Any Carbon users who were using UAD Apollo before?

[Oblivion777]

Hi guys,

Do any of you Carbon users have prior experience with using UAD Apollo as interface? I am just curious on knowing your thoughts on the benefit(s) of Carbon vs. Apollo.

Cheers.

[Southsidemusic]

Preferably the Apollo X Series then please for my interest.

[Technog0d]

I have both.

I would says there are pros and cons to both.

Apollo X:

Pro:
Console allows you to use the interface with all apps.
Luna Allows a nice integrated approach to recording


Con:
Needs DSP for all of it's plugins
Requires mainly a closed ecosystem of plugins downloadable from UAD

Carbon:
Pro:
Uses combination of DSP and Native when needed
Sound Quality is right in-between my Symphony and UAD.
Lots of I/O
32 bit

Con:
Protools only for DSP use

[uptheoctave]

Originally Posted by Technog0d

I have both.

I would says there are pros and cons to both.

Apollo X:

Pro:
Console allows you to use the interface with all apps.
Luna Allows a nice integrated approach to recording


Con:
Needs DSP for all of it's plugins
Requires mainly a closed ecosystem of plugins downloadable from UAD

Carbon:
Pro:
Uses combination of DSP and Native when needed
Sound Quality is right in-between my Symphony and UAD.
Lots of I/O
32 bit

Con:
Protools only for DSP use

What is the latency like when using natively?
Part of my current annoyance is needing a separate native interface for decent native latency.

[Technog0d]

Native is Native. I don’t think you get that much difference in Native mode. I have never seen it vary that much between pro interfaces accept when used with a DSP.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Southsidemusic]

Thank You Very Much for taking time to give us your thoughts

[uptheoctave]

Originally Posted by Technog0d

Native is Native. I don’t think you get that much difference in Native mode. I have never seen it vary that much between pro interfaces accept when used with a DSP.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My other interface is an Apollo X8.
UA Apollo latency native can be as low as 4ms roundtrip with a small buffer.

The lowest HDX latency I can get when used with Core Audio is 12ms, which is why I run a couple of different interfaces.

[K Roche]

Not me personally but a friend who has switched from Apollo ( 8 X I think) says three big differences for him.
#1 Carbon has (quote) better mic pre's , converters , and 32 bit throughput
#2 Having to deal with only one layer of software
#3 running in either or both, DSP and Native in same session.

[chrisdee]

Originally Posted by Technog0d

Sound Quality is right in-between my Symphony and UAD.

So Symphony sounds noticable better than Carbon?
What Symphony interface do you have?

What would you say is the absolutely best sounding audio interface available on the market for Pro Tools?

[table17]

I'll chime in as someone who's a LIFER with Pro Tools. I tried Logic, Luna, Cubase, etc. over the years, but it's always back to PT for me. I learned on tape, used PT for over 2 decades, so this is my reference point.

Moved to Carbon from a dual Apollo system (Apollo 8 and a 16, both blackface, but not X series). Before those, I had a quad firewire silverface. Before THAT, I was working with a PT HD-Accel with blueface 192, etc.

Once I heard playback via Carbon I could hear right away greater clarity and detail I'd not heard/remembered in my other systems. Granted, it wasn't an A-B comparison, but man, this thing just sounds good. I could feel and hear it right away.

As far as pros/cons, I'll say the pros for Apollo never really resonated with me using Apollo (sorry, not sorry). Console App felt like a tedious & additional layer to get sounds into PT. And I tried Luna, but it didn't feel 'finished'. Learning Luna "because it's gonna be really good someday!" just wasn't working out for me.

The pros listed for Carbon I can agree with 100%.

The biggest winning thing I'll chime in on is DSP LATENCY. If you watched any of the announcement videos, there was one where the guy mentions (paraphrased): "Having near zero latency, once you hear it, you say to yourself 'Ah, that's what I've been missing.' We've all been using our home/semi-pro systems and just kinda 'working around' the latency thing. Once you experience this near zero latency, and within Pro Tools without jumping thru different settings/consoles/buffers/etc. you KNOW that you're now hearing what you've been missing all along."

It's true! Once you track JUST using Pro Tools without any Console/workarounds, and near 1ms latency, man, so refreshing!

I'll add that AAX DSP plugins can mirror/replace a lot of the UAD plugs, too via Plugin Alliance. And since there are DSP and native options for all these plugs means the onboard DSP processing can be used when tracking, but moved to native when mixing. Brilliant!

I'll still have my two quad satellites to handle old sessions, and perhaps still use some of the UAD plugs I'll keep from the previous system. But for now, I'm super happy with the Carbon.

Selling my two Apollos to fund the Carbon - another plus there, in my case, anyway, cost of the Carbon unit gonna be lower than a 'cold' purchase.

hope that helps someone....