Needin' more input for my Apollo Twin Duo

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alex matson
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Needin' more input for my Apollo Twin Duo

Post by alex matson » Tue Jun 30, 2015 7:20 pm

This year has seen a lot of changes in my home getup. Most recently, I sold my Yamaha CP80 and bought a Prophet 08. With my Korg SV1, Ace Tone organ, and Waldorf Streichfett, that makes for three stereo and one mono input. Then there's the guitars, bass and vocal mic. Clearly, I could use a bigger Apollo, but that's not gonna happen financially for about three years I reckon.

All I want to do is be able to futz around with playing more than one keyboard at once, and, if there's something good happening, get it down to disc. At the moment I am running everything through a cheap Behringer mixer and listening through headphones. It has been suggested that I invest in some kind of 8 channel preamp converter that outputs ADAT. The cheapest being a Behringer ADA8200. And now, a quote from the SOS forum:
Here are dynamic ranges and prices:
ADA8200 103dB $200
TubeOpto8 105dB $450
DigiMax D8 107dB $400
OctoPreMkII 110dB $500
ASP800 116dB $800

My question: will I regret buying the Behringer? Anyone have experiences/recommendations with any of these? Or is there another solution here?

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Post by kslight » Tue Jun 30, 2015 7:48 pm

Do note that many keyboards are not really "stereo" unless using some kind of panning or other effect like chorus, or when there is more than one patch loaded...so with that in mind you could conserve inputs by only using the mono out on keyboards where this is the case.

As you might guess, Behringer is hardly the "best," but if $ is tight you can't really argue with the price and I'm sure it will do the job in your home studio fine until you change out your interface. One could make the argument that really unless you need specific features that one or the other offers, most low end 8 channel boxes are gonna be real similar in quality.

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Post by ott0bot » Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:00 pm

I have a Presonus Digimax D8 and it's pretty solid for most sources. I use it with my Apollo for extra pres when needed. Not a lot of headroom, but it's got pads...and you should be able to attenuate from your keys anyway. The DI's are decent, pretty clean.

One issue when using any ADAT unit with the Twin: the Twin will clock off of the ADAT unit since there is no adat out or BNC to send a clock signal. So make sure whatever you buy has a decent clock. The Presonus one is so-so.
Last edited by ott0bot on Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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alex matson
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Post by alex matson » Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:20 pm

Yeah, too bad about the clock; this is one area where I a)suspect the Behr will potentially suck, and b)think I am over complicating things and should just play through headphones or one keyboard at a time.

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ott0bot
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Post by ott0bot » Tue Jun 30, 2015 8:26 pm

alex matson wrote:Yeah, too bad about the clock; this is one area where I a)suspect the Behr will potentially suck, and b)think I am over complicating things and should just play through headphones or one keyboard at a time.
Yeah. You be able to find an older Behr unit or another brand that was modified by Black Lion Audio with their clock added. There are major studios out there running with them...so I think that will be a pretty good option. You could run the ADAT unit off of a better master clock to improve performance that way.

Also, as suggested, running the keys mono if you need two at a time. you could also submix the two keys in your mixer and just make sure your levels are where they need to be while performing.

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JWL
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Post by JWL » Tue Jun 30, 2015 9:14 pm

I love my Octopre.

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alex matson
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Post by alex matson » Tue Jun 30, 2015 9:39 pm

currently there's a BLA modded Behr for over a grand...at that point a bigger apollo would be a better choice i should think.

Hey JWL - good to have the woods back, eh? (Current events reference)

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Post by templejazz82 » Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:59 am

Question- Are you willing to spend that 800 on the ASP from Audient? If so, have you considered maybe selling the Apollo Twin and use that money plus your budgeted 800 to get the Apollo 8 channel unit? The silverface one can probably be had used for within your budget.

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Post by alex matson » Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:32 pm

I ended up getting a line mixer brand new for $150.
Thanks for your ideas
Soon I'll post a picture of my new slimmed down music space...can't call it a studio since it's also the living room.
By the time I started reading about clock speeds and sample rates and $900, and alls i wanted to do was be able to play w/out patching...I decided simplicity was key.

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Post by kslight » Sat Jul 04, 2015 9:50 am

Simplicity is key. Don't sweat the small stuff if it's a personal non-commercial studio and on a budget. Details definitely can add up, but many of the gear differences (converters, preamps, etc) debated online can be incredibly small compared to their price tags and the greater significance of other details (instruments, performance, miking, room).

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Post by roscoenyc » Tue Jul 07, 2015 9:08 am

friends don't let friends buy Behringer

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Post by mrc » Thu Jul 09, 2015 12:22 pm

Sounds like you're good. I have an 880, to me, it's sure worth the money. Ymmv. I have a Bla modded Focusrite pro 40, too, but it's only got one adat out. So it's limited to 8 adat @ 48k or 4 @ 96. The Asp 880 wants to be the adat or word clock master. The pro 40 has Adat I/O and works in standalone. The octopre has adat out and word clock. I use the 880, pro 40 and so far unmodded AI3 with a RME Raydat on my pc, and the 880 and Twin duo on Mac.

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