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GO TIME

The Zen Go looks like the perfect miniature offspring of my Zen Tour – more petite but equally sturdy and similar aesthetics. Its design is largely borrowed from the chunkier sibling, including the screen on the left, Gain/Headphone/Antelope buttons in the middle, and large stepped multi-function knob on the right. One key difference, apart from fewer inputs and outputs, is the Zen Go’s screen doesn’t respond to touch.

A nifty trick up Zen Go’s sleeve is you can plug a phone charger or power bank into it and it’ll pass audio without a computer. Another cool feature is a loopback circuit which lets you route the output of a monitoring mix (live inputs and all) back into the computer for applications like live streaming.

CORE VALUES

Inside Zen Go’s palm-sized chassis lie two chips – one DSP and one FPGA. This combination forms the basis of ‘Synergy Core’, Antelope’s onboard processing platform. Synergy Core combines the strengths of both types of processing (hence ‘Synergy’) to power a growing suite of Antelope’s analogue-modelled effects at nearly zero latency. The two chips onboard Zen Go can reportedly process up to 32 simultaneous instances of effects.

In my view, this is the most appealing feature of the Zen Go. Most interfaces I review these days offer the opportunity to track through hardware-accelerated effects thanks to built-in processing power of some sort. Typically, this primo feature doesn’t come cheap. Zen Go bucks the trend – you don’t need to spend thousands to reap the benefits of hardware DSP, neither do you need a big rack unit or over-the-top I/O if your requirements don’t call for it.

FX: MODELLING JOB 

Ever since I got my Zen Tour I have been a big fan of Antelope’s effects. Every processor adds something special to a recording. Familiarise yourself with the sonic flavour of each EQ and compressor and soon it’ll feel like you have your own rack of outboard to make perfectly-curated signal chains for every recording session. 

What’s exciting about Synergy Core is the potential for growth, not least through collaboration with third-party plug-ins. Already Antares has teamed up with Antelope Audio to create Auto-Tune Synergy, and Inertia Sound Systems has developed the creative Instinct Synergy modulation effect. Then there’s Overloud which helped create authentic emulations for guitarists. New emulations of desirable processors from the past fill Antelope’s software store at a steadily increasing rate. As the library of Synergy Core-powered effects expands, Antelope’s DSP-capable interfaces like the Zen Go represent more and more value. 

START UP

Initiating the Zen Go was painless. Plug the Zen Go into your computer using the supplied USB-C cable, then activate it in your Antelope account to reveal the Launcher software download. Instantly, the Antelope Launcher recognises the Zen Go and places it on the software’s home screen. I chose to update Zen Go’s firmware from the Launcher which mercifully occurred without a hitch. Then it was simply a matter of opening the Control Panel software to control the zero latency mixers and DSP, and the Zen Go was ready for action. To Antelope’s credit, the company has done an excellent job rectifying the software setup issues which bedevilled earlier interfaces to deliver what’s now a smooth and effortless experience.

IN CONTROL

The modern and intuitive Control Panel GUI is reasonably easy to navigate. Both analogue preamps are controlled from the top left hand corner section. The mixer can display eight or 16 channel strips with each channel freely assignable from a dropdown menu.

You get four channels of Synergy Core effects which appear as the first four mixer tracks. After picking the inputs, apply any of the 37 included DSP effects by clicking the empty box above the channel fader to open a separate AFX window. Here you can create a custom signal chain, with options ranging from several EQs and compressors including recognisable emulations, Antelope’s own parametric EQ/compressor/gate/expander, and a few modulation plugs. Guitarists aren’t left out – Antelope’s partnership with Overloud led to a selection of better-than-average simulations of amps and cabs with a fair amount of tonal flexibility. The library contains emulations of amplifier heads and cabinets from Vox, Fender, Marshall and Orange, to name a few. Emulations of the Gyratec IX and RCA BA-31 preamps are in the bundle as well – great for adding a bit of grit to a track.

Antelope’s tracking reverb AuraVerb lies unassumingly in the right hand corner and is available for all 16 mixer channels. It opens in a separate window from which you can adjust send levels and reverb parameters. The main Monitor mix is mirrored on the HP1 headphones output. Artist mixes can be created through the second mixer which feeds the HP2 output on the interface. Access this mixer by clicking the Headphones 2 tab on the lower left side of the GUI window. Mixer and I/O configurations can be saved and recalled.

LITTLE BOX, BIG SOUND

After a few days putting the Zen Go to work, the little interface’s sound quality didn’t fail to impress. Firstly, of course, is the DA conversion with 127dB dynamic range, which presents music with immense detail and breathes new life into your monitors. Many small interfaces skimp on conversion to cut costs but Antelope isn’t guilty of this and I’m grateful for it. The generous 65dB of gain from the preamps is nice and quiet should you need to push it on a dynamic or ribbon mic. Tonally the preamps are clean, at the expense of character, but that’s quite okay because of the next plus: the Synergy Core effects. Want to dirty things up? Run it through a boutique preamp emulation (the aforementioned BA-31 is a favourite of mine). Or should you choose to craft a more complicated signal chain, each effect adds a sonic brushstroke of its own which plays nicely with the transparent pres to give you a mouldable front end and an expensive sounding recording. With all the sonic possibilities available, make sure you give yourself a few extra minutes before hitting record to play with the effects and find the right sound for a track.

As for driving the interface, control is limited on the Zen Go unit itself. The lack of touchscreen means preamp functions like phase inversion, phantom power and stereo link must be switched in the software, although I doubt this will be a major inconvenience for anyone given how accustomed we are to software control. 

UP & GO

There’s no shortage of reasons to consider buying the Zen Go. I’d be happy if its only role is a neat little D/A converter on my office desk! But for the producer, musician or enthusiast who’s keen to incorporate real-time effects into their recording workflow, the Zen Go strikes me as a very tempting entry point into the world of DSP acceleration. If two analogue inputs suffice, the Zen Go does away with bulky rack units and power cables. I can see it as the perfect overdubbing interface for itinerant recordists who still appreciate running mics through analogue-modelled DSP effects even when tracking last minute takes in the band’s garage or tour bus in the middle of nowhere. It’s a first-rate podcasting interface too. Being bus-powered it’s no issue if you’re away from a power socket. Run your laptop off the battery; plug in two mics; compress, filter and gate on the way in; then hit Export. 

Accessibility and portability are Zen Go’s selling points for me — the first because of its pricepoint, and the second because it’ll slip straight into a shoulder bag. Antelope Audio must have known the world needed a pocket-sized DSP-loaded interface. I think Zen Go proves they were right.

Taking things back to 1959, Antelope Audio presents an authentic emulation of the Blonder-Tongue Audio Baton. An all-tube graphic equaliser so rare and special that it has an album named after it, it is now immortalised as an authentic-sounding hardware-based software effect by Antelope Audio. Time-appropriate looks aside, the original Audio Baton boasts seven separate amplifiers tuned to distinct frequencies, followed by high- and low-pass filters running in parallel with their outputs routed to separate level controls. 

Choices for frequencies correspond to actual notes and octaves on a piano keyboard. Red markers move up and down the white vertical stripes when turning the associated rotary controls to assist with visualising boosts and cuts over nine frequency bands with a 28dB control range per band. Better still, the resultant frequency response curve is graphically overlaid on top of four horizontal stripes where each frequency region is distinctly coloured. 

Clearly technically proficient for its time, the Audio Baton was actually an inexpensive unit that found its way into audiophile homes and recording studios alike. As such, AUDIO magazine qualified it as “…indispensable to anyone interested in dubbing from old records…” while strongly recommending it “…to anyone who does much recording…” when covering it in February 1959. “Rolloff of either lows or highs due to poor microphones or narrow-range amplifiers or recorders can be corrected easily, and response peaks can be smoothed out as desired,” it also noted. 

Antelope Audio’s team of DSP and electrical engineers recreated the Blonder-Tongue Audio Baton in its entirety, exclusively for the Synergy Core real-time effects processing platform. Providing further visual feedback as a purely cosmetic enhancement entirely in keeping with this unique equalizer’s late-Fifties aesthetic, Antelope Audio added a Magic Eye peak meter to Blonder Tongue Audio Baton. Both the vintage original and contemporary recreation compare favourably to other great equalisers of the time — think Altec 9073A ‘Motown’ graphic equaliser curiosity crossed with pre-eminent Pultec tube-amplified make-up gain stage… Synergy Core has gained another must-have hardware-based software EQ effects emulation.

Fast-forwarding back to a highly-successful Seventies-vintage design, Antelope Audio’s emulation of the FILTEK MK3 is a versatile three-band equaliser with modelled transformer-based input and output sections that works in real-time with zero latency. 

As a versatile equalizer that sounds clear and precise — unusually modern for the time, it handles both broad sweeps and surgically-precise applications with equal ability. Its switch and knob combinations encourage experimentation — extreme settings at broad bandwidths turn the high and low bands into respectable shelving filters, for example. Efficient design, employing the best engineering practices and high-quality parts, produced first-class corrective capabilities and also enhancement-friendly frequency ranges. 

Results worth highlighting include boosting the high end without introducing harshness and a unique signal path allowing for parallel equalisation by mixing the boosted/attenuated signal with unprocessed audio. Antelope Audio’s dev team carefully modelled the three-band design with high- and low-pass filters — perhaps the most recognisable and arguably most flexible of the FILTER MK3’s many incarnations. In this case, each band offers a choice of 12 frequencies with boosts and cuts of up to 16dB. The three-way bandwidth (Q) switches for each band allow for bypassing specific bands when in mid-position. With FILTEK MK3, users can expect something special — clean and transparent, but packing plenty of punch and character when pushed. It is certainly an amazing-sounding addition to the frequency adjustment toolbox!

Although it almost goes without saying that musical tastes vary considerably, chances are that a so-called ‘4K’ series large-format mixing console left its musical mark on almost anyone’s favourite records. Indeed, it is still in use in many major studios to this day, despite being superseded by more modern technology — albeit, arguably, never bettered. But the ‘4K’ was certainly the console of choice for Eighties rock and synth-pop alike, and remains revered as one of the best-loved large-format mixing consoles ever made.

Today, users of Antelope Audio’s acclaimed Discrete 4 Synergy Core, Discrete 8 Synergy Core, and Orion Studio Synergy Core audio interfaces are able to enjoy one of the most faithful ‘4K’ reproductions out there with next-to-no latency and zero CPU load, thanks to the DSP+FPGA Synergy Core processing platform built into their audio interface. Initiate instances of COMP-4K-STRIP all across a session to record, monitor, mix, and master through the sought-after sound of that time-tested circuitry. COMP-4K-STRIP looks as great as it sounds, and is easy to use, courtesy of the following features and self-explanatory controls: ON/StandBy; Compressor (Threshold, Ratio, Release, And Fast Atk); Expander (Threshold, Range, Release, Exp/Gate, And Fast Atk); Filters (Low-pass Hz, Hi-pass kHz, routable pre- and post-dynamics processing with switches); and Gain (for final volume adjustment).

Arriving through the same family background, COMP-4K-BUS realistically recreates the famous ‘mix glue’ bus compressor that rose to prominence in the Eighties, residing on the master bus of a fondly-remembered series of vintage British consoles. Creatively, it was designed to bring together instruments and performances from multiple channels into a larger-than-life cohesive whole, while decades later nothing sounds quite like. COMP-4K-BUS is this gold standard of mix bus compressors, brought back to life on the Synergy Core platform. Put COMP-4K-BUS on any DAW’s master fader to start mixing right into it, or apply after everything else when the mix is ‘said and done’ to transform it into a balanced, homogenous production with no need to worry about latency or CPU load, thanks to the beautiful combination of DSP+FPGA forming the Synergy Core processing platform! Onscreen features include a vintage-style VU meter alongside Threshold; Attack Ms (Milliseconds); Ratio; Make Up; Release S (Seconds); Sc Filter Hz (Hi-Pass Sidechain Filter); Wet/Dry Mix (For Parallel Compression); and Rate S (Seconds) Controls, plus an Auto Fade Mode.

Marble White AutoWah realistically replicates a boutique auto-wah pedal from Finland whose circuit is originally based on a rack-mount wah, and refined further to sound like a real wah pedal. Put it this way: musically, Marble White AutoWah is in a league of its own, with fast tracking, amazing accuracy, and responsive controls, which works equally well on guitar and bass. Better still, its bespoke Decay control allows adjustment of the filter frequency fall speed, so Marble White AutoWah can drench every note in wah or be better behaved, so-to-speak — as expected from a more traditional autowah pedal. Powered by Antelope Audio’s acclaimed Synergy Core platform, Marble White AutoWah works in real time with no perceivable latency. Pair it with Shred Guitar Amps & Cabs to make a formidable guitar and effects rig inside the Discrete 4 Synergy Core, Discrete 8 Synergy Core, or Orion Studio Synergy Core. Little in the way of controls — Sensitivity, Bias, Resonance, and Decay — can deliver a lot of variation in the resultant auto-wah effect.

Antelope Audio’s MES-432C emulates exactly what Sontec’s top-end mastering EQ does best, by squeezing extra drops of sweetness out of an already excellent-sounding mix that needs little in the way of additional polish. Indeed, it will serve just as well when put to work on a mix bus or onto individual tracks in need of frequency boosts or cuts here and there. Apply as many instances as needed without worrying about latency and CPU load. Let Antelope Audio’s Synergy Core audio interfaces handle it all, leaving more computer power for favourite instruments and effects. MES-432C likewise looks as great as it sounds, and is easy to use, including the following features: Shelving EQ (Lo/Hi); Lo, Mid, And Hi Shape Db/Oct (Q) Controls; Lo, Mid, and Hi Freq (frequency) controls totalling 72 bands; Lo, Mid, and Hi Level dB (boost/cut) controls; and final volume adjustment.

Meanwhile, MG4 faithfully recreates the superlative sound of a legendary 500 Series EQ module from a highly-regarded Swedish brand that has made its presence felt sonically on hundreds of top charting records from the likes of Madonna, Snoop Dogg, and many more well-known faces of popular music. MG4 also features its innovative SKY BAND, able to add the kind of expensive-sounding gloss and sheen typically heard on singles benefitting from high-flying production teams and expensive equipment. This six-band EQ is also notable for its highly-linear phase operation — far from easily achievable in the analogue domain, duly endowing MG4 with an ability to preserve any audio being fed through it without suffering from any phase-shifting artefacts. As such, purity and clarity combine to be the name of the game when it comes to this EQ — perfectly powered by Antelope Audio’s latency- and CPU-free Synergy Core effects processing. The following features mirror those developed by that highly-regarded Swedish brand: IN/OUT (bypass button); SUB frequency (boost/cut control); 40 Hz (boost/cut control); 160 Hz (boost/cut control); 650 Hz (boost/cut control); 2.5 kHz (boost/cut control); SKY GAIN (control); and SKY BAND frequency (select control).

Closing out Antelope Audio’s additional six Synergy Core effects for its critically-acclaimed audio interface namesakes is its take on what a great vibrato should sound and look like — Adaptive Vibrato. Indeed, its development derived from closely examining some tried-and-tested circuits before incorporating those impressions into a virtual unit delivering a veritable vibrato toy box — complete with LATCH and TRIGGER MODE; RATE and DEPTH controls; five-way WAVE modulation; DELAY and RISE controls; THRESHOLD and ENDFREQ controls; plus control over the DRY/WET MIX. Antelope Audio’s appropriately-named Adaptive Vibrato is a notable new Synergy Core effect to be reckoned with!