Shopping for a new pc or mac for general home use and for home recording. I've always had pc but have become an Apple fan via my Ipad 2, iphone, ipod touch, etc. I already have a nice HDMI monitor, mouse, and keyboard, so I'm seriously considering a Mac Mini with an SSD and upgraded RAM.

That should basically be the performance equivalent of a much more expensive MB Pro, right? I could build a mini-itx pc also, but it'd basically wind up costing the same amount for similar performance I'm guessing. So would a Mac Mini and Apollo Twin interface be about as good a home studio set up as you could get for anything less than several tens of thousands of dollars? The Apollo comes with the UAD Analog Classics bundle as well. Would a Mac Mini + dedicated preamp + dedicated audio interface be better? The Apollo Twin is a great interface and has great pre's on it, the only issue you'd likely run into is if you have really low output microphones, then you might need a pre with a little more juice, i think these are rated at 60dB of gain.

All of that being said, i purchased the UA Neve 1073 unison plug for it, and there was more than enough gain available for my Shure SM7B on vocals with no hiss, not sure how much of the gain on that plug is actual analog gain and how much is digital gain after the fact, all i know is it just worked, so as far as going dedicated pre + interface, to get to that sort of quality, you really need to be spending quite a bit more coin. The Apollo pre's basically sit on the same level as the pre's in my Focusrite ISA428 for me. Other than that, for home recording, i think the Apollo Twin is just the ticket anyway with all the plugs you can record to tape or just monitor with, and if you want to record drums as well, plug in another 8 channel preamp via the ADAT in, bringing your inputs upto 10 (this is the way i use it). It is just a really good interface. My only point of advice from here though would be to spend the extra on the Duo instead of the Solo. The Console software that lets you record or monitor effects and controls the unison plugs takes up a little bit of DSP itself, and some of the plugs are very DSP hungry, with the Duo, if i'm recording a vocal take and electric guitar with an amp simulator up along with vocal compression and a little bit of delay or reverb on the send, i've already maxed out the Duo.

I already have a nice HDMI monitor, mouse, and keyboard, so I'm seriously considering a Mac Mini with an SSD and upgraded RAM. That should basically be the performance equivalent of a much more expensive MB Pro, right? So would a Mac Mini and Apollo Twin interface be about as good a home studio set up as you could get for anything less than several tens of thousands of dollars? The Apollo comes with the UAD Analog Classics bundle as well. Would a Mac Mini + dedicated preamp + dedicated audio interface be better? Click to expand.I think it's a solid setup. The macmini is the best deal in computers IMO.

Its more or less the guts of a macbook pro. I don't think an SSD is a must have and apple will rape you for drive and memory upgrades.

You are better off running your sessions via thunderbolt external drive. What's most important is maxing out your memory.

The macmini is super easy to swap out memory on your own. I have always used otherworldcomputing.com for drives and memory. Great prices and support.

You can always do better with an external mic pre but I am guessing the apollo sounds plenty good enough. I think the great river mic pre in 500 series format is a great deal.

Click to expand.For my part, I don't think I'd make plugins the guiding principle in choosing an interface. At $2k (the cost of the Duo), you could afford better conversion than the Apollo has, without the plugins. I don't think the 'you must buy our hardware to help run our software' paradigm is either necessary or long for this world. Avid/Digi bailed on it years ago.

I know that, for now, UA is committed to it (and I think they may be the only ones). But there are lots of incredible plugins out there, and I wouldn't choose my basic sound quality based on a 15-yr-old paradigm. That said, you could make some killer recordings with any of the Apollo line.

Same with the lower end Apogee stuff. I'm just of the opinion that at $2k it'd be better to buy, say, a killer converter from which you'd never be tempted to upgrade. At $2k, you could swing a high end used Apogee (I think) or maybe a used Metric Halo or something.

Granted, with either of those you'll need to buy a separate pre (or 2), but at least you'll have one piece that you'll never bother replacing. And, for what it's worth, the converter market moves immeasurably slower than all other digital stuff (e.g.

I think most people think we've basically 'arrived' at an amazing standard for sound quality vis a vis digital conversion, at least at the high end of the spectrum. That's why we've seen the big boys' lines stay put for years, now.

Mac Mini's are the best. Fast, you can upgrade RAM yourself, and can handle and external drive or two to record/mix your tracks to. Best deal is to buy them refurbished directly from Apple.

They are very popular and regularly sell out so know what specs you want and jump when you can. Here's what they have at the moment. For my part, I don't think I'd make plugins the guiding principle in choosing an interface. At $2k (the cost of the Duo), you could afford better conversion than the Apollo has, without the plugins. I don't think the 'you must buy our hardware to help run our software' paradigm is either necessary or long for this world.

Avid/Digi bailed on it years ago. I know that, for now, UA is committed to it (and I think they may be the only ones). But there are lots of incredible plugins out there, and I wouldn't choose my basic sound quality based on a 15-yr-old paradigm. That said, you could make some killer recordings with any of the Apollo line. Same with the lower end Apogee stuff. I'm just of the opinion that at $2k it'd be better to buy, say, a killer converter from which you'd never be tempted to upgrade.

At $2k, you could swing a high end used Apogee (I think) or maybe a used Metric Halo or something. Granted, with either of those you'll need to buy a separate pre (or 2), but at least you'll have one piece that you'll never bother replacing. And, for what it's worth, the converter market moves immeasurably slower than all other digital stuff (e.g. I think most people think we've basically 'arrived' at an amazing standard for sound quality vis a vis digital conversion, at least at the high end of the spectrum. That's why we've seen the big boys' lines stay put for years, now.

Click to expand.You misread the posts, apollo TWIN duo is only 1k (based on a quick search you can get it for only $900 in America), and i'm not sure what the market is like in America seeing as i'm in Australia, but there's no way you could buy a comparable pre and converter for anywhere near that price point separately. EDIT: I can see where you might have made the mistake in my original post now, but in the context of the post i was merely saying spend the extra couple hundred on the twin duo as opposed to the twin solo, because you run out of juice really quickly on the solo. Just my opinion of course.

You misread the posts, apollo TWIN duo is only 1k (based on a quick search you can get it for only $900 in America), and i'm not sure what the market is like in America seeing as i'm in Australia, but there's no way you could buy a comparable pre and converter for anywhere near that price point separately. EDIT: I can see where you might have made the mistake in my original post now, but in the context of the post i was merely saying spend the extra couple hundred on the twin duo as opposed to the twin solo, because you run out of juice really quickly on the solo. Just my opinion of course. Click to expand.I edit music/video for a living. You don't need an external TBolt drive for recording/mixing music. That's overkill.

If you were editing HD/4K video? USB 2.0 or Firewire is plenty fast. For example I edit audio and video daily on the road using Seagate GoFlex 3TB drives over USB2.0 and/or Firewire. More important is drive SPEED. 5400 and 7200 rpm are the two most common.

Apollo Twin /solo Core Uad 2 For Mac Free

Look for an external drive that is 7200RPM and USB 2.0/3.0 compatible and you'll be set. One more thing about Thunderbolt.it's designed so that you can chain 6 TBolt devices devices together.