Apollo with Virtual Instruments

[thesuitelounge]

Anyone with a UA Apollo that could help me?

I am interested in buying an Apollo but have this question..a little confused.

I would like to program virtual drums (Strike) in a midi/instrument track in Pro Tools 11, and then overdub live audio tracks. I do this with my current interface by setting a low buffer (32) in Pro Tools for lowest tracking latency. I would like to be able to raise the buffer (1024?) for best performance, yet still have low/no latency using Apollo's Console application.

My thought is: set PT buffer higher, send instrument track's output to Console's Virtual IO input, and monitor through Console (instead of through Pro Tools).

Then overdub live instrument audio tracks through Apollo, monitoring existing Strike virtual tracks along with new recording tracks through Console with low latency.

Will this work this way? Do I need to use Pro Tools Low Latency Monitoring? Do I need to mute the record track in Pro Tools?

Thank you for your help.

[quantise]

Originally Posted by thesuitelounge

Anyone with a UA Apollo that could help me?

I am interested in buying an Apollo but have this question..a little confused.

I would like to program virtual drums (Strike) in a midi/instrument track in Pro Tools 11, and then overdub live audio tracks. I do this with my current interface by setting a low buffer (32) in Pro Tools for lowest tracking latency. I would like to be able to raise the buffer (1024?) for best performance, yet still have low/no latency using Apollo's Console application.

My thought is: set PT buffer higher, send instrument track's output to Console's Virtual IO input, and monitor through Console (instead of through Pro Tools).

Once you have your Strike part in PT you shouldn't need to bring it into the Console virtual inputs as the outputs from PT are monitored by Console anyway. Unless, of course you want to treat the Strike part with UA plugins.

Then overdub live instrument audio tracks through Apollo, monitoring existing Strike virtual tracks along with new recording tracks through Console with low latency.

Yes, you will be good to go in this regard.

Will this work this way? Do I need to use Pro Tools Low Latency Monitoring? Do I need to mute the record track in Pro Tools?

Low Latency Monitoring assumes you are using Outputs 1-2 in PT vanilla and bypasses any plugins on a track that's recording. You can try it either way but my experience is the fewer plugins you have on a PT channel when recording the better. Of course you have a load of possibilities plugin wise within Console as long as they are UA plugs.

It's good practice to drop the record fader in PT when using Console to monitor so that you don't hear two versions of your recording. One through Console and the other through PT.

Thank you for your help.

Hope this helps.

[thesuitelounge]

Thanks for the reply. The reason I was asking about monitoring Strike through Console is the entire point of my question. If I record Strike FIRST while monitoring in PT, the buffer must be set lower, for lower latency, but more CPU is used, more CPU errors. If I RAISE the PT buffer and monitor Strike through Console (not even using any UA plugs, just running it through Console Virtual IO, wouldn't this be more efficient on CPU? Unless I wouldnt be able to HEAR Strike because its outputs are going to Console (aren't sent to 1-2) and disallowed by Low Latency Monitoring....