UAD Apollo Twin ??? - School Me All About It

octatonic

WiresDreamDisasters said:

I can load up 17 UAD Distressors on my Apollo x8p before it maxes out. That's a lot of compression!

I really wish they did separate line in and mic in on that interface.

I have all my mic inputs on an XLR patch panel and the Line IO on bantam bays.
It really fucks with my workflow when they don't do it properly.

This is the rear of a Focusrite Red 8 Pre- it is really well laid out and integrates well.

WiresDreamDisasters

@octatonic ;

Yeah the shared ins is a bit annoying. When we tracked drums for the new album (which I'm taking a mix I've done in Reaper and rebuilding it in Luna as a test) I ran the FX studio's Orion32 into the Apollo via ADAT, which allowed me to use preamps on the Amek desk as well as preamps in the Apollo. I used the Neve unison preamps on all the room mics.

The Apollo was the master clock, not the Orion and it was solid. So so solid.

octatonic

WiresDreamDisasters said:

@octatonic ;

Yeah the shared ins is a bit annoying. When we tracked drums for the new album (which I'm taking a mix I've done in Reaper and rebuilding it in Luna as a test) I ran the FX studio's Orion32 into the Apollo via ADAT, which allowed me to use preamps on the Amek desk as well as preamps in the Apollo. I used the Neve unison preamps on all the room mics.

The Apollo was the master clock, not the Orion and it was solid. So so solid.

Luna is interesting but I cannot mess about with it right now as my UA interface is in Geneva.
I have been considering picking up a UA rackmount interface but the shared ins means I have to choose between the x16 (no preamps at all) or the x6 (two mic ins, a few line ins and expandable by ADAT.

The x6 is currently most likely- I have an Apogee Rosetta 800 I can expand it over ADAT, I can put the two mic ins on a patch panel, the rest of the IO on the bantam bays and with the Rosetta would have 2 mic ins, 14 line ins and 16 line outs.
If I ever need to expand it I can add an x16 down the line.

WiresDreamDisasters

@octatonic ;
What about the Apogee Element series?

octatonic

WiresDreamDisasters said:

@octatonic ;;;
What about the Apogee Element series?

This is specifically to be in the UA ecosystem, be able to use Luna in the UK studio which I cannot do at the moment.
I have an Arrow which is fine in Geneva but I do not have a UA audio interface in the UK, just a UAD2 which means I can never track through the plugins.

I already have a killer native and HDX setup with the Focusrite/Rednet setup.

It is annoying that the x16 has zero mic preamps- if they added a couple to it, or better yet a mic preamp expander for the x16, then I'd go all in on that.
Or something with Dante onboard would be even better.
I must be the outlier though- a lot of analogue hardware with no console- they don't make an interface that works for me totally.
Even if I bought an x16 and a pair of x8p's I'd still have less capability than what I currently have now.

octatonic

Actually the x8 might work for me.
I thought it had shared mic/line but it appears it has 4 mic ins and 8 line ins.
That is enough for what I need it to do.

Stuckfast

I made a video about LUNA:

Unfortunately I had to test it on a pretty old Mac which wasn't really up to it. I'll be interested to see how it performs on a newer machine.

octatonic

Very good Sam.
I didn't realise you were a writer for Sound on Sound.
Nice looking studio too.

Spill is a really useful feature.

Wazmeister

@Stuckfast - Sam, absolutely superb.

For a newbie like myself, about to receive his first UAD Apollo. that video was a Superbad understandable intro to Luna.

The song reminds me of my Dad shouting...

"Hey ! Were you born in a bloody barn ?!?!?"

Excellent.

WiresDreamDisasters

@Stuckfast - cheers I'll give it a watch!

WiresDreamDisasters

I rebuilt a drum mix in Luna today just to see how it all felt. It's a pretty promising v1.0. Thought I'd collect a few thoughts here, also gonna send them over to UA.

Things I'd like to see in Luna:

- Sidechain routing
- Some sort of VCA (not busses) control
- I can load my 1073 preamp into the unison slot in Console, but not in Luna. Don't know if this is a bug or not.
- Slip editing (at least I've not found it yet!)
- Separate show/hide options for the arrange page and mixer page
- An option to right-click an audio chunk and choose "open in external editor" because I quite often will open up Reaper clips in Izotope's RX7 for denoising and dehumming and things like that.
- Track freezing options.
- Some sort of freebie summing option.
- And with that in mind, when you create a bus Luna attempts to add the Neve summing option by default. This is annoying when you don't own it.
- A way to delete a project on the create page.
- There is an "align bar" function that you can use to very quickly build a tempo map. It's actually great, but it doesn't yet work with midi.

I don't think I could switch to it 100% right now, but I could definitely track with it.

Branshen

Stuckfast said:

I made a video about LUNA:

Unfortunately I had to test it on a pretty old Mac which wasn't really up to it. I'll be interested to see how it performs on a newer machine.

I don't have UAD anything or a Mac, but finished the review anyway. Quality stuff. Enjoyed the humour!

icu81b4

Thanks for sharing Sam, - very nice review, I've been a UA user for years now - But on Windows, and as yet LUNA is only on Mac OS, which is a shame, but I can't see me switching from Cakewalk by Bandlab anytime soon, although the Neve Summing looks tempting. 

kjdowd

Just downloaded Luna. Yet to have a play but looks promising. 

Big fan of the UA stuff @Wazmeister ;

Definitely go quad. Very easy to use up DSP quickly (but only because the plugins are so good).