Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Apogee Duet: Quick review

I got one but...

all I can say at this point is that it *looks* good.

My intent was to take the duet and G4 out and about , finally start fooling around with garage band, and record me and my friends.

I have always been somewhat of an audiophile geeky girl, but never one with a huge bank account. The duet was pretty much max for my budget for this new hobby.

However, I did not realize i would have connectivity issues. I have one FW400 port only on my G4, no FW800. All my LaCie drives have one 400 port and two FW800 ports, so basically I can't hook the duet and an external HD up together.

Best suggestion the seller could offer me was to look at a new mac !!! or a Glyph drive that only has two FW400 ports only and costs 250-300.

Since I already own a few external drives, but none of them will work, and I am really not too keen on spending $300 more for FW400 drive, I am thinking of sending back the duet in the hopes a FW800 version will come out next.

Or maybe my G4 will need replacement and my new mac will have the ports I need.

I also notice that Apogee says you can run duet on a G4 but Apple has started carrying the duet in the online store, and says you need a G5. So there is another reason I think I should give it up. I did get a core audio error after about four minutes of recording with the duet, directly to the G4's HD. So, not sure if the G4 is truly compatible.

Well, thanks for listening to a noob, any comments welcome. I have never read any mac forums before, though I have used macs since day 1 ...Castle Wolfenstein was always going in my house :))

Reading this particular forum was really pretty funny.

And I wish I had a more meaningful review than ...
It is a slick looking little thing, the duet.
 
The fact that your system does not have the required specs to run the Duet doesn't make *just* a slick looking box. I'm sorry you've run into so much troubles but hang onto it until you upgrade your system! Then come back and give us a real review. :D:cool: I've been very satisfied with my Duet + Macbook Pro + LaCie FW800 HDD combo.

Anyways, welcome to the forums. Have a look around and have fun.
 
I guess I will make this connectivity issue a bit clearer, for any other neophytes ( like I was two weeks ago) who want to get into digital recording with a duet and may have an older laptop.

here are requirements from Apogee's website,


Computer: Mac G4 1GHz or faster, G5 or Intel CPU
Memory: 1 GB RAM minimum, 2 GB recommended
OS: 10.4.10 or greater
Connection: FireWire 400 port

Now, my G4 has all these requirements/specs, but I cannot record more than four minutes without a core audio message, nor connect to a standard external HD.

What i think is missing from the above requirements, ( now that I have had a quick education into the basics of digi recording) is that they need to also spec an additional FW800 port for the neccesary external HD.

Truthfully tho, even then I am not sure the G4 is up to it. But, I am looking for somebody with one of those Glyph drives with two FW400 ports, to see.
 
pal val said:
all I can say at this point is that it *looks* good.

My intent was to take the duet and G4 out and about , finally start fooling around with garage band, and record me and my friends.

I have always been somewhat of an audiophile geeky girl, but never one with a huge bank account. The duet was pretty much max for my budget for this new hobby.

However, I did not realize i would have connectivity issues. I have one FW400 port only on my G4, no FW800. All my LaCie drives have one 400 port and two FW800 ports, so basically I can't hook the duet and an external HD up together.

Best suggestion the seller could offer me was to look at a new mac !!! or a Glyph drive that only has two FW400 ports only and costs 250-300.

Since I already own a few external drives, but none of them will work, and I am really not too keen on spending $300 more for FW400 drive, I am thinking of sending back the duet in the hopes a FW800 version will come out next.

Or maybe my G4 will need replacement and my new mac will have the ports I need.

I also notice that Apogee says you can run duet on a G4 but Apple has started carrying the duet in the online store, and says you need a G5. So there is another reason I think I should give it up. I did get a core audio error after about four minutes of recording with the duet, directly to the G4's HD. So, not sure if the G4 is truly compatible.

Well, thanks for listening to a noob, any comments welcome. I have never read any mac forums before, though I have used macs since day 1 ...Castle Wolfenstein was always going in my house :))

Reading this particular forum was really pretty funny.

And I wish I had a more meaningful review than ...
It is a slick looking little thing, the duet.
Click to expand...


Just buy a firewire 800 to 400 cable to connect your external HD for the session files, and use the 400 port for your DUET. Should be set. How much RAM have you got? The more the better, particularly if you've got VIs running while recording.
 
pal val said:
I did not realize i would have connectivity issues. I have one FW400 port only on my G4, no FW800. All my LaCie drives have one 400 port and two FW800 ports, so basically I can't hook the duet and an external HD up together.
Click to expand...

This shouldn't be problem. Just buy Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable. Connect your drive with the Firewire 400 cable, and connect Duet to the hard drive with the Firewire 800 to Firewire 400 cable. I have chained several hard drives that way without any problems (MacBook Pro - FW400 - LaCie HDD - FW800 - WD HDD - FW800 - WD HDD). And even if it won't, your investment won't be huge ($21).

http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F3N404...09EFQT/ref=dp_cp_ob_MI_title_1?ie=UTF8&sr=8-8
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
pal val said:
I cannot record more than four minutes without a core audio message, nor connect to a standard external HD.
Click to expand...

Maybe 96kHz/24bit audio streem is to much for your old Mac? Open Audio MIDI Setup utility (from Applications/Utilities) and check Audio Input and Output sections, reduce format to 44100 kHz, 2ch-16bit and try then again. GarageBand itself also may be an issue. Try some lightweight application, like Amadeus Pro or SoundStudio (both can be used in demo mode for some days):

http://www.hairersoft.com/AmadeusPro/AmadeusPro.html
http://www.freeverse.com/apps/app/?id=5012

If you can record audio with one of these apps, then GarageBand is too "heavy" for your Mac. If not, then Mac's processing speed can't keep up with what Duet feeds in. Anyway, new Intel Core 2 Duo Mac would be really great investment... :)
 
just bone up...

if you want to do recording with the duet, then you are obviously concerned with some quality or else you would have just bought some other junk, If thats the case, sell our older mac on ebay and bone up the couple hundred extra bucks it will cost you for a refurbished or used macbook.
 
thanks you alls

hey thanks you guys,

junior and guntis, you were right on with the adaptor advice

I did not know of an adaptor and many minutes and emails with four diff tech guys at major audio specialist and a call to apogee did not get me that simple solution, thanks so much !

and.... there sure are a lot of people who want me to buy a new mac !!
prob is I love this little 12'' titanium powerbook, its built like a tank

so I am off and running with my lil duet recording setup,
have recorded two tracks at once so far with no issues, which was the goa


OK so now it looks good AND its working, its pretty fun and oh yeah... it sounds pretty good too ;-))

thanks again


I can't get my specs to post like a tag line but here they are if anyone with a setup like mine is wondering....

PowerbookG4, 1.5 Ghz, 1.25MB ram (maxed) connected to LaCie 360 GB HD
 
Neutrality versus Sweetening

I'm about to upgrade from an RME8 which I've been using with Logic XP, I lost the drivers for the RME and can't find them anywhere and the RME site responders have ignored sev Emails asking for replacement drivers, bastards, acedemic now anyway cos I'm getting a new machine. My point is this: It is frequently found that converters that sound heavenly are effectively useless to record with because they've sold out the neutrality for stereo imaging etc. what then happens is when you bounce what you think is a great mix, and then test the mix on three or four of yer mates' average domestic HIFI, one sounds ace two sound pretty good and one sounds ****in awful! Anyone who spends a lot of time recording with seriously good and by that I imply very neutral conversion will tell you that truly neutral sound, after that all night and most of tomorrow recording and mixing session, can, and often will, turn your ears to mush, I've had this experience, it's a bitch when you can't stand to hear another five seconds of music, so the thing I'm looking for when I go to AUDITION some cards is neutrality because I want my bounces to hit that last mate's domestic HIFI and still sound as good as the others did, (although they will all sound different. I'm taking a very slightly flawed bounce with a couple of tiny tiny pops in them, the kind that you only just hear because you know they're there and nobody else would really hear, I will choose the card that reveals the flaws AND sounds good, even if I have to spend a couple of hundred quid more, because it's the music on that last mate's HIFI that I'm aiming for, because he is a moaning bastard and he can't begin to understand why his poor HIFI doesn't like my bounce! USE YOUR EARS EVERY TIME!
 
I'm about to upgrade from an RME8 which I've been using with Logic XP, I lost the drivers for the RME and can't find them anywhere and the RME site responders have ignored sev Emails asking for replacement drivers, bastards, academic now anyway cos I'm getting a new machine. My point is this: It is frequently found that converters that sound heavenly are effectively useless to record with because they've sold out the neutrality for stereo imaging etc. what then happens is when you bounce what you think is a great mix, and then test the mix on three or four of yer mates' average domestic HI-FI, one sounds ace two sound pretty good and one sounds ****in awful! A sweetened sound conversion may be a more, on the surface, pleasing experience but it doesn't help, so you have to go for neutrality. So the thing I'm looking for when I go to AUDITION some cards is this: I'm taking some very slightly flawed bounces with me on disc, one instance of which is a mix that has a couple of tiny tiny pops on it, the kind that even you only just hear because you know they're there, and I'll choose the card/conversion that reveals the pops because that will indicate the neutrality, as opposed to a card that sounds amazing and doesn't reveal the flaws, - sweetened conversion being indicated by this, because I want my bounce to hit that last mate's HI-FI and sound as good as the other three did, because he is a moaning bastard and is totally upset about his HI-FI not liking my bounce, which incedentally might mean that he actually has the best HI-FI, but I'm not gonna tell him that. ON BALANCE: USE YOUR EARS EVERY TIME, the reviews in magazines are biased by the fact that given manufacturers pay fortunes for advertising and don't then like it when their products get slated by objective reviewing etc. L I S T E N ! Never trust a magazine that has those beautiful full page adverts in for those products that you want to buy before you've even heard what they sound like because that advert looked awesome etc. USE YOUR ****IN EARS!
 
dev-angel said:
My point is this: It is frequently found that converters that sound heavenly are effectively useless to record with because they've sold out the neutrality for stereo imaging etc. what then happens is when you bounce what you think is a great mix, and then test the mix on three or four of yer mates' average domestic HI-FI, one sounds ace two sound pretty good and one sounds ****in awful! A sweetened sound conversion may be a more, on the surface, pleasing experience but it doesn't help, so you have to go for neutrality. [...] ON BALANCE: USE YOUR EARS EVERY TIME, the reviews in magazines are biased by the fact that given manufacturers pay fortunes for advertising and don't then like it when their products get slated by objective reviewing etc. L I S T E N !
Click to expand...

I think you will be happy with Duet. I don't find it to sweeten the sound. It has really "transparent" or "liquid" sound on the "blackground" (i.e. no self-noise). I use Duet with Sennheiser HD650 headphones and it sounds awesome.
 
Neutrality versus Sweetening

Thank you Guntis, I'm gonna audition the Duet as soon as possible. Could I just ask you what you auditioned as well as the Duet, and what else if any, impressed you?

On another note, it's been mentioned on the site that manufactures compromise quality and components on the second models of given hardware after they have established a product's popularity. I know for a fact that this is true. Some year's ago I took a Cambridge Dacmagic home for a weekend on a refund if it didn't impress agreement, it was the very first model, it was very impressive but I did end up buying something else, however, a year or so later, after the hi-fi mags had all given it awards etc. Cambridge brought out the Dacmagic 2, boasting about upgraded output stages now being gold plated and a few other things too, so I auditioned that, again for a weekend, and it wasn't a patch on the first one, so I would swear that this phenomena of downgrading components is true, they upgraded the output stages by gold plating them, and said nothing, obviously, about the components that had been down-graded. Bastards. Be very careful of this, never buy an audio product without seriously auditioning it, and never forget that the manufacturers pay the magazines a fortune for advertising space, and there most definitely is a tacit agreement that this will find it's expression in the product review section of the given magazine. Be cynical about the market because the market is definitely rigged. P.S. Most £500 CD players are out performed by DVD players costing half the price or even less, if you think about the scale and variety of audio in Movies, and compare to much reduced demand on the converters in CD players, which only have to handle music, as opposed to: Dialogue, tons of different ambiences, music, sound effects, sublime incidental music, in all the varying scenes of the average movie, it becomes plain to see that the converters in a DVD player have much more audio to handle than the CD players etc. Do a back to back test and I'm sure you will see this for yourself! RIGGED MARKET! SPEND YOUR MONEY CAREFULLY!
 
Red surge in Duet's output meter

Hi all, so I just purchased Apogee Duet and must agree with everyone that the sound is amazing. My only concern right now is that when I play music through itunes, some of the songs result in Duet's output meter to surge to red, now I don't know if this is good or bad and was just wondering if someone could clear this up for me. I saw someone brought this up in an earlier post but I didn't find a response to it. Duet is connected to M-Audio BX5a studio monitors. Thanks!
 
Eternalists said:
Hi all, so I just purchased Apogee Duet and must agree with everyone that the sound is amazing. My only concern right now is that when I play music through itunes, some of the songs result in Duet's output meter to surge to red, now I don't know if this is good or bad and was just wondering if someone could clear this up for me. I saw someone brought this up in an earlier post but I didn't find a response to it. Duet is connected to M-Audio BX5a studio monitors. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I've had mine a while now, and the meters hitting red very often was one of the first things I noticed. A bit of experimenting revealed that the meters are extremely sensitive. More so than meters on most vaguely similar interfaces.
They are so sensitive, that they register the tiniest inter sample peaks. To cut a long and very boring story short, its generally a very subtle (mostly inaudible) form of distortion brought about by compressed music formats, such as MP3's or AAC etc. If you can, listen to the same song direct from CD, or a lossless format, and you probably you wont see the red clip lights come on at all. Yet it sounds almost identical.
So, it's normal :)
 
Feeling better about Apogee

Thanks Luap, I feel better now knowing I'm not the only one and that I'm not frying my Apogee Duet.
 
A Quick Review and A Big Question

I have finally begun using the duet, after life got in the way kinda stuff.
Though few of my friends are recording/ performing peeps, everyone who sees/ hears the duet thinks it is mighty keen. Everyone seems to have a love/hate relationship with hearing themselves talk, sing or play :))

I have never heard myself play or sing, have always thought I was a good singer and lousy player, and was shocked to find my guitar playing sounded better than my singing. I bought the duet because I wanted to get close to accurate sound, to be able to hopefully hear increments in improvement as I work on my singing. So far its been great for that.

I have a few questions if anyone is inclined to help. I do assume many are using this with Garage Band.

What is the idea of the different level controls for real instrument recording.
Right now I just have Shure 57 and 58 in lines one and two respectively, to record vocal and acoustic instrument but I have not successfully found ideal level settings, especially for vocals.

I see that i can adjust the recording level in Garage band,
and I can also adjust it in some ways in the Maestro Control with the dials.

Sometimes it seems that adjusting Garage Band affects the adjustments in Maestro but its hard for me to tell what is going on.

Right now my biggest problem is that the vocal input is too 'sensitive", if I turn the levels down I don't get quite enough volume, if I turn it up I get distortion too easily. ( sorry, I know there are words for these problems but I don't know what they are)

Are there optimum settings to begin messing with, in Maestro and in Garage band ? and if so, are they in the obvious places...the dials in Maestro and slider bar in Garage band under input section ?

If so, that those are the only two places, are there recommended settings to start with ?

Thanks for any considerations.
 
Sing as loud as you can into the mic while looking at the level meter in Maestro. Make sure you bring the level down far enough so that there's absolutely no way it hits the reds.
You'll now probably feel that it's not loud enough when you sing softly. What you need is a compressor. Select your vocal track in Garageband. Then go to the bottom right and click 'i'. If it's selected already then that's fine. Click on 'Details'. Check the compressor box. Click on the pencil tool on the right.
Now just for the sake of it give it a heavy compression to see what it does.
Eg:
Threshold -20dB
Ratio 10:1
Attack 6ms
Gain Accordingly

Adjust parameters until you feel comfortable. There's always volume automation too.
 
Real_Deal

Plumbstone said:
Wow, just checked back to this thread after a few weeks and there is a load of excess testosterone flying around.

So, I am a sound engineer, I have been working professionally for long enough to know I can trust my ears. In My studio I have a variety of interfaces, Protools 192s, motu 828s, Mbox2 pro, Apogee PSX-100, and yes a Duet too.

Firstly LogicPro, I hope your friend wont mind you screwing his Mbox as, if it is the same model as mine, it is a complete bitch to get inside; good luck with the photos there.

Secondly, what good are photos in deciding how something sounds? Surely that is what is important here. Do I care if they all have the same chips in if the rest of the design has such an influence on the final sound recorded and reproduced? Don't bother doing the photos as they wont prove anything, use your ears instead....

As has been mentioned before, there is an awful lot more to making a great sounding AD than merely the converters, all the other components play a large part in what you finally hear, especially the clock. The first thing I do upon receiving a new bit of gear is to AB it with something comparable I already own. In this case it was the newly purchased Duet vs Mbox2pro and PTHD-192s. It was a close call between the 192 and the Duet, and imo the 192s won (not surprising really considering). Next up was the Mbox, which I have to say fell rather short. Recording an identical signal into both boxes simultaneously then comparing them out of the same converter, the duet was much more transparent and defined than the Mbox, especially on acoustic sources. As for playback, again the Duet sounded better (imo), similarly transparent etc...

The duet certainly doesn't equal Hi end/professional gear, but considering the price, portability and sound when compared to its similarly priced peers I reckon it is the best of the bunch.

When I have a moment, which wont be until after the weekend (maybe even wednesday as it is my stag night on Saturday....) I will do the same test again. Obviously you can only judge the recorded signals through whatever system you have and won't ever be able to do the playback test without having all the gear in front of you so you'll have to trust me as far as playback goes....

I doubt it will do anything to slow the testosterone tsunami but thought I'd let you know my opinion.
Click to expand...

Spoken_with_the_poise_of_experience_(to_my_ear).

The_Producers_that_Ive_worked_with_all_have_some_traits_in_common,_missing_from_LogicPros_comments.

1._They_are_Master_Diplomats,_eschewing_negativity.
2._Their_comments_are_concise,_brief_and_to_the_point.
3._Criticism_is_provided_a_specific_context_and_very_direct,_emphasizing_an_upside.
4._They_never_repeat_themselves.

Is_this_too_much_to_ask,_Mr._LogicPro?
 
So where are those internal pics we were promised?

I'm sure lots of the ICs are common ones *gasp* made in Asia and *gasp* used in other electronic products. But the ADCs and DACs? I'm still curious.
 
Cooper/Frontman, its an old thread now, and if you read all of it, you'll see that "Logic Pro" was banned, and also had 1 or 2 aliases (peter westergar for one) used in this post in order to back himself up when no one believed his BS.
Ignore the posts under those names..
 
newbie here...

Hello all...

Firstly, a brief intro.... I am a strictly for fun muso who after many years of putting it off has bitten the bullet and bought a macbook, logic studio, Se Electronics 2200 mic and Apogee duet interface. It all arrived yesterday and I havent even installed logic yet... Can't wait to get started though!

Anyway, thought i should do a bit of post purchase research ;) so stumbled across this forum... and the apogee thread caught my eye.

After an hour of reading all i can say is I LOVE THIS PLACE!!! I haven't laughed so much in years. :D Logic Pro and his alter-egos are priceless... PLEASE can we let him back to enlighten us with more of his wisdom?? ;)

I just know I'm going to be dissapointed when i check out my 2nd thread and it's not as entertaining as this!

Anyway, good to know that I appear to have made a decent choice by opting for the Duet with my set up.

that's all for now...
Russ
 
Duet without Logic / GB

Hey all. I was considering getting a Duet, but from the sound of this thread it seems that it may only be worth getting if you're using Logic or GB.

I use Cubase 5 for mastering and Ableton Live for arrangement, I also roll my own software now and again.. I'm a little wary of the Duet because of its marketing as being the choice interface for Apple software.

Anyone have any experience using the Duet outside of the Logic/GarageBand ecosystem? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back