I'm Selling my Apollo for THIS

I am switching interfaces today we're going to talk about why we're going to talk about what I'm switching to and why I'm switching to it and we're going to unbox some of it super candid type video Let's Have Some Fun hey everyone I am Cole caperon thank you for stopping by for another video now uh as anyone who's seen my videos before has known I've been running a universal audio Apollo Mark 2 the Black version for um since I moved to Nashville which is probably when when did I move 2015 I was like one of the first people to have one of the new mark 2 interfaces way back in the day there was no YouTube channel I didn't have any following on Instagram I was just a working engineer so I bought this as uh my new rig now previously I had had a Protools HD3 rig with a couple of 96 iio uh a well not Avid Digi design interfaces and I really really loved the HD workflow I loved absolutely everything about it the main switch though was because I just I couldn't afford a new version like that and so I went with the Apollo uh also computers became powerful enough this is when I switched to the trash can Mac Pro computers were finally powerful enough that I didn't need that HD3 rig in order to just get through a mix cuz I used to run tons of of TDM plugins and the the process cards the HD cards would host tons of processing power it was a whole thing so I switched to the Apollo and when I first switched it was great uh it sounded way better than my 96 io's like the converters were way way better it took up significantly less room because I had 16 channels of I/O in a single rack space in instead of 16 channels of I/O in four rack spaces so that was great uh it also was fairly affordable like I think I paid somewhere around three grand for the interface and somewhere around 3 Grand for the computer so 6 grand all in for a completely new system that was significantly more powerful and sounded better I considered this a huge win now as all of you who watch this channel know I mix with a ton of Hardware I have been mixing with a ton of Hardware literally forever now when you mix with Hardware as Hardware inserts I put a hardware insert on the channel in Protools and it sends signal out the interface through the gear and back into the interface and this is called a round trip now every round trip on every interface takes a certain amount of time for it to leave the for the audio to leave the computer be converted to an analog signal go through the gear hit the converter be converted to a digital signal again and then back into the computer this is called a round trip now in the Protools HD World on my old HD3 rig this was always calculated automatically it happened in the background I never ever thought about it and I just thought this is how everything worked and I swear to you this is how this went I got my Apollo and got the new rig set up and the same thing kept happening it just I was patching in Hardware no issues no latency NO phase issues nothing whatsoever now if you scroll way back on this channel one of the very first videos on this channel that that did anything at all I filmed with my cell phone because I updated to Pro Tools 2019 I can't remember which version and all of a sudden overnight my Apollo stopped manually calculate or automatically calculating the round trip and this was mindblowing to me because I had never had this issue before I talked to people at Avid I talked to people at universal audio everyone was like no it it's never done that it's never automatically calculated everything and I'm like I promise you it has because for like 4 years it's been doing it and never had any issue it was one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had ever since that moment uh which is was in 2019 so we're talking 5 years ago now I started swearing that I was going to move away from the Apollo uh I think Apollos are great I think they're great bang for the buck I think they sound great I've got no real issues with them other than the workflow and it was at this moment that the workflow started to annoy me to the point where I'm like I really I want to move move to something else because every time I get hired to mix a song that's in a different sample rate or anytime I change the hardware buffer the amount of time that it takes for that round trip to happen changes and so I had I have a video a really crappy video going over how to figure out what the roundtrip delay is and then I have to go in and I have to manually enter that into every single Hardware IO Channel and I have to redo this every time I Chang sample rates so that that was that was a real bummer and then also like the the universal audio console workflow it just started to it just started to not be for me we'll just we'll just leave it at that I really miss the simplistic workflow that I used to have so without further Ado I'm changing interfaces some of you probably know this and I've been talking about going back to this for literally years let's get to unboxing some stuff and I'm going to show you what all I'm using for the new rig so how many of you guys are into EDC drop me a comment let me know if you're into this sort of thing I'm super into it so this is a Protech runt look at look at this little thing and then we got a little button right there and when we push that little button I love this is like just the cutest the cutest little thing I love this knife okay start unboxing some stuff okay first up I'm very pumped about this you guys because I'm just I'm so pumped to be back to the workflow that I would like to be at cables this is going to be kind of an impromptu video here set that there carefully get rid of this box not so carefully okay so piece number one how do we open it there it is now this is going to be kind of a two-parter situation because I'm switching to two interfaces first up the Avid HDO look at how beautiful that is now this is going to be my interface to run all my Hardware IO all my Hardware inserts probably tracking we'll see which one of these sounds better for tracking but the main purpose for this is hardware IO when mixing so you can see on the back here we are outfitted with 16 channels I'm out of breath uh we're outfitted with 16 channels here on this and that is one of the other things that has kind of annoyed me ever since the moment I got my Apollo is even though the Apollo is a 16 channel interface it it has 16 outputs and 16 inputs line outs and ins because of the way the Apollo architecture is set up outputs one and two are mirrored for your monitors so you can never actually have an actual 16 channels of Hardware IO going you can only have 14 channels because the first two outputs are dedicated for the monitors that's that's weird I don't like that at all I'm not sure if it's like that on the new versions but I'm very pumped about this because we'll have actually 16 channels of IO very very cool so Avid HD iio obviously now you guys know that I'm going back HD we'll get there so hang tight okay let's set this here next up I did crack this open already cuz I I was too pumped when it came in and I just couldn't wait next up we have got the avid Matrix studio and um the I'm really I'm really pumped about this box to me in my opinion at this time at the time of recording this this is the best interface the best all-in-one solution for setting up an Atmos rig now this would be a fantastic solution even if you're not looking to do Atmos however if you're mixing with hardware and you want that hasslefree zero latency roundtrip all the stuff and I'll go over some more stuff here in a minute like the benefits of running an HD system because there's a bunch of them if you're planning on mixing with hardware and you want that whole automatic delay compensation thing you need to go with the Avid HD interfaces but this for recording and for Atmos is such an incredibly powerful allinone setup because you've got all your EQ all your room correction all your delay values your delay values in a way that uh are actually very very precise a lot of the uh boxes like this don't have nearly as precise a delay calculations or adjustments which is really important to have and the converters in this are supposed to sound absolutely amazing so I'm really pumped to me these two together this is going to be perfect for me this is exactly like it solves 100% of my problems so on the back we have 16 ins and outs in addition to monitor outs on the front we've got two headphone Jacks and two instrument inputs and then uh if you wanted to use this as your monitor controller the your only controller you could do that as well um I'm undecided on how I'm going to handle that but super super pumped on that Avid Studio Matrix I can't believe I'm finally going back HD this has been weighing on me for so long so let's take a look at what that looks like oh the the other thing with this is these will are not just HD interfaces you can run this via Thunderbolt too they have a thunderbolt card that you just slide right into the back um and then this is Thunderbolt as well so single interface right into your computer you want to run atos without HD this Thunderbolt right in does absolutely everything um it's just a really easy solution and I am really looking forward to putting that to good use okay now because all of us are running these new Max that have no card slots in them they're just an all-in-one I'm still running the Mac Studio um had to get this this is a chassis for the Protools card and so you just slide this right into the back you slide the card into the back and then it connects to the computer via Thunderbolt and sits right there look looking all nice and pretty on the desk so very very important piece of the rig here's the real fun one let's Scoot a little closer come come here let's get a little closer oh man this is the sauce this right here is the sauce now I'm not going to take this out of the wrapper because static and whatnot but that's the sauce so this is the Protools HDX card this is what's going to drive the entire system I am really really pumped about this you guys like this is such a huge stress relief for me this is not a cheap rig um and I'm not going to pretend like it's a cheap rig and I'm not going to pretend like this is a rig that's for everyone cuz it's absolutely not this is a very very high-end rig and I will put links down below to every single thing that you see here so you can go check it out and look at prices and specs and of that this is a rig that is a solution for me to solve the problems that I experience when I'm working on upwards of 200 songs a year I've been working on so many songs every single year for so many years and uh I had this discussion briefly with the flock patch Bay when we're talking about being able to save even minutes if I can save minutes off of a song it's worth it because you times that by hundreds per year and it it ends up being a big deal now let's quickly talk about Pro Tools in general there's inevitably going to be people in the comments saying prot tools is not the industry standard you should try Reaper bro I have absolutely no plans to ever switch from well I won't say ever cuz who knows what'll happen 10 years from now I have no plans to switch from Protools at all every single Studio that I do sessions in runs Protools and every single session player that I work with where we fly sessions back and forth we all use Pro Tools Protools is so deeply integrated into what I do that even if I wanted to switch which I don't there's no other option uh it is just when you live in a town like Nashville and you're flying sessions back and forth to session players all over the place and to different Studios all over the place there's no other option you're you're running Protools and it just is what it is now luckily I came up on Protools I've been on Protools since version 5 in 2003 or 2004 I don't even remember what year it was like I've been on Protools a really really long time operating Protools is kind of like breathing to me uh I love it I love how the editing is in Protools so anyway this isn't a this isn't necessarily a praise Pro Tools video but I just I know there's going to be a huge amount of com ments saying you should switch to Reaper what about logic and I just I'm just not interested at all never have been and still am not then you couple that with the power of the HD rig so we're talking basically zero latence monitoring um for when tracking the idea that I can finish a mix and this is what I thought the Apollo would do for me and it did not the fact that I can finish a mix with tons of hardware and tons of of plugins and then the singer can be like you know I really don't like that vocal take can I come in and recut it and this has happened many times before can I come in and recut that vocal yes absolutely with the my old rig or the rig that's still set up here I would have to take all of the hardware inserts off the whole mix would fall apart and then we would recut vocals to a crappy sounding mix because I couldn't run Hardware inserts while tracking at the same time I couldn't even have the same amount of latency cuz as soon as I changed that Hardware buffer then all of a sudden all of my delay calculations are off and so now all a sudden the drums sound like a flammy mess while we're trying to track vocals it was impossible it won't be impossible with this rig and it didn't used to be impossible on my old rig that is such a huge stress relief to me being able to open any session from anyone at any sample rate and it doesn't even matter what the hardware buffer is and it's just going to automatically calculate all of my delays for me is a huge deal to me it's it's going to save me so much time and so much headache the fact that there is no like console to deal with the fact that everything just happens on the mix page well or the edit page window in Protools and I don't have to like oh whoops that microphone's still live oh that's still record enabled oh I'm mixing now I got to make sure I switch over to the console and mute everything so that way I don't hear its live input not in time with the song like there's just it's just always something and um I'm pumped to not have to deal with it anymore no shade at anyone who runs an Apollo because I did for years I made great music with it I made I have made the best music of my career on that Apollo but I'm really looking forward to this in addition to the fact that those converters are now nearly a decade old um and I know I know that these are going to sound way better I know that for sure uh and so I'm really pumped to move into some converters that are like really great converters um and then on top of all of that then you plug in the atmos system on top of it I know this isn't super relatable I know a lot of you are not interested in Atmos or interested in switching to Atmos I am and I am going forward with it the room is almost done that video will be coming soon still to this day I know there's been a bunch of boxes come out since I chose this uh Stu Avid Studio Matrix I know there's been a bunch of boxes come out since then and I'm not trying to disparage any of them for me for my use cases for what I'm doing this is still hands down the best option it's going to play nicely with my Protools HD rig I like its layout I like everything about it and so I'm really pumped to move into this system there's only one downfall and that is just that for what whatever reason I went with the tabletop version of the card chassis I may I may switch this to a rack mount version I don't know really what I was thinking I probably should have just went for the rack mount to begin with however uh if you want to save rack space this is the way to go and it does look nice it's sturdy there's absolutely nothing wrong with this we'll see how that shakes out cuz I'm going to have a lot of rack space in the new setup so I will put links down below for every single piece of gear that I talked about in this video and those links do go to Sweetwater so thank you Sweetwater for sponsoring this video Sweetwater did not send me all this by the way uh this is just an ad read this is not a Sweetwater sent me all this so I could tell you to buy from Sweetwater this is just an ad read two totally separate things so thank you Sweetwater for sponsoring this video uh anytime you guys need any piece of musical gear you can jump on any one of my videos and click on any Link in the description below and once you're on the site you can purchase anything you need and when you do that it goes a long ways to help support this Channel and help me keep making informative videos or hopefully informative and hopefully teaching uh informational type videos and so I I really appreciate Sweetwater sponsoring this video and I really really appreciate anytime you guys need anything using the links in the description before you buy I'm so pumped about this I know I said that a bunch already and I I recognize that this is not the most relatable video but this is what I need for my career and for what I am trying to do moving forward and uh at the very least I hope that you just enjoyed it and hopefully some of you who are in a similar position hopefully this helped you decide what to go with so um thank you guys so much for watching uh subscribe if you haven't yet because there's a lot of videos coming on the atmos rig on the build on just my progression back into the big room it's going to be really fun all right we'll see you guys in the next one peace

Channel: Colt Capperrune

Views: 45,919

Keywords:

Id: X42jQ5XhSXs

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024