What about Apollo 8 ?

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PierCarl Venne

New member
Hi everybody, I'm making a complete upgrade of my studio and I'm planning to buy an Apollo 8 Interface, with Studio One 3 Professional.

I plan to buy an iMac (Apple iMac ME088LL/A 27-Inch Desktop, Operating System : Mac OS X Yosemite) with external drive for playback and another external drive for backup. The new StudioLive CS18AI as a control surface, NI Komplete 10 with the waves plugin bundle. Komplete Kontrol for Komplete 10 and Maschine Studio as Midi controllers.

My main goal is to make a huge portfolio of music for moves, videogames, etc. So I will be recording only Voice, guitar and bass, Analog synths, all one at a time. I will be using a lot of Komplete Virtual Instruments simultaneously, Lots of plugins and effects.

I have a few questions:
Any idea if Mac OS X Yosemite works well with NI and waves ?
Is Apollo 8 is a good choice or there are better thunderbolt Interfaces around the same price out there ?
Does Apollo 8 work well with hardware synths used as midi within the DAW ( Moog voyager rackmount ) ?
Preamps and AD/DA quality ?
Pros and Cons of anything in this list ?

Thanks! :)
 
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That's a pretty enviable setup. Are you mixing and/or tracking professionally?

The one doubt that I'd have is whether or not that particular iMac would be up to the task if you're making heavy use of large sample libraries. It has 8 GB of RAM...you might chew through that in a hurry if you have a few instances of large, detailed sample libraries loaded at the same time.

If you want to save about 50% on the interface, the Focusrite Clarett interfaces use Thunderbolt connectivity as well. I certainly won't knock the Apollo though, they're pro-level interfaces, and they have integrated processors for the UA VST effects. Might be overkill for a home studio though...
 
Tadpui said:
That's a pretty enviable setup. Are you mixing and/or tracking professionally?.
Click to expand...

My goal is to make a portfolio for film scoring, soundtracks, videogames music, etc. I just don't want to change the interface as long as possible so I think I will stick with the apollo 8.
Though I might look into a more powerful iMac after what you said because yes, I will be using lots of tracks Virtual Instruments and Plugins.

I might record projects for other other people to make some extra money, but it's not my main goal !
 
Well, an Apollo interface certainly wouldn't suck. If you've got the cash, then go for it...

But while budgeting this serious amount of cash, don't forget to treat your room if you're going to be mixing there. Take a stroll through the Studio Building & Acoustic Treatment forum here, and you'll get an idea of what you'll want pretty quickly. No sense in having sweet gear if all of your mixes are going to be skewed because your room is playing tricks on you. Also factor in some monitors if you don't already have a pair.
 
Tadpui said:
Well, an Apollo interface certainly wouldn't suck. If you've got the cash, then go for it...

But while budgeting this serious amount of cash, don't forget to treat your room if you're going to be mixing there. Take a stroll through the Studio Building & Acoustic Treatment forum here, and you'll get an idea of what you'll want pretty quickly. No sense in having sweet gear if all of your mixes are going to be skewed because your room is playing tricks on you. Also factor in some monitors if you don't already have a pair.
Click to expand...

Don't worry my room is being analysed by auralex :) you can get a free room analysis if you go on Auralex Personalized Room Analysis Form and they give you the tools to make a precise diagram of your room very easily ! then they find the perfect solution for you.
 
PierCarl Venne said:
Don't worry my room is being analysed by auralex :) you can get a free room analysis if you go on Auralex Personalized Room Analysis Form and they give you the tools to make a precise diagram of your room very easily ! then they find the perfect solution for you.
Click to expand...

Even better, touch base with GIKAcoustics.com or RealTraps.com. Auralex is OK for spot treatment and mid/high frequency control, but foam is a less-than-ideal material for low-frequency absorption. Do a little Googling about superchunk corner traps and broadband absorption. The RealTraps site has some really great info on it.
 
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