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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 4, 2016 5:59:27 GMT -6
So having only owned a duet a while back, I admit to getting confused by the Symphony, but in effect the outer housing is a chassis with different comms configuration hardwired in the back and the cards give it the actual functionality (i/o) pres etc ?? is that it ? I really appreciate my apollo, but do find the new symphony mkii seems to be whispering in my ear but maybe that is just Christmas GAS and it will pass or maybe not
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Post by mikec on Dec 4, 2016 8:15:05 GMT -6
Not to add fuel to your fire, but I just purchased an early Christmas present to myself by getting a new Apogee Symphony MKII 16x16 thunderbolt. It was an easy setup just swapping in place of my Apollo 16 BF so it is connected exactly the same, summing through a 2 Bus+ and monitoring through a D-Box. So far I really like the functionality of this setup but have only had most of the day yesterday to start using it. I am not going to get into comparisons between the Symphony and Apollo because they are both great and if you can't make a great recording with either it is not the interface's fault. I will just say that I have no buyers remorse at all and I am very happy. I also have a UAD Octo Satellite and it all works great together. Still keeping my Apollo 8P because I use it for my live acoustic gig setup. The 8P with a MacBook pro is a great live setup and being able to use the UAD plugins live is really cool. I am a huge fan of the Apollo and UAD stuff and didn't need the Symphony, but as my friend that runs my favorite guitar shop says, "need and want are two different things and sometimes want overrides need."
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Post by veggieryan on Dec 4, 2016 19:17:31 GMT -6
I have both Apollo 8 BF and Symphony MK1 and like mikec I now use the Apollo for live shows with the Symphony as studio interface... you can guess why... and I am considering upgrading to the symphony MK2 to have an all in one solution as I am tired of being limited by the quad DSP in the Apollo and being unable to make use of the eight cores in my octo satellite. I tend to max out my DSP in the first 4 channels and 2 auxes and this is kinda silly. Having more flexible and nearly unlimited DSP in the soundgrid system coupled with a touchscreen mixer and Symphony AD/DA may be too tempting even though most of the Waves plugins are a step below UAD with exception of the Abbey Road Plate which blows away the UAD 140... Symphony MK2 plus the Emotion mixer is really calling my name...
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 4, 2016 20:13:36 GMT -6
I have got to stop reading posts like this, lets see what is the Emotion mixer oh ya I remember when this was launched !!
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Post by NoFilterChuck on Dec 5, 2016 1:42:02 GMT -6
I am tired of being limited by the quad DSP in the Apollo and being unable to make use of the eight cores in my octo satellite. I don't understand this. Can you not use your octo alongside your Apollo? You should have 12 cores available to you. I have a symphony Mk1 and an Octo PCIe. The two systems are separate, so I don't understand how replacing the Symphony MK1 with an MK2 will get you any more DSP, since the symphony doesn't do any DSP processing. Can you clarify further?
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 3:58:43 GMT -6
He means for tracking with ua plugs, only the onboard apollo dsp is available for tracking ; one chip per pre channel and one 1/2 chip with the apollo 8p ( 8 pres), all dsp is availble for mixing.
The new mkii RTL apparently gives you console 2 performance with plugs in your daw.
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Post by ChaseUTB on Dec 5, 2016 11:56:02 GMT -6
He means for tracking with ua plugs, only the onboard apollo dsp is available for tracking ; one chip per pre channel and one 1/2 chip with the apollo 8p ( 8 pres), all dsp is availble for mixing. The new mkii RTL apparently gives you console 2 performance with plugs in your daw. regards to monitoring thru the DAW with plugins and console latency expectations: Beed up that Mac/PC because that's only if your computer can handle it ( most won't ) and get a 32 buffer, which I have never been able to achieve.
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Post by mikec on Dec 5, 2016 12:52:04 GMT -6
I could see how latency could become a problem when using a lot of virtual instruments. I mostly record Indie or singer/songwriter stuff or my own originals so the only virtual instrument I use is EZ or Superior Drummer. I also track through some pretty high end analog gear so the only plugin I use during tracking is a reverb for the vocalist if they prefer it. I don't usually add any plugins until the mixing phase. I used the UAD plate reverb yesterday and it barely even registered on the usage meter in Studio One. I guess that is because the UAD satellite was doing all the work, or maybe not, I really don't know how all dsp stuff works but I am happy as long as it works and makes great sounds.
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 13:39:46 GMT -6
UA plugs are definitely running on the ua chips on the satelite, but if the symphony mkii has rtl of under .2 ms., the daw and the tbolt satellite are talking to each other at pci-e speeds with huge throughput capacity.
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Post by NoFilterChuck on Dec 5, 2016 13:59:09 GMT -6
if you open up the UA Control Panel, you'll see the latency for the Satellite. on my octo card running inside a PCIe-Thunderbolt chassis, it's 1024samples or 10.67ms @ 96khz. You should get over the idea of using your satellite alongside the symphony as a replacement for the Apollo's realtime UAD tracking. You won't be able to use any of the Unison plugins either if you were thinking as such.
case in point, if I am tracking and want to monitor myself with some reverb, I have to do the following: in Maestro, set up the mixer so i can monitor the dry signal thru Maestro. in Logic, turn on Allow Software Monitoring, route my Input-Monitored channel to a muted bus, and add a send to the channel (not the bus) that feeds into an aux with a UAD reverb instantiated on it.
the UAD reverb has about 10-11ms of latency going, on top of whatever latency is happening in the session due to the buffer size.
I stopped trying to track with any uad plugins as aux effects for monitoring purposes. Instead, I bought some Eventide H9-MAX pedals. I have the 8Mic Pre card in my symphony, and on each channel that is set to mic/instrument in Maestro, there is a send/return insert loop. If you select an insert but don't engage it, you end up with a direct out in addition to the dry signal. So i feed this direct out into the pedals, and bring the pedals back in on another pair of inputs that are unmuted in Maestro Mixer. Zero Latency Monitoring with effects!
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 5, 2016 14:41:46 GMT -6
The Symphony has been kinda haunting my dreams lately too. I haven't compared the BF Apollo and Symphony...Definitely thought the Symphony was better than the SF...but at this point, I should just leave well enough alone...
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 15:23:30 GMT -6
I am not concerned at all with tracking with UA plugs as I don't do it now or hardly ever The symphony mkii, daw and ua satellite should work fine for mixing.
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 15:25:36 GMT -6
I must admit JK would love it if you had heard/used the mkii ,given your set up and having used the dbox, svart box and burl
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 5, 2016 15:28:12 GMT -6
I'd probably just get the old one if I got one. My problem is that he Apollo is the only thing I have for the us plugs. I'd have to sell the Apollo and gen buy a satellite quad. Meh.
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 5, 2016 15:52:11 GMT -6
The Symphony has been kinda haunting my dreams lately too. I haven't compared the BF Apollo and Symphony...Definitely thought the Symphony was better than the SF...but at this point, I should just leave well enough alone... I went back and forth with this for a while. Had my finger on the trigger several times for great deals on Symphony MKI rigs. Without actually comparing them side by side, I read forum threads till my eyes hurt. My takeaway is that opinions are so scattered. Some say the Symphony MKI "slays" the BF Apollos, some say the BF Apollo's beat the Symphony MKI's, and some say that they are both just slightly different flavors of great. Now, I'm on the BF Apollo 16MKII, so my DA chips are upgraded over the 8 and 8P. But to think about laying out that kind of cash and taking a hit on the Apollo resale, the margin of improvement has got to be worth it. And I'm just not seeing that the opinion base is showing that. I'm not seeing an unequivocal, unanimous opinion that the MKI Symphony is head and shoulders above the BF Apollo. Now, if we're talking Symphony MKII, then maybe. But I think, for me, the best decision is to sit tight, make great music, and spend that money on other cool things besides what is likely to be a side-step in conversion. (Also, I hear that Symphony tech support is kind of a pain).
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 5, 2016 16:27:12 GMT -6
Totally agree
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 5, 2016 16:27:27 GMT -6
I use the Dbox DA anyway...
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 16:33:42 GMT -6
Ya I am only thinking about the mkii but it does seem like a big jump in cost, but I have an octo card.
I learned last week that if you have more than one uad card, like in an apollo and a separate card, like a satellite, that ua will put each in two different systems and then you can distribute your plugs ins to the two separate systems so this would be a way to sell UA plugs that you are not using and retain ones you are.
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Post by Johnkenn on Dec 5, 2016 16:54:04 GMT -6
Ya I am only thinking about the mkii but it does seem like a big jump in cost, but I have an octo card. I learned last week that if you have more than one uad card, like in an apollo and a separate card, like a satellite, that ua will put each in two different systems and then you can distribute your plugs ins to the two separate systems so this would be a way to sell UA plugs that you are not using and retain ones you are. Now that's cool.
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Post by ragan on Dec 5, 2016 17:14:44 GMT -6
Ya I am only thinking about the mkii but it does seem like a big jump in cost, but I have an octo card. I learned last week that if you have more than one uad card, like in an apollo and a separate card, like a satellite, that ua will put each in two different systems and then you can distribute your plugs ins to the two separate systems so this would be a way to sell UA plugs that you are not using and retain ones you are. Interesting. I was thinking about buying a UAD Laptop Solo off eBay just as a way to sell some UAD plugs but I read on the UA site very plainly that you can't sell just some of your plugins, has to be all or none. I wonder if they allow it now but most haven't updated their site?
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 5, 2016 17:29:44 GMT -6
Ya I am only thinking about the mkii but it does seem like a big jump in cost, but I have an octo card. I learned last week that if you have more than one uad card, like in an apollo and a separate card, like a satellite, that ua will put each in two different systems and then you can distribute your plugs ins to the two separate systems so this would be a way to sell UA plugs that you are not using and retain ones you are. What?!? Is this a new thing? I've always understood it was all or none.
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 17:38:04 GMT -6
A guy, who was selling two cards posted a note at ua forum which confused the hell out of people but bottom line was as I described and confirmed by one of the ua forum mods. I will contact CS and get this confirmed but it actually makes sense, as you can have more than one uad device and more than one system and ua will distribute your plugs as you want onto your cards/systems. So, apparently the trick in this, is that ua will recognize one card and one system separately from others, so when you elect to transfer the ownership of that card to someone else, it can have a subset of your plugs on it
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Post by indiehouse on Dec 5, 2016 19:10:47 GMT -6
A guy, who was selling two cards posted a note at ua forum which confused the hell out of people but bottom line was as I described and confirmed by one of the ua forum mods. I will contact CS and get this confirmed but it actually makes sense, as you can have more than one uad device and more than one system and ua will distribute your plugs as you want onto your cards/systems. So, apparently the trick in this, is that ua will recognize one card and one system separately from others, so when you elect to transfer the ownership of that card to someone else, it can have a subset of your plugs on it Hmmm...that sounds cool, but I've been into my UA account many times and I e never seen the option to distribute my plugsacross my devices.
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Post by kcatthedog on Dec 5, 2016 19:28:07 GMT -6
I don't think you can but CS can or at least this is what they guy said, that you can contact CS and they can isolate your plugs by device within different systems so that is what I want to confirm with CS.
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Post by guitfiddler on Dec 5, 2016 20:01:00 GMT -6
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