New Gear Review: Apollo Twin MkII by Universal Audio

The new Apollo Twin MkII by Universal Audio may not look very different than its predecessor, but it is packed with tons of great new features under the hood.

At the beginning of this year, Universal Audio unveiled the successor to the wildly popular Apollo Twin desktop interface: The Apollo Twin MkII.

Although the MkII may not appear much different than its predecessor at first glance (barring the sleek new black color scheme), Universal Audio calls it “A ground-up redesign of the world’s most popular desktop interface.” Surprisingly, on most accounts, this statement rings true.

Perhaps the single most alluring feature of the Apollo Twin is UA’s proprietary “Unison” technology, which is present in the entire line of Apollo interfaces.

Unison, if you’re not familiar with it already, may be one of the most significant technological developments the recording industry has seen in the last twenty-or-so years. An idea like this one is especially crucial when considering the ongoing lust for classic analog gear and the indisputable rise to dominance of home recording setups in place of larger commercial studios for a wide variety of audio work.

Unison facilitates real time, bi-directional, continuous interaction between hardware and software, changing the input impedance of the Apollo’s onboard mic preamps to behave like that of the specific tube and solid state preamps, guitar and bass amps, or stompboxes it is modeling. This all happens prior to the analog-to-digital conversion, therefore committing “to tape” (or “to binary”?) things like gain staging sweet spots and circuit component behavior of the equipment it is emulating.

Having debuted in 2014, Unison is not a recent development, but the new UAD-2 QUAD Core processing available in the Apollo Twin MkII enables you to take what the Apollo offers even further than before, offloading even more CPU duties to the interface itself.

(The MkII is available in SOLO, DUO and QUAD Core configurations for DSP processing, while the original Apollo Twin maxes out at DUO Core.)

But Unison is just the tip of the iceberg. The legacy of the Putnam family has cemented Universal Audio as one of the most reputable and trusted brands the audio industry has ever seen, and year after year, they continue to deliver. The Apollo Twin MkII turns out to be no exception.

Features

Unison technology and extra processing power aside, there’s still much to talk about with the Apollo Twin MkII.

The 2×6 Thunderbolt interface can record at up to 24-bit/192kHz and features upgraded AD & DA conversion said to deliver increased dynamic range, as well as improved monitoring capabilities including Talkback, Mute, DIM, Mono and ALT speaker switching.

The unit includes two Unison-equipped mic/line preamps, two line outputs, two monitor outputs (at full resolution), a front panel Hi-Z instrument input and a headphone output. There are also up to eight channels of digital input available via Optical TOSLINK connection, bringing the total I/O tally of Apollo Twin MkII to 10×6. You can do a lot of damage with this amount of I/O.

Additionally, when connecting the Twin MkII to other Apollo devices as part of a larger system, the Twin MkII can be used as a monitor controller. The expanded monitoring functions really come in handy here.

The Apollo Twin MkII includes UAD’s “Realtime Analog Classics” plugin bundle, enabling you to track through legacy versions of some of the most sought-after analog gear in history with near-zero latency. The unit runs the UAD-2 plugins via VST, AU, RTAS, and AAX 64-bit in all major DAWS.

You can get a full breakdown of the tech specs offered in Apollo Twin MkII starting on page 28 of the user manual, and an itemized list of the different UAD-2/Apollo plugin bundles here.

The box the Apollo Twin MkII ships in is peppered with image clippings of the finest gear in the history of recorded music: Neve 1073’s, API channel strips, Fairchild 670’s… the list goes on. After wrapping my head around what Unison is and just how deep it goes, it only makes sense to exploit these pieces in UA’s marketing strategy.

The unit itself has a nice weight to it, the metal casing feels solid, and the central knob is big and lends a sense of dominance, which is nice especially for adjusting overall playback level. (Who prefers tiny knob for this?)

Directly below the control knob is a horizontal strip filled with indicator lights that allows control over both input and monitoring.

To the left of this strip is a button labeled “Preamp,” which selects input mode for this strip and allows you to choose between routing either the Mic, Line, or Hi-Z input to the selected channel’s preamp. You can toggle between mic and line sources by pressing the “Input” button. The Hi-Z input is available exclusively for Channel 1, and is automatically selected as the input when an instrument cable is plugged into it.

When in input mode, each preamp has a set of controls located below the central control knob: Input, High-pass (at 75Hz), Phantom Power (which flashes until the current is stabilized—excellent touch here), 20dB Pad, Phase Invert, and “Link,” which activates Channels 1 & 2 as a stereo pair.

When you engage the “Monitor” button to the far right, the bottom half of the indicator strip below the central control knob reflects the output functions of the Apollo Twin MkII instead. Here you will find controls for TALK (Talkback), DIM, ALT (Alternate outputs), FCN (Function), Mono, and Mute.

UA implemented some creative touches here for Talkback and Function controls. For instance, if TALK is pressed and released quickly, talkback (along with DIM) operates in latch mode. However, if you press and hold for longer than a half second, it functions in momentary mode. The same goes for the DIM button. The FCN switch can be assigned to control one of three monitoring functions when Apollo Twin MkII is part of a larger thunderbolt-equipped system of Apollo interfaces.

The Apollo Twin MkII may be small, but don’t underestimate its capabilities—this unit is easily expandable to support additional inputs, and can also be integrated into a larger-format Apollo rig as a monitor controller.

The rear panel of the unit is pretty straightforward: Here you have an On/Off rocker switch, a locking power supply input (again, nice touch here), optical input, Thunderbolt port (Note: the Apollo Twin MkII cannot be bus powered), and connections for the analog I/O. The stereo Line and Monitor outputs are 1/4” TRS while the two Mic/Line inputs are XLR/TRS combo jacks.

In Use

Admittedly, I had a little bit of trouble getting up and running with the unit. I’m pretty good at troubleshooting computer issues with respect to recording gear, but it took a full PRAM/NVRAM/SMC reset before my computer was able to communicate with the interface. After that, a full Pro Tools preferences reset was necessary in order for me to successfully implement the Apollo Twin MkII as a playback device. Considering these issues, it’s worth nothing that I am running an older operating system (OS X 10.9.5) with Pro Tools 11—not the most up-to-date setup.

That said, UA tech support came through with flying colors (though I should mention that my tech support ticket was expedited because of this review, which may not be the case for everyone). With response times clocking in at under an hour every time, literally everything they suggested worked, and by the third correspondence I was fully up and running.

I must say that going through the UA Console app before even hitting Pro Tools was pretty awesome. You really get the same sense of analog flow that only exists when working on a desk, and you need to treat it as such. This applies especially with respect to signal flow and gain staging. I urge you to take chances, get creative, and trust your ears rather than your eyes when working with Unison.

Although I can see budding engineers and novices pulling up a plugin or preamp simulation and successfully printing into a DAW, the seasoned engineer is the true beneficiary of the Unison workflow, in my estimation. You can truly dial in the character, harmonics and unique tonality of each sound through Unison, the same way you would commit to tape. And, when you stack thousands of these tiny moves on top of each other throughout the course of an entire production, the end result is very non-linear, rich and complex—all of the things digital lacks.

In regard to the updated converters in Apollo Twin MkII, to be fair, my only real basis of comparison here is the Digidesign 192 that I still work on daily. I cannot speak to the conversion in the original Apollo Twin because I’ve never used it, and as of late the Burl B80 Mothership is all the rage, which I have also yet to properly shoot out.

That said, the conversion both ways in the Apollo MkII seems clean, open, and dynamic in all of the ways I would hope for when sending signal in and out of a DAW. Unison gives you plenty of room for grit and coloration on the way in, so I’ve got no qualms here with the Apollo Twin MkII’s conversion. Plus, who really wants coloration at the conversion stage anyway? Familiar mixes sounded, well, as good as I’ve heard on any other pro system, so until I hear converters that make me want to jump ship, I’m content to stay put with both the Apollo Twin MkII and my 192.

UA was kind enough to send me an Apollo Twin MkII with QUAD Core processing for review, and this is my first instance ever of being able to offload processing to an external unit, so I was excited to see how far I can push a session.

A brief side story here: Initially, UA had sent me a UAD-2 Satellite with OCTO Core processing for review, but it was lost in the mail. When they suggested the switch to the Apollo MkII with QUAD Core processing, I was slightly skeptical it would get tripped up in a really dense mix due to having half the processing power of the OCTO Core Satellite.

Result? Not the case! I pulled up a session with extremely dense instrumentation, went nuts on the UAD-2 bundle and my rig didn’t bat an eye.

To Be Critical

Other than the roadblocks I encountered during initial setup of the Apollo Twin MkII, I’ve really got no qualms here. And those roadblocks may very well have been exclusive to my particular setup, computer, operating system, version of Pro Tools, etc. Regardless, UA customer support more than made up for these hurdles.

That said, I do feel it’s important to note that after full reboots, sometimes my computer still failed to see the interface. A simple power down/power up of the Apollo Twin MkII was the solution—no PRAM/NVRAM/SMC resetting or Pro Tools preference trashing necessary here.

Summing it Up

If two inputs were all I need, I would absolutely consider the Apollo Twin MkII as my interface of choice. The option to add on 8 extra digital inputs helps here—but I still need a rig that is at least 16×8. Unison technology is certainly the key feature in my estimation, and the ability to offload processing is a huge development for mixers like myself. Because Unison is available across the entire Apollo line, I would personally consider a more comprehensive Apollo unit such as the Apollo 8 for my next upgrade, which allows for even more I/O.

Additionally, I strongly feel that it’s important for today’s young engineers to learn how to commit to sounds. Whether or not this was UA’s main goal for Unison, I feel it’s paramount to place these kinds of powerful tools into their hands, especially when considering the landscape of the recording industry in 2017 where it seems just about everyone records at home in some capacity.

All in all, the Apollo Twin MkII is an absolute beast of an interface, and it is merely the runt of the Apollo litter. Priced at $699 for the SOLO, $899 for the DUO, and $1,299 for the QUAD, it seems like a steal when you consider what’s under the hood.

Dan Gluszak is a producer, mixer and engineer based in Los Angeles, California. He also doubles as a touring and session drummer.

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