had an I7 dual core Mac Mini (2011 I believe) I could record 96Khz / 64 samples with no issues.. What caused a headache was multiple VSTI's and "reference" plugs when tracking (my old interfaces didn't have HW monitoring).. Something my I7 Octocore Wintel machine never even flinched at (well if it was combined with a decent interface and good drivers)..
It could be just a safeguard so people don't keep calling up saying "when I recordz with 'evy VD's I get pops n' crackles an I dunno whyyyy? Plz elp.! UA...!!!"..
Doesn't harm to check though.
Yeah I just get the idea that UA is kind being "perfectionist" in their recommendations. They are conservative about supported systems as well. There are some that will work just fine but they won't put their name on it. I imagine the UA team sitting back with a monocle on or something with their pinkies up a little bit. "of COURSE you need an i7" and so on. It's a little bit spoiled and business driven, and a little bit of the connoisseur thing of having one of the best rigs out there...in a dorky way.
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Post by Quint on Sept 14, 2018 19:54:27 GMT -6
£2200.00 brand new..
Guitar , I agree but when I had an I7 dual core Mac Mini (2011 I believe) I could record 96Khz / 64 samples with no issues.. What caused a headache was multiple VSTI's and "reference" plugs when tracking (my old interfaces didn't have HW monitoring).. Something my I7 Octocore Wintel machine never even flinched at (well if it was combined with a decent interface and good drivers)..
It could be just a safeguard so people don't keep calling up saying "when I recordz with 'evy VD's I get pops n' crackles an I dunno whyyyy? Plz elp.! UA...!!!".. (I bet it doesn't stop them though )..
Doesn't harm to check..
What are the specs?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 20:01:50 GMT -6
2.6GHZ (4.3 turbo) six core I7 8850H, 16GB RAM, Radeon 560, 512GB NVME. If I need more space I'll just get a TB SSD, would of been nice to add more RAM but from retail purchase they either come in the above spec or 2.2GHZ / 16GB / 256GB NVME / 555..
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Post by kcatthedog on Sept 14, 2018 20:11:36 GMT -6
If you had the choice, why would you buy or recommend someone buy an i5 for recording ?
I don’t see it as elitist just pragmatic?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 20:28:01 GMT -6
If you had the choice, why would you buy or recommend someone buy an i5 for recording ? I don’t see it as elitist just pragmatic?
Really depends on what you're doing and what generation of I5 you're talking about, the I5 8259U 2.3 in the latest MBP's are around 35 - 40% more powerful than the I7 quad core in my Asus ROG which ain't no slouch to begin with.
The only time the ROG ever struggled was under heavy tracking load (plugs) @ 32 / 64 samples (which TBH a lot of machines bar the silly specc'd one's do), for mixing you could easily run 100+ plugins..
With hardware monitoring / DSP tracking silly low latency's via DAW loopback isn't necessary, so again with the ROG I could run buffers @ 128 samples and HW monitor with around 10 Softube plus + VSTI's no problem..
IF you ever run into issues, you can always just freeze tracks in your DAW anyway.! TB / PCI-E and good drivers etc. will always make things easier though (it's half the battle)..
Nothing wrong with the I5..!
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 14, 2018 21:13:46 GMT -6
That's good to know Shadow, I wouldn't have expected an i5 to outperform any i7. Maybe mine was old, but when I had an i5, it was seriously buggy, but not a hiccup when I went to an i7.
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Post by lando on Sept 14, 2018 23:12:18 GMT -6
Up to this latest generation of MacBook pros, which arrived just recently, the 13” with i5 were really slow so I think it makes sense to recommend i7.
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Post by kcatthedog on Sept 15, 2018 3:38:21 GMT -6
I guess it all comes down to our experiences, I had an i5 imac, years ago and it was a bit of a dog. My mbp is i7 and its been bullet proof , but I do know tech marches on. Personally, I wouldn't buy another i5 cus I can be pig headed
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Post by Drew @ UA on Sept 15, 2018 3:43:03 GMT -6
It's just a recommendation. If you find a system that works for you, go for it.
For example, we never supported TB2 on PCs and yet there countless users that have made it work.
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Post by wiz on Sept 15, 2018 4:02:56 GMT -6
My iMac is an i5
Goes like a cut cat
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by Deleted on Sept 15, 2018 6:03:12 GMT -6
I guess it all comes down to our experiences, I had an i5 imac, years ago and it was a bit of a dog. My mbp is i7 and its been bullet proof , but I do know tech marches on. Personally, I wouldn't buy another i5 cus I can be pig headed You're not wrong, the dual core i7 in my 2011 Mac Mini sucked (it wasn't cheap either like £800.00 second hand).. That's when I switched to Windows 8 with a 5930K hexacore and that thing was a monster.
The new MBP I7's are about the same power wise, CPU benchmark list the 8850 (Mac) as 13,300 and the 5930K is 13,640 (higher is better).. Anywho, back on with the Apollo ..!
Update: These things are going before you can buy them, by the time I got round to ordering from my usual retailer they'd run outta stock for like 3 weeks.. I have placed the order now somewhere else, should be here Tuesday.
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Post by keymod on Sept 15, 2018 6:26:20 GMT -6
It's just a recommendation. If you find a system that works for you, go for it. For example, we never supported TB2 on PCs and yet there countless users that have made it work. This is what I would like to do with my Win7 rig
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