I think I get it now.

I'm somewhat bummed that the software has to be part of the DAW. Always in the DAW on demand. But once its loaded, it is then in the Apollo, and like you say, the heavy lifting is then done and my DAW is merely telling the Apollo what to do. If this is the case, I'm back to smiling again?

You are now entering territory I am not familiar with sorry Chris :(. I believe though the DAW just lets you control parameters yes. The Apollo as I say is a different animal because of a proper mixer app.

The advantage of the Apollo is using it's mixer app let's you use it's plugins without the DAW, for tracking for example.. so.

I belive the apollo handles audio efx in a way similar to a digital mixer, where the processing occurs in the Apollo via its own dsp. I could be wrong, but the way I understand it is the daw is basically just streaming audio, and any additional coding, is handled thru the UAD siftware mixer.

What I thought was gojng to happen was the UAD effx would show up in the typical pluggin window in PT, but they didn't. So I dunno if my cousin did something wrong during install, but they seem to only show up in the UAD mixer. It was my understanding that they would show up as AAX, in pt, but thinking while typing, I dunno how that couldn't include some addition code in the DAW.

The UAD mixer has a switch in the master section to select whether your realtime monitoring the effects, or printing them. The possibities are huge, and as cool as the device is, it's probably very pirmal to what we'lol see in ten more years. With pre amp emulation already happening in the UAD pluggin set, I know I'm choosing my OB very carefully.

I picture the UAD mixer as a monitoring console, and the daw as the mixing console, but again I'm still a little unclear of how it's all best utilized together.

kmetal, post: 423103, member: 37533 wrote: I picture the UAD mixer as a monitoring console, and the daw as the mixing console, but again I'm still a little unclear of how it's all best utilized together.

If you are at all considering a similar workflow to me, forget about using anything other than 100% independent monitoring. I know its not easy to understand completely why, but I assure you, once you get into this, nothing rivals a system that can switch to all locations of your mix and capture, right where it is rendering. I would never consider the Apollo as my monitor controller. the monitor system is really the most important part to a two DAW system.

kmetal, post: 423103, member: 37533 wrote: I belive the [="http://www.uaudio.com/interfaces/apollo.html"]Apollo[/]="http://www.uaudio.c…"]Apollo[/] handles audio efx in a way similar to a digital mixer, where the processing occurs in the Apollo via its own dsp. I could be wrong, but the way I understand it is the daw is basically just streaming audio, and any additional coding, is handled thru the [[url=http://="http://www.uaudio.c…"]UAD[/]="http://www.uaudio.c…"]UAD[/] siftware mixer.

Cool! Thats what I'm counting on. Until I get a FW800 card, these are boxed and driving me like the munchies.

The DSP is contained on the Quad card that is part of the Apollo system. The DAW is simply streaming the processor chosen and the UAD is doing all the work. Your number of instances for plugs will depend on your processor load however. In the UAD console you can select how you want the plugins to be routed. This is where UA has a hand up on everyone else. There is a 'virtual' selection so you can choose to print through the plugins at capture.

Anything else is simply like any virtual DAW mixer....you select your plugins with whatever function you want from them and the position in the plugin queue determines what effects what and how the plug is inserted into the source at that point. Again, the DSP is taken care of by the processor card in the UA harware be it Apollo or UAD2 card. I have a UAD2 Quad in my machine. It has its own function meter telling me how much dsp is being used on it and it does separate the 4 separate chips if you want to know that.

The UAD plugs sound very realisitic and work as advertised. The company will basically walk you through any questions you might have.

As for the firewire 800, the Apollo has two firewire jacks on the back?? You can select which one is your main output to your DAW and use the other to load a hard drive if you want.