[Solved] Apollo interface

Do we have windows drivers for the Apollo yet?

Get the RME UFX, you'll never look back.

RME is always on top of things driver wise.

T

Universal Audio is pretty well thought of.

The UAD products work well with computers I've used them on.

http://www.sweetwater.com.tore/search.php?s=apollo

Lot of money but I'd sure like one.

Have to get a thunderbolt port on your computer though, I think.

May be he's talking about something else...

DeeringAmps


Get the RME UFX, you'll never look back.

+7.9887676477695734

Hey OP,
You talking UAD Apollo? or Apogee 16X http://apogeedigital.com/products/x-series.php ?

I'm very familiar with the Universal Audio Apollo, and have been doing a Pro Review of it over at Harmony Central. It's currently Mac-only, and while it's compatible with FireWire 400, it needs FireWire 800 to reach full bandwidth.

The Thunderbolt interface is optional-at-extra-cost; my sense is that it will ship in September, and sooner rather than later.

Windows drivers are not yet available, and I haven't gotten a firm timeline on when they're expected. When they do, I'll have to buy a FireWire 800 card for my computer... 

My fave feature is that the preamps are totally colorless, so if you use some of UA's console or channel strip emulation plugs, they have a very obvious effect. Also, there's UA DSP built-in, and you can monitor through them with virtually no latency...makes vocalists very happy, and you can print with effects easily, as well as record a dry feed if you think you might want to change the settings later.

I've had very good luck using the UAD-2 Quad board with Sonar X1, so I suspect that when Apollo has drivers, it will work well with Sonar too. If not...they'll hear about it in the Pro Review.

One of the more relevant Sonar aspects regarding UA's plug-ins is that Sonar's plugs are more bread-and-butter processors, whereas UA tends to produce more specialized plugs. IOW if you want a decent reverb or delay, Sonar can give them to you. But if you want a Lexicon 224 or Echorec Tape delay emulation, that's where UA shines. They complement each other well.

I'd wait for a PC (Desktop) with a Thunderbolt 3 port....they should be available shortly.
Then you could use the Apollo to it's full potential...
 
Personally probably wait for an RME Thunderbolt 3 / Windows version....will be half the price and same quality somewhat (or better I don't know)...
Just not sure if an Apollo has Midi ports..

My new PC does have TB capability.  The MB has a USB 3.1C port and the TB drivers so it worked fine as far as installation goes.  Apollo 8 does not have MIDI ports but that was never a concern for me as I haven't done MIDI work in years.
 
 

todd_bates
I was able to get to a round trip latency of:  
Input:    3.5 msec, 156 samples
Output:  1.9 msec, 84 samples
Total Roundtrip:  5.4 msec, 240 samples
This is at a Sampling Rate of 44100
 
I decided to follow your lead and change the sampling rate to 96000 just to see what would happen.
Input:    1.6 msec, 156 samples
Output:  0.9 msec, 84 samples
Total Roundtrip:  2.5 msec, 240 samples

 
Hey Todd, so you are using the latest Apollo generation "Blackfaces" with Win 10/TB3 via the new universal USB 3.1 connectors? What is the lowest available audio buffer size available @ 44.1K? It appears from those latency specs the Apollo is using PCIe audio drivers via TB. Those RT latency specs look great and are in line with Apollo TB RT specs found on the Mac. 
 
I currently have an Apollo Twin Duo/Satellite USB combo. I get a RT latency of 8.4 msec @ 44.1k using a 64 sample buffer size (lowest available) which works absolutely fine for me. I do most of my recording via the Apollo Console using UAD plug-ins in realtime on the front end and avoid the added audio buffers and round trip latencies altogether.
 
Cheers,
 
Billy Buck
 

todd_bates
 I am sure I will be a frequent visitor of the forum for a bit.

...and I hope a contributor too, so you can tell us what life is like on the "bleeding edge."

hey Todd, helped me to uncheck 'enable read and write caching'
find it here:  Preferences, Audio, Sync and Caching
 
Also I have some projects that somehow only will work if I save them to my desktop.
It sounds strange I know....tried to save those project under new names, in new folders elsewhere, with copying the audio into the new location....without succes...
And then when I make changes to such a project, it will give me audio engine dropouts.
I then save the file, close and reopen and it's fine.
 
Also launching Sonar from a taskbar icon, makes it open faster on my Windows 7 machine.

I noticed that if I play the songs with no plug ins the drops stop.  To me that sounds like I am running out of DSP to run the plug ins.
 
I have a Quad pcie card and I have played this song hundreds of times.  The Apollo 8 is a DUO.  I am wondering if the Apollo is trying to run all the plugins from 2 Cores rather than letting the QUAD card do its share of the work.  MY understanding is that with my set up I have effectively a 6 core system so I should be able to run a ton of plug ins. 
 
I am trying to check in with UAD support to see if there is a setting I may have missed.  Will let you know what I find out.

Not sure if anyone is interested in my journey as I get my new gear set up but here is the latest:
 

• Built new computer (intel i7 6700K Skylake Quad Core, Gigabyte Z170X Gaming 7 MB, 32 Gb RAM)
• Upgraded to the latest version of Sonar (Sonar Platinum 22.10.0 [2016.10] 64 Bit)
• Fresh install of Windows 10 Home edition 64 Bit
• UAD APollo 8 Thunderbolt

• Worked through a lot of minor but annoying issues.  Forum members were incredibly kind sharing their settings and configs of their ASIO drivers which helped get me into what I would describe as a moderately stable place.

 
As of now I am able to get through a recording session and playback of any song I have done so far with no dropouts.  That being said, if I try to do any on the fly editing (adding plugins, editing plugins, etc) the song stops immediately.  It doesn't crash, though.  I just hit space bar and it picks up from where it left off.  As long as I don't do any real time/on the fly messing around I can get through what I am trying to do.  This is good, but not ideal.  
 
Still looking for any thoughts from anyone who has been there/done that.  Hoping this helps anyone else looking to build a similar set up!
 
One other thing...I was reading about ASIO4ALL drivers.  Any thoughts?  Good?  Bad?  Ho hum?
 
 
 
 

...so I went out and bought a new SSD hard drive, reinstalled everything...Windows 10, Sonar Platinum, UAD latest version, etc.  Still having incredibly frequent dropout.  I have noticed that the dropouts only seem to occur frequently when using the UAD plugins.  If I turn them all off and only use Cakewalk plugins or Waves or S-Gear or anything else things seem to be fine.  
 
I will be bringing that up to Cakewalk support and to UAD support.  In the meantime Win 10 has this annoying habit of showing a pop up box at the lower right each time a dropout occurs.  Anyone have any idea how to shut that down?

Bummer.  I got this MB because I thought it would be a kick butt board and would position me with a strong system for the next few years.  I did go and remove all the NVIDEA programs related to 3D or gaming and left just the graphics program functioning.  I also removed all the Audio programs that were loaded from the CD so the only audio option I have is UAD.

For the love of....
 
So my joy lasted exactly one reboot.  As soon as I rebooted my system the same old garbage started happening.  Back to being a sad pup.