Gizmodo 
Enter your username and password.
Tip your editors:
Editorial Director:
Brian Lam | | Twitter
Editor:
Jason Chen
| AIM | Twitter
Features Editor:
Wilson Rothman
| Twitter
Senior Contributing Editors:
Jesus Diaz
| AIM | Twitter
Mark Wilson, Reviews
| AIM | Twitter
Contributing Editors:
Matt Buchanan
| AIM | Twitter
Adam Frucci
| Twitter
Sean Fallon
| Twitter
Jack Loftus
| Twitter
John Herrman
| Twitter
Dan Nosowitz
Chris Mascari
Danny Allen
| Twitter
Rosa Golijan
| Twitter
Chris Jacob
Columnist:
Brendan I. Koerner
Interns:
Don Nguyen
Kyle VanHemert
Comment Account Questions:
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
07/09/09
07/09/09
07/09/09
07/10/09
07/10/09
07/09/09
07/09/09
07/09/09
If that's the case, then it's a big FAIL for me.
07/09/09
06/26/09
And what's the point of the "famous Apogee converters" anyway when you can't use condenser mics and you don't have balanced outputs with separate jacks for each channel? I'll tell you: no point. You lose all the advantages of the good converters because of the crippled other features. Now, don't get me wrong: Apogee does amazing hardware but that's for $1000 and more.
06/26/09
The big question mark is how good will this sound. If it sounds good, $250 is low for an Apogee product that does everything this box says it does.
Those $100 do it all interfaces are starter kits. An Apogee device *could* be more of a serious tool.
06/26/09
Apogee started as a high end converter company and keeps dipping lower and lower, but they seem to do a good job of keeping quality decent even at lower prices.
There was a lot of skepticism when they first included mic preamps in their Trak2, but the preamps were awesome. And the newer Ensemble ($2000) and Duet ($500) interfaces are both good at their prices.
So while it's hard to believe they could offer all those functions and a decent mic at $250 and still have it live up to Apogee's quality, maybe they'll pull it off.
I could see this being popular with singer songwriters, or for musicians slinging an interface in a backpack with a laptop to record single instrument ideas away from the studio.
06/26/09
06/26/09
If their microphone and preamp is somehow decent (like the one in my Boss Micro BR) and it comes with XP drivers and it is preferably supported by ProTools then I won't hesitate.
During studio sessions I record 24 tracks simultaneous, but when I write I like to book a hotel in a sunny country, bag my guitar and a small recorder with mic.
Hmmm, I just read the compatibility list, this thing is not for me! No Windows and no ProTools. I'll have to hackingtosh my laptop first :(
@deathbychichi: 24 bit 96k is not a measurement of quality. It is like saying my speakers are 500W. Sound quality differences between converters are a multitude bigger than my mood swings.
06/26/09
Also, the fact that the Apogee can record 24 bit words is more important than if it could record at 96 kHz. Going from 16 bit to 24 bits is more sonically meaningful than upping the sampling rate from 44.1 to 96.
It also keeps it compatible with Garaband, which can record in 24 bit but maxes out at 44.1/44.8 (a large intended market).
But if you want to record in stereo, then obviously this isn't for you!
06/26/09
As for ProTools compatibility, it depends on your ProTools. If it's one of the versions that runs on CoreAudio, it should work. If it doesn't, you could try using Digidesign's CoreAudio driver which sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.
06/26/09
I agree, 24-bit/48kHz is plenty for any audio-only distribution at this point. I have the ability to record at 96kHz and never do, it is just a waste of space and system resources for me.
06/27/09