Aphex Aural Exciter... awesome or outdated?

[paulyc]

I agree, but I think the sound suffers...maybe it's the budgets too, but damn if I can't find a truly GREAT sounding record by an 80s act recorded lately...

 

[paulyc]

So what other interfaces are out there that have at least 24 I/Os and run on either Thunderbolt or USB 3 ? I have DSUB 25 snakes left over from my ADAT days but they're not XLR, they're 1/4 inch

 

[Dave L]

I agree, but I think the sound suffers...maybe it's the budgets too, but damn if I can't find a truly GREAT sounding record by an 80s act recorded lately...

For sure, the plugins can´t match the hardware toe to toe, but like you say albums are made at a fraction of the time for a fraction of the cost now and that hurts.

 

[JTyson]

Can somebody tell me what DAW the Big Hairy Guitars Guy is using that allows him to I/O all that REAL outboard gear instead of plug ins ??? I have most of that stuff and would KILL to use it... anybody know ???

He has a vid that shows Apogees in his rack, They likely have DB25 analog outputs on the back that allow him to route ins/outs to the outboard stuff. You have to have a DB25 to XLR snake to connect it all. The Apogee Ensemble interface I got a few months ago has this as well, although I haven't used the DB25 side of it yet, its a great option if you have those items. You have to set up the routing in your DAW (mine is Logic) Logic allows you to set up a template for your tracks/routing so you dont have to do an hour of work to get everything where you want it, you just hit template and the whole DAW scene will come up automatically and your ready to go on another song. Cool stuff

Thank you, very cool info. What's your computer setup ? PC or Mac ? I'm using a Mac mini with Thunderbolt and a small Scarlet interface right now, but I'm moving up to Apogee or something similar soon...what else has Thuderbolt compatibility and a good number of I/Os (like 32x32) ?

Its a Mac Pro, one of the Darth Vader looking ones We got hit by lightning and it got a lot of my crap, but I got a chance to update. The Apogee has been amazing so far, sounds way better than the old 002 rack I was using with Pro Tools., I think a lot of it is the converters, Apogee has some killer converters in a lot of their stuff. There's a ton of good stuff out there now, it really came down to the Ensemble or a UA Apollo, but I have grown tired of the UA merry go round with the plug ins on my last system, and there are a ton of great plug ins out there now that are way less money, and having had both, I can truthfully say, just as effective. We are running outboard mic pres and have the internal pres bypassed on the Apogee except for a few channels that the inboard mic pres are more than fine for.