Help me to decide if I should get a used UA Apollo x4

lukedlb

I need an audio interface for my iMac. Sooner or later it has to happen.
I have been offered an Apollo x4 used for 1270 pounds final offer with the normal plug-ins (NOT heritage) plus the following:

Brigade Chorus

Cambridge EQ

-Neve Preamp
-Studer A800

Although I dipped my feet in the pool with a PreSonus Firestudio and Reaper on my old macbook 2012, I decided it was time to get an interface I could use with my 2019 iMac (3.6GHz 8 core i9, 8GB memory, 1TB SSD). Any hurdles will put me off. I want it up and working immediately with little to learn.

For my electric guitar I play my amps through a UA OxBox connected via OPTICAL IN. All necessary compressor and reverb is taken care of inside the OX. 

Bass guitar can go through the OX or the Hi-Z and the AMPEG plug-in

Keyboard and Hammond Clone to LINE 1 & 2

Vocals and Voiceover work with a Shure SM58 

Yes, I could just use an Apollo TWIN as it is unlikely that I will play along with someone. Recording will be alone. But seeing as the X4 price isn’t too far from the price for a new TWIN QUAD, I may as well go for this. The extra inputs could help with an eventual resale if it all goes sour.

I like the idea of going with LUNA from the get go. The integration makes my life simpler (it took a while to get used to the Presonus) and I look at Reaper with horror.

The music I'm going to record: 60s/70s soul jazz, funk, New Orleans funk and 80s/90s hip-hop. Think Beastie Boys of Paul’s Boutique and Ill Communication.

Drum beats will be programmed on LUNA. Can I get anywhere close to the James Brown sound on there? Clyde Stubberfield and Jabo Starks style.

I can’t see myself falling down the plug-in rabbit hole. 

Pros:

Near Zero latency

Free LUNA DAW integration with iMac

More than enough inputs (I can leave all my gear plugged in and never have to search for cable and so it’s ready to go once everything is powered up).

Quality Microphone Pre-amp

Quality Headphone amp

Optical input for my OX
EASY SET UP and UTILITY

Cons:

Overkill

Expensive

REALLY expensive. Couldn't that cash go on something real like a Rhodes Piano?

If you think I should go with another interface, please say. Bear in mind that the DAW choice is important and would be another cost to bear. I probably could stick with Reaper or even live with GarageBand. Latency is a huge issue too. The more processing power the better to reduce latency.

joeW

I recently bought an X8 and an antelope zen tour sc. I have a UA twin also.  I suspect my uses are similar to yours - I use an oxbox for most of my recorded guitar parts and am not a big fan of plug-ins.  I would say that the UA environment is very friendly to use and stops me wasting time on details. I have a few synths and drum machines that I have linked up and it’s all good. The twins are fine - give you Luna and take the ox without losing a preamp channel.  Am using Logic currently, but plan to spend time with Luna more as it has some nice analogue type features included, though not as suited as some to beat production. 

There is an amazing sample pack of Clyde which I bought last year which I have on Logic. 

The antelope zen tour is a monster unit also. It has a load of good stock plugins which also run with almost zero latency. It has reamp outs which is very helpful for non digital recording. It’s a/d conversion seems as good if not better than UA.  Let me know if you have any questions 

pmg

You could buy something like a used duet 2 for about a tenth of that.  

darius

They are supposedly ’The Best’, but what threw me is you’re considering an Apollo and GarageBand in the same paragraph?

Since you’ve got a Mac, use the money on Logic Pro and a ‘good enough’ 8x I/O like Focusrite. You get all the native plug-ins at a fraction of the cost. 

Luna will be integrated but you’re still going to have to learn it. I expect it will have the same learning curve as all DAWs.

lukedlb

darius said:

They are supposedly ’The Best’, but what threw me is you’re considering an Apollo and GarageBand in the same paragraph?

Since you’ve got a Mac, use the money on Logic Pro and a ‘good enough’ 8x I/O like Focusrite. You get all the native plug-ins at a fraction of the cost. 

Luna will be integrated but you’re still going to have to learn it. I expect it will have the same learning curve as all DAWs.

Yes, I threw in the GarageBand idea to suggest that I may be going about this the wrong way.

Any suggestions for a reliable Focusrite? Is the mixer control integrated into Logic Pro automatically or is it something I have to deal with manually? Forgive me, I'm just trying to eliminate these little technicalities that tend to put me off.

lukedlb

joeW said:

I recently bought an X8 and an antelope zen tour sc. I have a UA twin also.  I suspect my uses are similar to yours - I use an oxbox for most of my recorded guitar parts and am not a big fan of plug-ins.  I would say that the UA environment is very friendly to use and stops me wasting time on details. I have a few synths and drum machines that I have linked up and it’s all good. The twins are fine - give you Luna and take the ox without losing a preamp channel.  Am using Logic currently, but plan to spend time with Luna more as it has some nice analogue type features included, though not as suited as some to beat production. 

There is an amazing sample pack of Clyde which I bought last year which I have on Logic. 

The antelope zen tour is a monster unit also. It has a load of good stock plugins which also run with almost zero latency. It has reamp outs which is very helpful for non digital recording. It’s a/d conversion seems as good if not better than UA.  Let me know if you have any questions 

The Clyde pack looks great. It's the one on yurtrock, right? Do you have anything of yours online to listen to with his samples? Can you use the pack on Luna?

The zen tour looks as good as the x4 with extra bits and bobs. 
If someone could guarantee me professional results without any noise and near zero latency on a lower priced product, I would happily save the money (especially since I just invested in a decent chair for all my time spent at the mac teaching online, video editing, and soon audio recording/mixing). Perhaps LogicPro is the way to go with a lower priced interface?

lukedlb

pmg said:

You could buy something like a used duet 2 for about a tenth of that.  

Are they any good? They look a bit youtuber rather than pro-audio.

darius

lukedlb said:

darius said:

They are supposedly ’The Best’, but what threw me is you’re considering an Apollo and GarageBand in the same paragraph?

Since you’ve got a Mac, use the money on Logic Pro and a ‘good enough’ 8x I/O like Focusrite. You get all the native plug-ins at a fraction of the cost. 

Luna will be integrated but you’re still going to have to learn it. I expect it will have the same learning curve as all DAWs.

Yes, I threw in the GarageBand idea to suggest that I may be going about this the wrong way.

Any suggestions for a reliable Focusrite? Is the mixer control integrated into Logic Pro automatically or is it something I have to deal with manually? Forgive me, I'm just trying to eliminate these little technicalities that tend to put me off.

It does sound like you want the DAW to have total full control of the interface, so you want the pro kit built for recording studios. That'll be the UA then.

joeW

lukedlb said:

The Clyde pack looks great. It's the one on yurtrock, right? Do you have anything of yours online to listen to with his samples? Can you use the pack on Luna?

The zen tour looks as good as the x4 with extra bits and bobs. 
If someone could guarantee me professional results without any noise and near zero latency on a lower priced product, I would happily save the money (especially since I just invested in a decent chair for all my time spent at the mac teaching online, video editing, and soon audio recording/mixing). Perhaps LogicPro is the way to go with a lower priced interface?

Yurtrock - yup that’s the one. Haven’t had time to record with it yet but listening through them - they sounded great.  Logic covers all bases very well and had loads of good native software instruments - plus there are tons of how to videos on YouTube as it’s pretty deep  

pmg

lukedlb said:

pmg said:

You could buy something like a used duet 2 for about a tenth of that.  

Are they any good? They look a bit youtuber rather than pro-audio.

Not at all.  Nice clean preamps. Main difference to UA apollos is there is no dsp for running plugins

danishbacon

The novelty of running dsp in the unit quickly ran out when I realised the price points of the actual plugins and the fact that they are forever tied to the Unit. If you want to sell, whoever buys will have to be happy with your choice of plugins in order to accept a value above what a bare unit is worth. At least this was the case a couple of years ago when I had a UA. 

Heartfeltdawn

lukedlb said:

Although I dipped my feet in the pool with a PreSonus Firestudio and Reaper on my old macbook 2012, I decided it was time to get an interface I could use with my 2019 iMac (3.6GHz 8 core i9, 8GB memory, 1TB SSD). Any hurdles will put me off. I want it up and working immediately with little to learn.

I'd like to pose a question. If one of the people you teach video editing to came to you and said they wanted to do it as easily as possible without any learning, would you tell them to go and blow nearly £1300 on some software because they don't want to learn on something cheaper and a little bit more complex? 

I ask this because your approach seems utterly scattergun. You don't want to disappear down the plugin rabbithole but you're up for buying an audio interface with plugins assigned to it. When you talk of Apogee Duet 2 interfaces as being a bit Youtuber, frankly it sounds like you're delving into a field where you don't know very much but you're prepared to spend a lot of money. If I may quote again:

"If someone could guarantee me professional results without any noise and near zero latency on a lower priced product, I would happily save the money (especially since I just invested in a decent chair for all my time spent at the mac teaching online, video editing, and soon audio recording/mixing). Perhaps LogicPro is the way to go with a lower priced interface?"

Before you drop £1300 for an interface, you want to record and mix. So go through the whole setup. Are you recording and mixing in an environment that has been set up for it? Do you have monitoring? 

lukedlb

Heartfeltdawn said:

lukedlb said:

Although I dipped my feet in the pool with a PreSonus Firestudio and Reaper on my old macbook 2012, I decided it was time to get an interface I could use with my 2019 iMac (3.6GHz 8 core i9, 8GB memory, 1TB SSD). Any hurdles will put me off. I want it up and working immediately with little to learn.

I'd like to pose a question. If one of the people you teach video editing to came to you and said they wanted to do it as easily as possible without any learning, would you tell them to go and blow nearly £1300 on some software because they don't want to learn on something cheaper and a little bit more complex? 

I ask this because your approach seems utterly scattergun. You don't want to disappear down the plugin rabbithole but you're up for buying an audio interface with plugins assigned to it. When you talk of Apogee Duet 2 interfaces as being a bit Youtuber, frankly it sounds like you're delving into a field where you don't know very much but you're prepared to spend a lot of money. If I may quote again:

"If someone could guarantee me professional results without any noise and near zero latency on a lower priced product, I would happily save the money (especially since I just invested in a decent chair for all my time spent at the mac teaching online, video editing, and soon audio recording/mixing). Perhaps LogicPro is the way to go with a lower priced interface?"

Before you drop £1300 for an interface, you want to record and mix. So go through the whole setup. Are you recording and mixing in an environment that has been set up for it? Do you have monitoring? 

You're right. I'm completely out of my depth when it comes to the technical side of recording/mixing. However, from experience in other fields, buying top range usually eliminates obstacles and limitations that come with buying budget. I found this more so with digital, whether it's as simple as connectivity changes with upgrading, or redundancy. 
Then there's the windows vs mac mentality of a rational mind vs playful: I just want to plug and play. Any assigning requests and I get anxious.
From what I've seen Apollo X range provides but at a cost. I would deeply appreciate if anyone could suggest a solution that guarantees ease of use, zero latency. As I have Thunderbolt, doesn't it make sense to use it?
Four extra plugins are not many. I do understand that the 'sound' is important, not simply the recording.

lukedlb

Heartfeltdawn said:

lukedlb said:

Although I dipped my feet in the pool with a PreSonus Firestudio and Reaper on my old macbook 2012, I decided it was time to get an interface I could use with my 2019 iMac (3.6GHz 8 core i9, 8GB memory, 1TB SSD). Any hurdles will put me off. I want it up and working immediately with little to learn.

I'd like to pose a question. If one of the people you teach video editing to came to you and said they wanted to do it as easily as possible without any learning, would you tell them to go and blow nearly £1300 on some software because they don't want to learn on something cheaper and a little bit more complex? 

I ask this because your approach seems utterly scattergun. You don't want to disappear down the plugin rabbithole but you're up for buying an audio interface with plugins assigned to it. When you talk of Apogee Duet 2 interfaces as being a bit Youtuber, frankly it sounds like you're delving into a field where you don't know very much but you're prepared to spend a lot of money. If I may quote again:

"If someone could guarantee me professional results without any noise and near zero latency on a lower priced product, I would happily save the money (especially since I just invested in a decent chair for all my time spent at the mac teaching online, video editing, and soon audio recording/mixing). Perhaps LogicPro is the way to go with a lower priced interface?"

Before you drop £1300 for an interface, you want to record and mix. So go through the whole setup. Are you recording and mixing in an environment that has been set up for it? Do you have monitoring? 

Really, I would love to save cash. My neighbour uses a simple Behringer interface and he's always recording songs of him playing bass and guitar on Amplitude, keys on Midi, and his voice with a Quality microphone.

I will be doing the same thing: just recording myself.

Perhaps the extra DSP is redundant considering that I can add FX during mixing and rely on the iMac's processing to handle it. I assume the DSP in the interface is to help with Live plug-ins. Or do they also help with latency on direct recording (without FX) and AD/DA?

Perhaps this is the real question I should be asking myself:
What features do I need? Other than I/O, what should I be looking for?
Is the Apogee Duet 2 the same as the Apollo X internally? Is the processing power very different? Are the preamps similar quality?

I really do appreciate all your help with this. It's a field I am quite ignorant in.

Heartfeltdawn

lukedlb said:

Then there's the windows vs mac mentality of a rational mind vs playful: I just want to plug and play. Any assigning requests and I get anxious.
From what I've seen Apollo X range provides but at a cost. I would deeply appreciate if anyone could suggest a solution that guarantees ease of use, zero latency. As I have Thunderbolt, doesn't it make sense to use it?
Four extra plugins are not many. I do understand that the 'sound' is important, not simply the recording.

If you've got Thunderbolt then it's another variable that says to use it. However you have to weigh that up against cost of interface and expertise. Does that slightly better latency justify spending X more pounds? I'm looking at Andertons now and the cheapest Thunderbolt interface is £535. 

Looking at the gear you are using, you want to use the SPDIF output from the OX Box. This has optical and coaxial outputs. So any interface you choose needs a SPDIF input. Now the Ox Box goes up to 44.1kHz so arguably you don't need anything that trumpets its ability to go up to 192kHz. 

At the lower end, I'd buy the Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 on the basis that it's not expensive, decent drivers, easy to use, and it's got SPDIF in and out. Yes it will do low latency guitar stuff. If I can get one of the lower spec Komplete Audio 2 interfaces working well with Helix Native on a slightly frustrating i5 laptop, then a KA6 on a swanky Macbook will be fine. 

Finding a DAW that suits you is trickier so I say get an interface and then get busy with Garageband. Upgrade as you need to, not as you think you need to. 

pmg

Good post @Heartfeltdawn ;

lukedlb

joeW said:

I recently bought an X8 and an antelope zen tour sc. I have a UA twin also.  I suspect my uses are similar to yours - I use an oxbox for most of my recorded guitar parts and am not a big fan of plug-ins.  I would say that the UA environment is very friendly to use and stops me wasting time on details. I have a few synths and drum machines that I have linked up and it’s all good. The twins are fine - give you Luna and take the ox without losing a preamp channel.  Am using Logic currently, but plan to spend time with Luna more as it has some nice analogue type features included, though not as suited as some to beat production. 

There is an amazing sample pack of Clyde which I bought last year which I have on Logic. 

The antelope zen tour is a monster unit also. It has a load of good stock plugins which also run with almost zero latency. It has reamp outs which is very helpful for non digital recording. It’s a/d conversion seems as good if not better than UA.  Let me know if you have any questions 

There's an antelope zen tour (the old version, not the sc) for sale used here in town for 550 quid.
https://en.antelopeaudio.com/products/zen-tour/
I wonder if this could be an affordable alternative. 

Heartfeltdawn

Start here too. Kenny#s videos are fairly legendary through the Reaper user community and this is the absolute start here and go forwards piece. 

lukedlb

Ok, fingers crossed. I went with an Antelope zen Q synergy. The bundle offer came with its edge solo microphone and extra fx, and bitwig daw. 

lukedlb

So far, so good. Does anyone else use Antelope as their interface?