And we continue with more NAMM 2014 news. This time it’s the great looking new Universal Audio Thunderbolt interface called the Apollo Twin.
The Apollo Twin has two of the same preamps and convertors as the bigger Apollo interfaces. These can be switched to Mic or Line inputs. Then there are 6 outputs. Two for your monitor, two Analog line-outs for connecting for example alternative monitors and an optical Toslink SPDIF I/O connection supporting 8-channels of digital audio via external hardware. The front sports a DI input for your intrument and a stereo headphone output.
The center of the Apollo Twin features a large rotary knob. You can set this knob in preamp mode using a small switch on the left. The large rotary knob now sets the gain level for your two microphone inputs. You you can switch inputs by simply clicking the large knob. Clicking a small monitor button on the right switches the big rotary knob to control the monitor and headphone output level. At the bottom of the Apollo Twin are six dedicated switches that control things like High-Pass filters, pad, phantom power, phase, and one for linking the large rotary knob to control the gain of the two input channels simultaneously.
The Apollo Twin connects to your computer via a Thunderbolt connection. This makes use of new ‘PCIe drivers’ that will also released for all other UAD DSP products. A 12 Volts lockable connector feeds power to the device.
The mic preamps are digitally controlled analog preamps via Unison technology. This means they can have their gain, impedance, dsp tube modelling, transformer, and other non-linear characteristics, changed from the comfort of a plug-in. The first Unison preamp plug-in delivered with the Apollo Twin is the UA 610-B. Pressing and holding the big rotary knob on the hardware allows you to even set the selected preamp plug-in’s parameters like gain and output level.
At this moment the Apollo Twin is a Mac only Thunderbolt interface and does not yet support multi-unit connection, which will come somewhere later this year. The Twin is currently shipping and can be bought with either a Solo DSP processor for $699 US or a DUO DSP processor for $899 US. It runs UAD Powered Plug-Ins via Audio Units, VST, RTAS & AAX 64-bit. No information is available on UA’s website yet but we’ll update this article as soon as that comes online.