Review: Universal Audio – UAD Apollo Twin mk2 Quad
I have been quite busy with many projects and tasks. One of those is installing and evaluating the UAD Apollo Twin mk2 Quad for mobile use. We needed an audio interface that was portable, clean (recording wise), with phantom power for microphones, and the ability to record both a mic and a guitar at the same time. This one also happens to have DSPs to support UAD plugins. All I can say is , “Wow!”
If you are looking for that portable audio interface that supports a pair of mic/line inputs (via XLR/TRS combo jack) with phantom power, front panel Hi-Z instrument jack, ADAT/SPDIF input, a pair of line outputs with a pair of monitor outputs, and a front panel headphone output, this is the one to get. The unit is built like a tank, and it has a giant knob that controls various things like Hi-Z, Mic or Line input, monitor and headphone output. It comes with a secure lock wall wart as it does need quite a bit of power to drive the 4 SHARC DSPs that will be running your UAD plugins.
I am sure many of you are thinking…”I do not want to succumb to the UAD plugin family of products.” But it is well worth it. Let’s talk about the Unison Mic Pre and Unison Hi-Z inputs. What UAD has created is the ability to run some of their emulations inside the hardware where the Mic or Instrument goes to the appropriate Jack, and the hardware and software integrate tightly so there is almost no latency. How they do this is of course their Intellectual Property but you need their Console software (standalone and Console Recall via AU, VST, AAX or RTAS) to instantiate the Unison enabled UAD plugin in the Unison slot of the Console software ( below the Input knob, and not the Insert slots.) They have API, Manley, Neve, SSL and Universal Audio pres at the moment for Unison enabled Mic Pre emulations, and amps from Ampeg, Fender, Marshall, and 3 distortion pedals that are Unison enabled.
This has phantom power, high pass (low cut) filter, 20dB pad, polarity or phase inversion, and can use the Mic/Line/Hi-Z inputs in combination (but cannot use Mic Input 1 with Hi-Z Input 1 simultaneously) and you can link 2 Mic/Line inputs as a stereo pair for recording stereo sources (like a stereo mic or a synthesizer.) In monitor mode, it has a talk-back mic with Dim and Talk, as well as other function buttons for Mute, Mono, Alt (alternate set of outputs defined in the Console application), and Fcn (function button for when you cascade multiple Apollo units.)
The A to D conversion formats available are from 24 bit 44.1kHz all the way up to 24 bit 192kHz. It uses Burr-Brown preamps, and the sound is amazing (of course you can pay significantly more for slightly better sound, but we are talking well over $3,000 with no Unison pres, as opposed to $1299 for the Quad DSP version.) So, what about the emulations in Unison mode? It is so very close, the only way I could tell is if I solo’ed the emulation versus the hardware in our studio. We did an A/B test of both the hardware and the Unison mic pres, and we can only tell when we solo’ed the individual track. Once it was in the mix, you could not tell the software from the hardware. We did the same with guitar and bass recordings to some degree (we didn’t have all of the amps that they model) and we recorded some synths using the link function for stereo recording. The results were fantastic so this will be our go to mobile interface, and we will probably need a couple more.
The price is $1299 for the Quad, $899 for the Duo, and $699 for the Solo, but I would say it is worth every penny to get the Quad. I never ran out of DSP resources during testing of recording mics and guitars with Unison mode, but where it becomes a necessity is post recording treatment like EQs on every channel, or other UAD plugins. We don’t do too many dense track count music any more, so 24 tracks is more than sufficient to cover most of our projects, and at 24 tracks all using UAD plugins, the Quad was just not good enough to keep up depending on the plugins we were using. I went crazy by using different plugins per track. In practical use, I would use AUX tracks and use effects, and use subtle compression at mix down as opposed to compressing each track. I do tend to use EQs on many of the tracks, so that too can consume DSP resources, unless you use some non-UAD EQs or you bounce the audio tracks.
We did a comparison of the older UAD Apollo Twin Duo (no Quads in the past models) and here is the verdict. We did hear some minor differences (of course the newer model sounded better), but I would say, if you have the older Duo interfaces, it may not be worth upgrading to the newer model. Some of the differences we heard were the width (seemed broader in the sound spectrum) and the headroom in the recordings. The difference was ever so subtle, but we were all able to identify the better recording as the newer interface in blind tests.
This unit is definitely one of the audio interfaces to look at if you are building a home studio or a portable recording setup. The only things is controlling the amount of money spent on UAD plugins. Good news, you can get a good deal on the plugins when you first buy the unit, so take advantage of that straight away. There is nothing like having Manley, Neve and SSL on my laptop, as well as all sorts of other great plugins provided by UAD and their software partners. But, as I have said, you must be able to control yourself from buying many of their plugins.
Cheers!
