LIGHT UP ’N’ EASY

Brathwaite’s no-nonsense approach is carried through into his stripped-back Atlanta mixing space. It’s in a building owned by Akon, who has an adjacent studio. However, with Akon spending a lot of his time on humanitarian efforts — like partnering with Shell to bring electricity and running water to a whopping 600 million Africans — Brathwaite tends to have the space, which has a recording room attached, entirely to himself. 

His futuristic studio looks like it was dreamt up by a Hollywood sci-fi special effects department. The few pieces of gear are simply the Slate Raven MTi2 touchscreen, Universal Audio Apollo 8 interface, Antelope Isochrone OCX Audio Master Clock, and Focal Twin6 B monitors with a KRK sub. 

“I used to have Yamaha NS10s, but don’t use them anymore, and my white KRK Rockets also don’t see much action,” said Braithwaite. “I fell in love with the Focals six years ago, and never looked back. I used to have a Mac tower, but I now run everything off the iMac. Being old school, and having worked for many years on an SSL, I like to touch things, but I don’t actually use the Raven touchscreen function much, apart from some convenience functions like batch commands, which assign a whole lot of commands to one button. I moved fully in the box about six or seven years ago, because doing recalls on a large format console became a pain, and working in the box is faster, and also better for smaller budget projects. My flow is so easy now that I don’t need an assistant anymore. Also, the UAD plug-ins give me the sonic warmth and depth I’m after.

“Mostly, going in the box was about being able to work faster and being more productive. If you eliminate organising, cleaning up mixes and printing them, the core of mixing really does not take that long. Perhaps an hour. If you spend more than a couple of core hours mixing a song, you can unravel a mix. It really does not take that long to get the sounds you really need. Mixing in the box has made many things faster, but what still takes a lot of time is getting feedback from artists and producers, particularly if they change their minds, and want to add new tracks or replace things.”

HAVING THE 808s NUMBER

The less is more approach also extends to the music Brathwaite primarily works with. The Atlanta trap variation of hip hop — with its dominant 808 bass and hi-hats, often no actual bass-line, and very little musical content and mid-range — strongly influences R&B and pop as well. Based in Atlanta, Brathwaite is right in the middle of this development, and he explains that balancing the kick against the 808 has become the new low-end challenge, while the lack of mid-range instruments tends to make mixing in the vocals much easier. Despite it being easier to find space for the vocal than in the past, Brathwaite still holds on to one of his own tried and tested working methods, which puts him at odds with many of his colleagues who tend to start their mix with the kick. 

“During my entire mix process, I am mentally mixing everything around the vocal,” he explained. “When I start work on a session, I will first mute all the instruments and start with the vocals. As opposed to getting a good mix of the music and fitting the vocals in with that, I think in the opposite way. Everything I do is based on getting the vocals to sound amazing and fitting everything else around that. When I hear a track the first time, I already know with a certain level of certainty how every part of the arrangement will affect everything else. So I’m always thinking about all aspects of the session, and where I need to compensate and where I don’t. Every stage of mixing has a thought process behind it, and you’re also thinking about all the other thought processes to occur after that.

“So when I start a session and solo the vocals, I’ll first clean them up and make sure they are tuned as required. I often work with very experienced engineers, but they don’t always have the time to clean up every single thing. For example, with the Cardi B album, Evan was recording as fast as I was mixing. Often the vocals I receive are tuned, but based on the relationship I have with the client I know whether to tune them some more and mess with them a little bit, or leave that aspect alone. In any case, tuned vocals are part of today’s sound. Artists like Migos want the Antares AutoTune robotic sound, but even a great singer like Ariana wanted a little tuning on her vocals. When we were mixing Beyoncé, she also wanted some tuning, not to correct her vocals, but because she wanted the sound and feel of AutoTune.

“When people want that robotic sound, I use AutoTune, but when I’m dealing with someone who sings really well but there are a couple of bad notes, I’ll reach for Melodyne. I don’t use Melodyne as a plug-in, instead I use the standalone version, and then reimport the tuned vocals into the session. In my experience, the real-time tuning process is a bit hit and miss. During some passes it may miss a tuning issue, or it doesn’t tune the note the same every time you play it. It may even have weird glitches on it now and then, so I always print tuned vocals in the session. I do the same for all effects that are random to some degree, like flanging from the MetaFlanger or an autopan plug-in. You don’t want a word on the right during one playback and on the left during the next.”

VOCAL ON DOWN

Once the vocals are cleaned up and tuned, Braithwaite engages some vocal treatments before moving on to other parts of the mix. “My vocal chain starts with a de-esser, usually the Waves Renaissance, and I then add a little bit of compression,” he said. “I tend to fix level issues with vocal rides, but I may put on a Waves Renaissance compressor, with a 3:1 ratio, and back it off a little bit. After that I’ll have the Waves SSL EQ, or sometimes the UAD SSL. Most microphones represent the low end in a weird way, so I usually cut some low end. Then I work on the high-mid frequencies, because some of them can be annoying.

“Then I’ll bus the vocals to an aux, and that aux will usually have a second de-esser, working lightly, and then another compressor, maybe the UAD Fairchild 670 Legacy set to default to add a little colour and presence. Then, if I want to add some sheen after the de-essing, I’ll engage the UAD Precision EQ and boost just 1dB at 27K. This pulls everything up in the higher regions to give a nice, smooth high end. 

“My vocal reverb of choice is the Altiverb. I love the smoothness of it, and with so many different impulse responses you can find all kinds of neat things. I’m a visual person, and I like the aesthetic and being able to see what the room looks like. My vocal delay will be the Waves HDelay. Ping-pong delays are not my preference, but if there’s one in the session I’ll honour it.

“Once I’ve got the vocals the way I want them, I’ll get some general vocal levels, but unless a word really pops out, I won’t do any involved vocal rides, because they depend on whatever else happens around the vocal. My next step is to work on the kick and 808. In a lot of hip hop and pop music these days the 808 acts like the bass, so the fight you had back in the day of the bass and kick has now become the fight between the 808 and the kick. The two usually work well together, because they have different properties and are in different frequency ranges. In Migos’ and a lot of Cardi B’s music, the 808 and the hi-hats drive the song together.

“My plug-in choices for the 808 usually start with the UAD Little Labs Voice of God bass resonance tool. I don’t often tweak any of the other parameters besides the amplitude. The other thing I might do is run the 808 through a UAD Pultec EQ or the Waves Puigtec EQ, just to add some 30Hz or 60Hz for some more warmth, depending on the 808, but not too much. I usually boost the kick between 60Hz and 100Hz, using the UAD Pultec EQP-1A. Those are my weapons of choice on the 808 and kick. 

“In general I don’t add kick or snare samples, nor do I use a lot of plug-ins. Many artists are so tuned into the rough, they don’t want the sounds dramatically changed. So putting on a whole load of plug-ins, or adding samples, can be counter-productive. After that I’ll get to the bass, if there is one. I’ll probably also run it through a UAD Fairchild 670 Legacy. The bass preset on that works really well for many bass sounds. So I’ll get the low end of kick, 808 and/or bass working right, and then I’ll bring in the snare and the hi-hats. I don’t do much to them, sometimes I’ll add some high end to get some more crack.

“From there I’ll bring in the other instruments. In the case of Cardi B’s Money, the main driving instrument is the piano, so I have to make sure that rings through. In Money, all I did was add some high end to the piano, to make sure it cut through a bit more. In a lot of R&B, hip hop and pop these days there are only one or two driving instruments, which gives a lot of space to the vocals. Once I have the drums and the music sounding the way I want it, I bring the vocals back in, and do the final vocal rides.”

CLEAN MASTER

The final mix stage involves Brathwaite getting feedback on his mixes, and then printing them and sending them to the mastering engineer. Once again, he has a few approaches that are well out of the mainstream, most notably not putting anything on the master bus. “One of several things I do very early on in the mix process is figure out who is in charge, who am I answering to, who will do the final approval on a mix. This varies from situation to situation. With Pharrell, it’s him, but if it’s Pharrell and Beyoncé, like on the Everything Is Love album, it’s Beyoncé. With Cardi B, it is Craig Kallman, head of Atlantic. Cardi also gives feedback too and approves mixes, but Craig has the final say.

“When I send my mixes out to my clients, I may put the Slate FG-X mastering process on the master bus, just to boost volume, but when I’m printing my mixes for the mastering engineer, I don’t put anything on. I don’t want to get involved in the whole loudness issue, and I prefer to give the mastering engineer the space to do their thing. I know that many mixers feel pushed to come in at the level of the rough, or louder, but because you are in control of the technical environment, you have to guide the artist. I tell them: ‘Don’t judge this mix as it is, wait until it has been mastered, and then judge.’ I feel that mixing and mastering are two very different disciplines, and I like to stick to the mixing component!”

FIRING IT UP

Having gotten along well with the Qu, I was eager to boot up the latest from Allen & Heath.

While the SQ series can interface with the 48k AR series of stage box extenders, TAG supplied me with a 96k 16-in/8-out DX stage box. At our local church, I ripped out our trusty Digico SD9 and D-Rack, and hooked up the 32+1 fader SQ7 and DX rack.

Being used to the soft power delivery of the SD9, I’ve become a little lazy with my boot up order. Obviously, amps should be turned down when you power up your desk, or powered up last. They weren’t in this instance and I got a bit of a fright when the SQ7 fired up with a bang. The next time,
I was more prepared.

The first thing that became apparent was the size. The SQ7 was almost half the depth of the SD9 (which has dLive-sized touchscreens), making it look like a child swimming in the oversized pants of our AV desk. You could save a lot of room with this console; it’s smartly packaged.

Operating on it isn’t at all claustrophobic. Losing the full set of EQ knobs frees up a lot of room around the screen, and the symmetrical knob layout feels spacious.

As far as I’m concerned, the more colours the better. I never feel like I suffer from over saturation. I’d argue we could use even more differentiation within the major hues. The new d-Live knobs are spectacular in that regard. The central LED illuminates in a colour specific to the function, which is of great importance when using the eight customisable soft rotaries.

These are defined by a three-layer system. You start with the Function, e.g. Send Level Fader, or Compressor; then you specify the Channel, e.g. Kick; then the specific Destination of Parameter, e.g. Aux 1, or Threshold. However, in the above example, the display will show ‘Kick’ for both rotaries. It’s the colour LED on the knob that gives away the Function, e.g. light blue for Sends, and orange for Compression. It could do with a third level of detail in those cases, but it’s better to have them than not.

FAMILIAR LOOK

The Allen & Heath digital look is well and truly alive. If you’re familiar with a Qu, you’ll have no trouble jumping onto an SQ. Big buttons in well-spaced layouts, and a plethora of options made simple to navigate.

Your local and remote I/O is all available in tabs on the Routing page. Within each tab is a matrix, allowing you to assign, for instance, Input 1 on your DX168 stage box to Input 13 on your console. Your sources are laid out along the top of the matrix, with console input destinations down the side. Outputs are on a separate page, keeping routing nice and tidy. With the matrix, it’s also easy to send the same stream to multiple physical outputs. I sent the Master LR mix to a foyer send with zero effort.

Once you’ve routed all your I/O, it’s time to customise those fader layers. In the setup section, there are two lanes. The top one contains your available inputs and busses, and the bottom lane shows your selected fader layer. It’s as easy as dragging ’n’ dropping any available channel — whether an input, FX, aux, etc — to the fader layer below. If you want to leave a gap or delete a channel from your fader bank, simply flick it away with your finger and it will disappear from the layer.

DCA assignment is similarly easy, all done from a single screen. Just select your DCA and hit the Routing button to add and subtract channels.

Ganging channels into stereo pairs is done on the Mixer Config page, where you can switch pairs into either mono or stereo. When in stereo, it combines them onto a single fader. There are also loads of options for stereo imaging, whether its just switching the left and right, or phase flipping one side, mono-ing the feed by sending both left and right to each side, or decoding M/S streams to output M+S/M-S.

While you’re assigning channels, you can also set up a full 48-channel auto mic mixing setup. Either in two separate groups of 24 channels, or one huge auto mix. It’s not a feature I often use, but the absolute right tool for certain scenarios. It’s a huge addition, especially given it’s part of the basic package.

PROCESSING CHAIN LINK

Each channel has a typical processing strip. At the top is the preamp section, with a gain knob, meter and the usual suspects like +48V phantom (hold down to turn on) and phase flip. Gain goes from 0-60dB in 1dB steps, with a digital trim of ±24dB for plenty of flexibility when gain sharing for monitors. Allen & Heath is also giving away a tube-style preamp emulation to add a bit of drive to your input stage.

Next is a readout for the fixed-slope HPF, which is also displayed in the parametric EQ section.

After that is a functional gate section, which was dead easy to operate. It has your typical attack, hold and release parameters for dialling in a natural-sounding response. Threshold and depth (0-60dB) controls complete the gain reduction picture. As well as red meter showing its action, there’s also a 12-second histogram graphing out its signal reduction in realtime. You can also side-chain the gate to another channel, as well as engage a high-pass, band-pass or low-pass filter for your key.

Next in line is the insert, which can be fed to and from any number of analogue and digital I/O, including one of the internal FX engines. There’s an operating level option, and the ability to turn the insert on or off, but wet/dry mix is left to your effect unit.

The four-band parametric EQ is also quite smart. The physical knobs give you broad control over frequency settings, and you can use the Touch ’n’ Turn knob to more finely dial them in. Despite the broader control when using the main knobs, the frequency choices do smartly snap to ratios and octaves of the other bands. Often when cutting out a problematic frequency, there can be a resonant harmonic in the octave above; this feature makes it fast to get at.

You can only access the shelf settings in the high and low bands by winding the Q all the way out with the Touch ’n’ Turn knob. This keeps users from accidentally turning a bell into a shelf when trying to widen a band.

The last processor before the pan control is the compressor. The only thing it’s lacking is an auto makeup gain control, and it’s also not multi-band. Other than that, it’s richly appointed for an onboard compressor. You can choose between peak and RMS detection modes, hard and soft knee, a side chain, and filter settings including a bandpass for use as a de-esser. While you can drop the filter in and out, it would be handy to have a key listen feature, especially when trying to dial in a de-esser setting.

A big feature is the parallel compression path, with independent level setting for the dry and wet signals. While it takes a bit longer to set than a single Wet/Dry control, it does allow you a different perspective when you’re able to leave your dry signal at full level while dialling in the wet, rather than chasing a ratio. It’s much of a muchness, just more control.

If you need more processing power, Allen & Heath has also announced an optional Waves Soundgrid card, for 64 x 64-channel processing.

GRAPHIC METERING

On the mix bus masters, you lose the gate, but get a 31-band graphic equaliser, as well as the parametric EQ. There’s a flip fader to GEQ button on the console for easy access. There’s no 0dB detent on the fader (either for the GEQ or in normal fader mode), but the select LED lights up green when you’re at 0dB, and you can hit the select button to zero out the fader.

There’s an onboard 31-band RTA, which follows the PAFL selection. If you plug in a measurement mic, it can help tune a room, with prominent frequencies displayed in red.

There’s plenty of onscreen bar graph level metering throughout the console screens, including a dedicated Input Meters screen and a small meter attached to every processing section of your channel. There’s also a multi-segment LED meter that follows your PAFL or defaults to the main LR mix.

For physical monitoring at the fader, Allen & Heath has opted for two LEDs. There’s a red Peak LED, and a multi-colour LED for Signal level. You can customise the dB levels at which different colours come on, or stick to the defaults which will light up from green-y blue, to green, yellow, and orange, depending on how hot your signal is.

DOWN TO THE MIX

Mixing is a pleasure on the SQ, and yards ahead of the Qu thanks to the customisable fader banks and LCD screens. You can easily access the four dedicated FX sends and each of your 12 mixes (which can be configured as groups or auxes, pre or post) by hitting the buttons spaced down the side. While there’s no LCD screens to name your mixes, there’s enough space to lay down some electrical tape and label them up. The Main LR mix button is indented from the rest of the mix button row, unfortunately the button is the same colour and size as the rest. With so many available mixes, it’s not hard to adjust the wrong mix layer when you’re finding your way around the console. A bigger button, with a different coloured LED would have helped.

A really handy feature is the ‘CH To All Mix’ button. With a channel selected, holding this button down attentions all its associated auxes, groups and effects into one fader layer, so you can adjust the level of each in one place. It’s momentary, not latching, so you have to hold it down with one hand while you adjust the faders with your free hand.

Getting around the console is dead easy, and the onboard effects sound stellar. There was the occasional parameter I couldn’t assign to a soft button or rotary — mostly to do with FX — but they were arguably more scene-specific controls anyway.

Overall, the console sounds great. The punchier top end was immediately noticeable after switching out the SD9, which runs the D-Rack stage box. The Audix D6 has a reputation for being a quintessential modern scooped kick mic, but I always found myself winding in more top end click on the SD9. On the SQ7, I ran it flat. Same kick drum, same mic, totally different results. Likewise, a typically muddy rhythm guitar sound cut through with ease on the SQ.

I was shocked by how different the two systems sounded, and grappled with the differences during my first mix — feeling like I’d lost a little of the relaxed glue I was used to — but settled in from then on.

One of the benefits of Digico systems is their ability to musically handle clipping. Turning it into a pleasing saturation rather than a blemish. The SQ7 was forgiving in this regard, too.

The SQ series is really well thought out, and while it looks like the next step up from a Qu, it’s really much more like getting a huge chunk of the d-Live system for a steal. The SQ series can be coupled to a d-Live-derived stage box. Sure, it’s not the big DM48 touring rack with all the redundancy features, but it has the same pres. Onboard, the SQ has the same XCVI core with 96-bit accumulator headroom as the d-Live, the same <0.7ms latency, the same 96k internal processing, it also has the same FX, the same DEEP processing preamp capabilities and will have the same plug-ins available. You’re getting flagship sound in a package that starts under $8k (SQ-5 and one DX168).

AIRING IT OUT

As far as PA demonstration conditions go, the Bali launch of the Vio L212 was near on perfection. Rear reflections weren’t an issue here — the two L212 hangs of 12-a-side with 18 S218 groundstacked subwoofers fired out over 100m of unobstructed lawns, then straight into the ocean. Visitors could roam around weighing up the system’s throw and coverage. A variety of program playback was followed by a local cover band who rocked out for the rest of the evening. Hearing the rig with a live band gave a sense of the system’s ability to project a wide dynamic range with presence and impact. The L212’s tone feels pleasantly uncoloured and it didn’t grow fatiguing. Even more impressive is the pristine preservation of high end at distances over 80m. The S218 subs are clean and tight with excellent rear cancellation in cardioid configuration.

THE BIG PICTURE

So what’s the end game for this ambitious company? Manuele emphatically states that dBTechnologies has no interest in competing with the PA giants. Instead, the vision is to hit the mid-range pro audio market hard with the intent of becoming the leading PA supplier in that market segment. dBTechnologies hopes that by achieving that goal its products will become attractive alternatives for the lower end of the top-range market.

In other words, if you run a rental company with an inventory that’ll handle the next Foo Fighters show, chances are you’re not on the waiting list for a Vio demonstration. Although you may fancy a Vio rig as a backup offering when all your L-Acoustics and d&b stock is on the road.

On the other hand if your rental company is looking to step up from supplying birthday parties and smaller corporate gigs, dBTechnologies wants its line array systems to be positioned as your premium option.

Vio systems are priced very competitively. After spending three days with dBTechnologies distributors, a common catch phrase seemed to be “a very high performance-to-price ratio.” You get a lot of PA for what you pay. And that’s enough to put heat on the big players and how they pitch their lower level offerings.

“We really brought the best engineers in firmware, software, acoustic design, transducer design and mechanical design,” says Marco. “Together these brought the realisation of the Ferrari of the line array system.”

That is, loud, proud, stylish and top of the line from the Italian manufacturer. Exclusive, just not in the rarified air of a Bugatti.

www.dbtechnologies.com
www.nas.solutions

LOAD ’EM UP

So what can you do with six UAD-2 processors? Well as I discovered, quite a lot. I tried a few experiments with loading plug-ins into the Console channel inserts and managed 12 Neve 1073 preamp/EQs before I maxed out the DSP headroom. The less power-hungry EMT140 reverb (a personal favourite) managed 30 instances while I got a sore finger clicking up 44 instances of the Fairchild 670 Legacy compressor and then discovered I’d only used up 37% of available DSP! Suffice to say there’s considerable processing power on offer and if, like me, you’ve been carefully spreading out your UAD plug-in instances on a less powerful system you’ll be able to let your hair down a little (or a lot).

PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED

The designers’ other main priority with the X range was upgrading the conversion and clocking. UA’s converters have always sounded good but the Apollo X series delivers improved specs across the range with upgraded ESS Sabre chips and a redesign of their associated analogue circuitry. UA is claiming the sound of these new converters is ‘mastering grade’ with the x8’s signal to noise ratio 3dB higher than the mkII Apollo 8 on the AD side, 6dB higher for DA and an impressive 8dB higher on the monitor outputs. The x8 also boasts impressive total harmonic distortion figures of -113 dB (0.00022% @ 23 dBu) on the line inputs and -119 dB (0.00011% @ -1 dBFS) on the line outputs.

Improvements in headroom mean the x6, x8 and x8p boast 129dB DA dynamic range, while the x16 ups the ante to 133 dB. UA’s new dual-crystal clocking circuitry offers improved stability by using separate clocks for 44.1kHz and 48kHz operation (and their corresponding multiples), meaning much simpler maths and therefore reduced jitter and digital artifacts at higher resolutions. While minimal improvements to latency were achieved the x8 still delivers a miniscule 1.1 milliseconds analogue round-trip latency at the 96kHz sample rate. Even more impressively, latency is still 1.1ms when four plug-ins are instanced on a Console input channel. The UAD plugs generate zero additional latency on the input even under heavy DSP processing loads.

SURROUND BOUND

AV post-production is an area where the Apollos haven’t really had a big impact but that may be about to change. The Apollo x6 offers 5.1 monitoring and all the other units offer up to 7.1 surround. The surround software is still in the final stages of development and is due to be released in the next few months. As I write this details are still a little thin on the ground but the gist is you will be able to setup a 5.1 or 7.1 monitoring matrix via the software in the UA Console application and assign it to the physical outputs. There won’t be surround versions of the UAD plug-ins per se (which is a bit of a shame) but, as is already the case, they can be used in linked multi-mono mode within DAWs that support this approach. This looks like a bit of a toe-in-the-water move by Universal Audio and they are on record as saying future developments in this area will be driven by customer needs so watch this space.

X MARKS THE SPOT

After checking out the specs and playing with the talkback mic and a few software parameters, my first proper experience with the Apollo x8 was a simple acoustic guitar and vocal recording. I hooked the unit up via a Thunderbolt cable (not supplied) to a Mac Pro laptop running Pro Tools, downloaded the Apollo software and was quickly in business. I plugged a Neumann U87 into the Apollo’s built-in mic preamp and placed it about a foot and a half away from the sound-hole of my Martin steel string acoustic. The Martin sounded sweet and balanced with the Apollo capturing every nuance of string and wood beautifully. Having been an Apollo user for many years the sound of the new unit was very familiar, with perhaps a hint of extra definition and dimension to the sound.

I added some layered vocals and a few extra guitar parts to hear how the tones stacked up and found the character of the new converters very pleasing indeed. The next session was with Melbourne synth-pop act the Sugar Glass Project. We tracked electric bass, drums, acoustic and electric guitars plus a rough guide vocal through the Apollo x8 via a variety of mics and preamps. The results were great and I enjoyed using the built-in talkback mic (having assigned it to the multi-purpose Function button on the front panel). It was a vibey session and the band went home happy. With one-off sessions like this it is hard to rate the new converters against the old as there are always so many variables on any given day of tracking, but I was really happy with the sound of the new Apollo. To better assess the character of its converters I did some A/B tests that gave me the chance to sit back and listen more objectively.

TESTING TIMES

First up I looped a longish passage with electric guitar and keys via my loop pedal into a guitar amp and set up an SM57 right on the cab and a Neumann U87 as a middle distance room mic. The mics were recorded into Pro Tools via channels 1 and 2 of the Apollo x8 as well as the same channels in an original silver face Apollo with identical gain settings. I then overdubbed a simple drum part over the top with the same two mics on overhead and room snare duties. A second test involved one of the most important conversion tasks in my studio — transferring multi-track tape recordings into my DAW. For this test I used an excerpt of a simple vocal, guitar and drum machine recording by South Australian singer-songwriter Louise Adams. Again both Apollo machines were used with identical gain settings on the line inputs and all recordings were done at 24-bit/48kHz resolution. Finally, I recorded a mastered track by Sydney artist Emma Davis through the line inputs to hear how the converters ‘heard’ a more polished final product.

Repeated listening through various sets of speakers and headphones revealed some interesting differences. Most noticeable to me was a subtle tightening of lower-mid and bass frequencies in the x8 recordings. In general the bottom half of the spectrum sounded a little more defined and well articulated. The new Apollo also exhibited a slightly different character in the top end with a tickle more sheen above 10kHz and improved management of things like sibilance around the critical 4-8kHz zone. These differences were far from pronounced. They were subtle but noticeable with careful listening and more or less in line with my expectations of the x8. At this level, enhancements are incremental and unlikely to reveal night and day differences. The Apollo x8 sound shares many qualities with its older sibling but to my ears the fidelity and realism of the sounds has gone up a couple of notches.

X FACTOR

Universal Audio has once again positioned itself well in a crowded marketplace by updating the Apollo converters and adding value to the new X range. Whether the incremental improvements in sonics, processing power and features are enough to see a mass migration from the older units to the new ones remains to be seen but initial pre-orders are strong in Australia and the units have been very well received overseas. Expect further software releases from UA in the near future that will unleash the full power of the X range with surround monitoring being the next cab off the rank. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see UAD-3 plug-ins before too long as well. Those who do pull the trigger on an Apollo X model will certainly not be disappointed by the sound or versatility of the units but, as always, buyers should be sure to keep a few extra dollars stashed away in the cookie tin for all those tasty UAD plug-ins.

HEAR THE DIFFERENCE

To check out Greg Walker’s comparison between his original Silver Face converters and those on the x8, head to soundcloud.com/audiotechnology