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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 8:16:14 GMT -6
Post by kcatthedog on Sept 5, 2018 8:16:14 GMT -6
Well, we will see what the future holds as UA is even now advertising for engineers with FPGA expertise ? I was really hoping a new apollo mkiii would be released that was an almost complete redesign ? If the leak is accurate, there is some positive incremental change, but it would also show that the UA mindset is to still under feature the apollo and to expect clients to buy more than 1 etc.. The expense argument made elsewhere certainly has some validity, as UA could design an uber apollo, that for many would be all they would need ? Life goes on !
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2018 8:20:50 GMT -6
That’s a pretty big leap in dynamic range, right? Love to hear these.
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Post by Drew @ UA on Sept 5, 2018 8:42:30 GMT -6
Guys, I’ve got this thread bookmarked and will be adding official info once the time comes.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 8:43:34 GMT -6
Post by sam on Sept 5, 2018 8:43:34 GMT -6
Well, we will see what the future holds as UA is even now advertising for engineers with FPGA expertise ? I was really hoping a new apollo mkiii would be released that was an almost complete redesign ? If the leak is accurate, there is some positive incremental change, but it would also show that the UA mindset is to still under feature the apollo and to expect clients to buy more than 1 etc.. The expense argument made elsewhere certainly has some validity, as UA could design an uber apollo, that for many would be all they would need ? Life goes on ! There was a pretty decent explanation on one of the other forums that the FPGA implementation could be nothing more than just helping the converters work better. In fact there may be parts of the Apollos, as well as many other interfaces, that already implement FGPA in some capacity over regular DSP functions. I'm really not holding my breath for innovation from UA. Also this is the third converter upgrade in such a short period of time. I thought the whole point of the second one was to fix the problems of the first. Seems like they maybe bit off more than they could chew converter wise. They would lose money making an UBER perfect system, which to me would be the ability to run preamp, EQ, and compression emulations on every channel on the way in without a hiccup. I don't particularly care about mixing with UAD, but I want to know I can track 16 channels of my own custom console on the way in without even batting an eye.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 8:44:12 GMT -6
Post by Guitar on Sept 5, 2018 8:44:12 GMT -6
The current apollo 8 outputs are at 121 dB dynamic range, that new number on the X is 129 dB that's a pretty big difference.
The theoretical limit of 24 bit audio is 144 dB headroom and human hearing is 120 dB from silent to threshold of pain.
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Post by jin167 on Sept 5, 2018 8:48:15 GMT -6
Couple of things to note..
1. 'upgraded' DSP is not an actual 'upgrade'. Still the same old sharc but 6 of them instead of 4. 2. runs 'only' on TB3. No USB connection. Yup, that's right. No USB.
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Post by bigbone on Sept 5, 2018 8:52:13 GMT -6
I think UA got to take a look at there pricing also, there are competition who are pushing them in the back as far as pricing with a quality product.
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Post by drsax on Sept 5, 2018 8:59:16 GMT -6
It's all gonna be about the quality of the new converters - if they rival or exceed Symphony, then this will be a huge victory for UA and Users. A 6-Core DSP is pretty decent for the price point Apollos sell for. There's no way to satisfy everyone, but if the converters sound killer I think this is a reasonable upgrade
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 5, 2018 9:03:21 GMT -6
The Apollo 16 blackface supposedly had better converters that the Apollo 8. I hope the new converters are an upgrade from the 16. Converters have always been the Apollo's achilles heel.
Yes, the DSP gets used all too quickly, and you need satellites to actually do what they say you can do, but it's the sound I'm most concerned with. I don't use so many plugs these days anyway. Still, I would like to know I could plug 4 or 8 mics in and use the Unison plugs and some other plugs if I wanted to, and not fall short of DSP power.
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Post by Quint on Sept 5, 2018 9:09:07 GMT -6
It's all gonna be about the quality of the new converters - if they rival or exceed Symphony, then this will be a huge victory for UA and Users. A 6-Core DSP is pretty decent for the price point Apollos sell for. There's no way to satisfy everyone, but if the converters sound killer I think this is a reasonable upgrade The thing is that I think features and upgraded DSP were higher on most people's wish list than upgraded converters. I feel like your average Apollo owner/potential customer was already pretty satisfied with the conversion on the MKII Apollos. At first glance, this release seems kind of disappointing, because other than two additional cores, which really isn't much of an upgrade, the commonly requested features that many have been asking for appear to be no where to be found in this release. Don't get me wrong, upgraded converters are nice, but this could have been so much more. This does NOT seem like a "knock it out of the park" kind of release. It's too bad, because there are other interfaces out there that DO seem to be knocking it out of the park. Looking at you Motu.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 9:16:30 GMT -6
Post by kcatthedog on Sept 5, 2018 9:16:30 GMT -6
16 just have better DA than the 8, but as monkey notes above the increase in the dynamic range is interesting the 50% increase in dsp I don't think we know yet if that is 6 sharcs or if they squeezed more dsp out of existing sharcs (overclocking ?) I understand the current apollo already has fpga but that that was the source of the internal bottleneck that limited apollo to only 4 on board sharc chips ? For uber, I just meant the equivalent to 8 sharc chips, so that say a stand alone 8 would be more useful for tracking, upgraded converters, real inserts, better headphone outs and I prefer the trs to combos as noted above. Anyway, I am very happy with my symphony mkii but I was curious about UA's new X release but not a lot actually there for me
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Post by Martin John Butler on Sept 5, 2018 9:32:25 GMT -6
If the new Apollo's converters and sound quality equals the Symphony, it's a no brainer, they'd sell another boatload of them.
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Post by drsax on Sept 5, 2018 9:57:17 GMT -6
Everyone has their own priorities as to what they’d like to see. For me it’s simple - Converter quality and workflow. The workflow is already excellent for me. Add scribble strip naming in Console and an App for Console control and I’m completely satisfied with workflow. Add complete flex routing and that’s even better. UA hasn’t made an official announcement yet, so it will be interesting to see if there are any other new features or software improvements as well. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 10:12:31 GMT -6
drsax likes this
Post by kcatthedog on Sept 5, 2018 10:12:31 GMT -6
Drew says its close so maybe tomorrow ?
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 12:32:16 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2018 12:32:16 GMT -6
I’d keep my eye out tomorrow.
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2018 12:34:49 GMT -6
I, for one, have been far more interested in better converters opposed to more power. How do people that run a quad and say - a quad satellite - run out of processing. I routinely mix 30-50 track mixes with native and UAD using just a quad satellite and I very rarely run out of processing power. Add the ability to freeze tracks and I don’t really get the obsession. But maybe I’m missing something.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 12:37:49 GMT -6
Post by Guitar on Sept 5, 2018 12:37:49 GMT -6
My "problem" is I'm recording at 96K right now and that eats up more processing power. I also run a quad satellite.
Next month though I think I'm going to switch back to 48K (adding a Clarett OctoPre for more channels also) and see how that goes.
My sessions are usually pretty small. My i7 quad core PC and the Quad can barely keep up when there's lots of virtual instruments, for example. Or when using several of the "heavier" plugins out there.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 13:15:30 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by Quint on Sept 5, 2018 13:15:30 GMT -6
My "problem" is I'm recording at 96K right now and that eats up more processing power. I also run a quad satellite. Next month though I think I'm going to switch back to 48K (adding a Clarett OctoPre for more channels also) and see how that goes. My sessions are usually pretty small. My i7 quad core PC and the Quad can barely keep up when there's lots of virtual instruments, for example. Or when using several of the "heavier" plugins out there. I'm always at 96k myself too.
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Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2018 13:46:04 GMT -6
Looks like there might be a built in talkback feature too
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 13:47:48 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by Johnkenn on Sept 5, 2018 13:47:48 GMT -6
Yeah. Wasn’t considering higher sample rates. I’d probably go 96, but it futzes up my hearback/monitoring as it halves my adat outputs...
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Post by kcatthedog on Sept 5, 2018 13:49:42 GMT -6
The vi's don't have anything to do with running out of UA dsp: do they ? That's a function of how powerful the host computer is ?
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 13:52:31 GMT -6
Post by Guitar on Sept 5, 2018 13:52:31 GMT -6
The vi's don't have anything to do with running out of UA dsp: do they ? That's a function of how powerful the host computer is ? Yeah I was just talking about my own sessions in general. UA DSP is completely independent from my Cubase CPU meter. Sometimes I might max out one or the other first, usually the UA Quad. If I had an Octo I probably would be pretty comfortable, I must say. That will probably be an upgrade for me next year.
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 14:10:20 GMT -6
via mobile
Guitar likes this
Post by Quint on Sept 5, 2018 14:10:20 GMT -6
The vi's don't have anything to do with running out of UA dsp: do they ? That's a function of how powerful the host computer is ? Yeah I was just talking about my own sessions in general. UA DSP is completely independent from my Cubase CPU meter. Sometimes I might max out one or the other first, usually the UA Quad. If I had an Octo I probably would be pretty comfortable, I must say. That will probably be an upgrade for me next year. Yeah, I could probably be comfortable with an Octo worth of power, at least for now. It's beyond me why UA would only go with 6 cores. It just makes no sense. I mean, I get that there must still be some sort of bottleneck that prevents them from going higher than 6 or I'm sure they would have, but then that means they should be looking at a complete redesign instead of trying to shoehorn a stopgap Apollo of sorts and paint themselves into an ever smaller corner. If previous Apollo release timelines are any indicator, it will be another three years before another Apollo comes out. How outdated will the current Sharc DSPs and general framework currently used by UA be THEN?
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 14:44:16 GMT -6
via mobile
Post by kcatthedog on Sept 5, 2018 14:44:16 GMT -6
Well I am still curious for official release. It seems to me it’s a corporate mindset that all clients are ok with buying more units as opppsed to no, people would like an individual apollo to be able to better support its channels, not partially ? I think I will always remember the day after like 5 year’s of investing $1,000’s in UA, I asked myself an tough question, as I hardly ever track with ua plugs why do I have an apollo interface ? I certainly think it’s a great platform and all that but not the only game in town
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UAD X
Sept 5, 2018 14:46:01 GMT -6
Post by Guitar on Sept 5, 2018 14:46:01 GMT -6
I sold mine somewhat for the same reason. The only plugins I ever needed to track were the unison preamp ones. What's the point of Apollo? Like you said. Very happy UAD Satellite user now.
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