Best Thunderbolt Interface?

[Darryl Ramm]

*in* it yes, as low-latency plugins in the console while tracking. But you can keep using any native plugins as well. How many plugins do you need while tracking. The issue often is the UAD plugins are pretty nice and folks will want to use more of them... you can add UAD cards or satellite outside of an interface.


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[guitardom]

I have a Clarett 2 pre, Clarett 8 preX, along with a UAD twin (and stacks of other interfaces). I have found myself reaching for the Clarett more when not using my HDN system. So much to the point I recently bought an 8preX.

[Sting]

Originally Posted by guitardom

I have a Clarett 2 pre, Clarett 8 preX, along with a UAD twin (and stacks of other interfaces). I have found myself reaching for the Clarett more when not using my HDN system. So much to the point I recently bought an 8preX.

Why the Clarett? Better sounding preamps?

Just a side note. As stated before decided to get the Apollo Twin Duo MKII (haven’t purchased yet even though there are extra plugins to be had if you purchase now) but can get my hands on a Focusrite ISA 2 preamp for reasonable money. If I decided to purchase both how would I link the Focusrite to the Apollo and would this cause any latency issues or other problems? Would I be able to hear what the Focusrite is doing via headphones or only on playback?

[propower]

So many choices...
Quantum - great unit - need Studio One to hit the low latency
Apollo - always a favorite if you dig their plugins
Red4, Red8 - great features and sound - DigiLink capable.
Orion 2017 - Great features/sound, Low latency with DAW, super low latency Direct Monitor with FX
Apogee Ensemble - great unit

[VRW]

Originally Posted by propower

So many choices...
Quantum - great unit - need Studio One to hit the low latency
Apollo - always a favorite if you dig their plugins
Red4, Red8 - great features and sound - DigiLink capable.
Orion 2017 - Great features/sound, Low latency with DAW, super low latency Direct Monitor with FX
Apogee Ensemble - great unit

From my personal experience...get the Apollo. You won't regret it.
And, you know, it´s not because of their plug ins (which are really good ones for sure). It´s because of the UA drivers. Those are simply the best working
and most stable ones with Pro Tools on the market at the moment.

Me had Focusrite units as well as Apogees (Quartet, Duet etc.) and none of them were as stable and reliable as the UA drivers I use with my Apollo now.
I never have had ANY audio driver engine issue since I've bought my Apollo. Amazing indeed. And it allows me to go by 64 most of the time even with larger sessions.

I had been VERY sceptical as for the UA Apollo hype before I got my unit.
Now I´m a believer ;-). But first of all because of their really really good and reliable drivers and software.

Again, for sure the UA plug ins are very good ones and great if you can afford it. Yet it´s not the most important reason to go with an UA unit these days. It´s the
quality of their software and drivers imo. UA nowadays is for Mac what RME has been for Windows. Simply the best and most reliable audio drivers out there.

Originally Posted by Sting

As stated before decided to get the Apollo Twin Duo MKII (haven’t purchased yet even though there are extra plugins to be had if you purchase now) but can get my hands on a Focusrite ISA 2 preamp for reasonable money.

Apollo Twin Duo Mk2...very good decision. I have set up a small studio for a friend this summer using the Apollo Mk2 for the audio interface and I was more than
impressed by it´s audio quality. F... great for such a small unit.

From my personal experience I would recommend to demo all the UA Unison channels and preamps before buying an ISA 2. Sure, hardware is hardware and I have
used the ISA 2 myself. Nice sounding unit. No doubt about it.
Anyway, I think I have gained even better results using a high quality Studio condenser mic and a fitting Unison preamp by then.
Fitting...because you will have to test drive your mic/line source with all the channels and preamps to find the best working combination but if you will get it, it can
deliver astonishing results.

You just have to find out which Unison channel/preamp will work best with your particular mic or line source. Maybe you even may not need an ISA 2 anymore?
Just give it a try.

The best of success to both of you.

Cheers, VRW

[albee1952]

I will toss out one caveat on the Apollo; if you are a heavy VI user, the Apollo "mixer" might create some issues in how you work. Just be aware of that going in

[Sting]

Originally Posted by VRW

From my personal experience...get the Apollo. You won't regret it.
And, you know, it´s not because of their plug ins (which are really good ones for sure). It´s because of the UA drivers. Those are simply the best working
and most stable ones with Pro Tools on the market at the moment.

Me had Focusrite units as well as Apogees (Quartet, Duet etc.) and none of them were as stable and reliable as the UA drivers I use with my Apollo now.
I never have had ANY audio driver engine issue since I've bought my Apollo. Amazing indeed. And it allows me to go by 64 most of the time even with larger sessions.

I had been VERY sceptical as for the UA Apollo hype before I got my unit.
Now I´m a believer ;-). But first of all because of their really really good and reliable drivers and software.

Again, for sure the UA plug ins are very good ones and great if you can afford it. Yet it´s not the most important reason to go with an UA unit these days. It´s the
quality of their software and drivers imo. UA nowadays is for Mac what RME has been for Windows. Simply the best and most reliable audio drivers out there.


Apollo Twin Duo Mk2...very good decision. I have set up a small studio for a friend this summer using the Apollo Mk2 for the audio interface and I was more than
impressed by it´s audio quality. F... great for such a small unit.

From my personal experience I would recommend to demo all the UA Unison channels and preamps before buying an ISA 2. Sure, hardware is hardware and I have
used the ISA 2 myself. Nice sounding unit. No doubt about it.
Anyway, I think I have gained even better results using a high quality Studio condenser mic and a fitting Unison preamp by then.
Fitting...because you will have to test drive your mic/line source with all the channels and preamps to find the best working combination but if you will get it, it can
deliver astonishing results.

You just have to find out which Unison channel/preamp will work best with your particular mic or line source. Maybe you even may not need an ISA 2 anymore?
Just give it a try.

The best of success to both of you.

Cheers, VRW

Many thanks for taking the time to reply. Yes that's what I'll do then. Find the best channel/preamp and then judge whether I need an external preamp. After using the 11R as my interface I would hope for a stark improvement using the Apollo.

[Cutlerbri]

The Focusrite Clarret line is nice. I have the Clarret 2Pre. But a caveat I would offer to anyone interested is that the input gain is lower than other interfaces in the same range.

I have to crank the gain up to 8 on the Clarret to get a good level from my Neumann TML102. But TODAY I'm taking possession of a new Golden Age Pre 107 Jr. mic pre. Looking forward to plumbing that guy into the chain.

[Sting]

Originally Posted by VRW

From my personal experience...get the Apollo. You won't regret it.
And, you know, it´s not because of their plug ins (which are really good ones for sure). It´s because of the UA drivers. Those are simply the best working
and most stable ones with Pro Tools on the market at the moment.

Me had Focusrite units as well as Apogees (Quartet, Duet etc.) and none of them were as stable and reliable as the UA drivers I use with my Apollo now.
I never have had ANY audio driver engine issue since I've bought my Apollo. Amazing indeed. And it allows me to go by 64 most of the time even with larger sessions.

I had been VERY sceptical as for the UA Apollo hype before I got my unit.
Now I´m a believer ;-). But first of all because of their really really good and reliable drivers and software.

Again, for sure the UA plug ins are very good ones and great if you can afford it. Yet it´s not the most important reason to go with an UA unit these days. It´s the
quality of their software and drivers imo. UA nowadays is for Mac what RME has been for Windows. Simply the best and most reliable audio drivers out there.


Apollo Twin Duo Mk2...very good decision. I have set up a small studio for a friend this summer using the Apollo Mk2 for the audio interface and I was more than
impressed by it´s audio quality. F... great for such a small unit.

From my personal experience I would recommend to demo all the UA Unison channels and preamps before buying an ISA 2. Sure, hardware is hardware and I have
used the ISA 2 myself. Nice sounding unit. No doubt about it.
Anyway, I think I have gained even better results using a high quality Studio condenser mic and a fitting Unison preamp by then.
Fitting...because you will have to test drive your mic/line source with all the channels and preamps to find the best working combination but if you will get it, it can
deliver astonishing results.

You just have to find out which Unison channel/preamp will work best with your particular mic or line source. Maybe you even may not need an ISA 2 anymore?
Just give it a try.

The best of success to both of you.

Cheers, VRW

I see Universal Audio has released the Arrow which is considerably cheaper than the Apollo Duo MKll. Since there has been a delay in upgrading my system but I’m ready now to hit the purchase button on both iMac and interface I wonder would the Arrow be a better bang for buck purchase as my interface or would the Apollo Duo MKll still be the one to go for quality wise? iMac will have two thunderbolt 3 connections, i7 processor and 1TB SSD plus 8gb memory 27inch.

[VRW]

Originally Posted by Sting

I see Universal Audio has released the Arrow which is considerably cheaper than the Apollo Duo MKll. Since there has been a delay in upgrading my system but I’m ready now to hit the purchase button on both iMac and interface I wonder would the Arrow be a better bang for buck purchase as my interface or would the Apollo Duo MKll still be the one to go for quality wise? iMac will have two thunderbolt 3 connections, i7 processor and 1TB SSD plus 8gb memory 27inch.

If you don't need the interface primarily on the road where it would be a lot more convenient to have it bus powered, go with the Apollo Twin Mk2 anyway.

Very reliable "sources" have confirmed to me that the Arrow offers the best audio quality by far up to 500 bucks but also that they don't use the exact same
converters like in the Apollos. The Apollos still do sound noticably better.

I have set up a small but professional studio for a friend last summer using an Apollo Twin Solo Mk2 for the audio interface and although I know a lot of the
expensive gear this little box blew me away as for the audio quality.

If you are on a budget stay with the Twin Solo Mk2 for $699.- and optionally add one ore more Thunderbolt satellites later if you will need more DSP power
in the future. The Arrow by the way offers only one DSP as well.

I promise you you won't regret the 300+ for the Twin Solo Mk2 at the end of the day. Another option the Twin does offer are the 8 Adat Inputs which allow you
to expand your system by any external multipreamp channel later. The Arrow does not have any Adat Inputs.

As for Thunderbolt 3 (Arrow) versus Thunderbolt 2 (Twin Mk2) you won't even notice any difference finally. Thunderbolt 2 is super fast/low latency already.
You just will have to get an TB3/USB-C to TB2 converter but as I could see last summer this ain´t any problem at all. Works perfectly fine.

One thing left which caught my attention in your post was that you have 8GB Ram in your iMac only? For PT12 you really want 16GB at the minimum to have
PT working as it is supposed to (disk cache etc.). As you go with a beautiful large 27" i7 Quad iMac you even may consider putting in more like 24GB or 32GB
memory. If this simply will be too much money get not less than 16GB Ram at least for PT12 finally.

Everything else (i7 Quad, 1TB SSD) should be perfect for a nice, current, well working Pro Tools system.

The best of success to you and lots of fun with your cool new studio.