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Visit Puscifer at http://www.myspace.com/censorshipisacancer

Video Transcript

Hi I’m Mat Mitchell, currently performing and producing the project Puscifer. In the past I’ve worked with The Perfect Circle, teching for Billy Howerdel. That’s where I met Maynard Keenan. [I've] since worked with Tool, and most recently with Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. Working a bit in the studio and extensively live doing programming and live tech work.

On tour and in the studio, I’ve been using Apogee products for quite some time. On the Nine Inch Nails tour, we used Symphony Mobile and Rosetta for all the guitar and keyboard sounds through MainStage. For the latest Puscifer recordings, we’ve been using Duet quite a bit. We use Soundelux U95 plugged straight into a Duet, and then using the dynamics in Logic.

Recently I was introduced to a new Apogee product, GiO. It allows me to scroll through my amps; it allows me to control stomp box effects; it allows me to control my transport functions hands free. Another thing we discovered is that you can assign buttons to create a new track and arm that track. Since we are already using MainStage Live, the GiO is a great addition. It allows me to switch through my amps and all my pedals through MainStage. Both live and in the studio, the GiO is really a good addition.

Visit The Script’s Website

Video Transcript

Danny: We are The Script from Dublin, Ireland, and we are here to talk about the Apogee ONE. We are very familiar with the Duet, this little piece of kit here. We have used that now for probably about seven or eight months, for all the capabilities for us being on the road. We are all producers at the end of the day. Being able to throw down ideas in the fastest amount of time is paramount for us. The Duet was amazing. We were thinking wouldn’t it be great if you were able to have a microphone in there, instead of lumbering around a microphone, jack and the whole shebang? And then they came out with it! The new ONE. They have a small little microphone, right there, which is perfect for those hotel rooms.

Mark: It’s USB, is it?

Danny: Yeah, It’s USB. It’s not actually going through Firewire at all.

Glen: It’s actually half the size of that one (pointing to Duet).

Mark: The big thing for anyone out there is that, as we know from traveling, that carrying microphones can be doggy on your microphone. With microphone climate changes that can mess up your microphone, and plus trying to carry it around is such a pain. But this actually has one of the best microphones I’ve ever heard in a machine. Especially when it’s not actually a microphone that’s just got a microphone in it. It’s got such good processors that, actually, you recorded a vocal on it the other night, didn’t you?

Danny: Yeah, I did. It sounded amazing. Even Bob Clearmountain himself heard it and said, basically, I can mix that. But you know, for people who have computers, even Logic, especially on this mac here, when I hit record, now this has a mic in it, and you’re able to throw down little ideas but there is a lot of latency on it. I mean, when you are trying to throw things down. For those of you who don’t know what latency is, it’s like a 3 or 4 second delay almost to when you sing to when you hear it. It’s very off-putting, especially if you want to just throw down ideas. The ONE has a piece of software called the Maestro. It also has all the volume knobs and all the buttons and stuff, but it’s got a latency control. And I have to say, as Mark was saying, it’s got the best quality mic I’ve ever heard on such a small piece of kit. Just to show you how cool it is, this is my mobile phone. Look at the size of it. It’s the same size as my mobile phone. So rather than you lumping around a whole lot of gear, whole lot of everything, microphones, the whole shebang, to be honest, this is where it is.

This is it. The ONE.

The song you just heard in this video is “Before The Worst.”

Butch Walker’s Website>

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Hello, my name is Butch Walker, I’m a recording artist and producer and songwriter. They came up with this amazing product that finally after all this time, of whining and complaining about not ever being able to do remote recording on my laptop that sounded worth a shit, is they came out with the Duet. The Duet is a little box about this big, with one big rotary encoded knob on the top and a firewire input on the side, and a headphone jack on it, and a breakout cbale multipin, 9 pin breakout cable that goes to 2 instrument IN’s to microphone IN’s and then 2 speaker OUT’s.

You can take that thing and hook it up to your laptop and it works with Logic and Garageband, and it’s incredible because I love writing, and I love recording from my laptop,but I don’t like the limitations of it. The fact that Digidesign and Pro-Tools makes you use dedicated hardware to use their software is limiting as well. I didn’t want to take a big rig on the road and I never liked the sound to this day of the Mbox or the LE hardware at all,

The Duet is fantastic because you can plug a microphone, I use an SM-7 and plug it straight in to the box without a pre-amp, compressor or anything and it will phantom power also whichever mic you have and set it up in Logic and pull up a silver compressor or platinum compressor inside of Logic and an EQ and I can get a sound without a outboard mic-pre or anything that will end up on a record that sounds amazing.

As a matter of fact, on the last Pink record, she came over to my hotel room when we started working and writing for that record, and the songs that ended up on the record, I would say half the tracks were cut in Logic using just my Duet. With my microphone or just the guitar straight in, there were some cool  amp simulators I used for some of the guitar parts, but for the most part it was all done with the microphone straight in, no pre-amp on the outside, no outboard compressor or nothing. She sang straight into an SM-7 and that became the lead and background vocals for the record. No one is telling me that it sounded like a demo vocal, it sounded as good as anything else.

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

“ Wherever I am in the world, this is all I need in terms of live sound, and recording on the fly.”

“ The apogee Duet. Keep it simple.”

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Video Transcript

This tutorial will demonstrate how to setup and compare the sound quality of Apogee’s Duet to the sound quality of your computer audio output. Great digital sound is just like a great digital photo. If you use a lesser quality camera you may end up with an image that is not clear and lacks detail. With a professional digital camera, you get a beautiful, clear, detailed image. Just like the stereo image you will hear while listening to Duet .

After installing the  software and plugging your Duet in for the first time, you should see the message on the screen that reads Would you like to choose Duet for Mac sound output and input? Choose Yes. Now plug in your headphones to Duet ,play a song in your Itunes library that you are familiar with, notice the smooth sound and detail Duet’s output delivers.

Next, plug your headphones into the headphone output of the computer. Go to the system preferences,click on sound, then on output. Make sure that the volume of the built in headphone output and Duet are set to the same level.Now, playback the same song in Itunes. You’ll notice quite a drop in quality from what you just heard with Duet.

You can now switch back and forth between the two.And hear how amazing your Itunes library, video games,movies, or your favorite TV shows can sound with Apogee’s Duet.

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Video Transcript

“It’s easy enough to transfer your CD’s into iTunes. But what about transferring that rare record that is out of print? Or a cassette tape that may contain recordings of speeches, or even your High School rock band.You’ll want something that’s easy to use and sounds amazing. Apogee’s Duet is perfect for the job. Here’s what you’ll need besides your Duet and a computer. RCA to XLR male cables, turn table or tape deck, and a phono pre-amp.”

“A phono pre-amp can be found on many home stereo receivers and on most DJ mixers. The simplest way to get started would be to use a receiver with a phono input and a tape out on it. Having your turntable connected to the phono input connect the left and right RCA tape out of the receiver to the XLR inputs of the Duet breakout cable. Left going to input 1, and right going to input 2.”

“Now, anything you plug into the receiver, be it a turntable into the phono input, or a tape deck into a tape or aux input, can be recorded through Duet to your computer.

If you’re only recording tapes, you can connect the output of your tape deck directly to the input of Duet as no phono pre amp is needed in this scenario.If you have a tape or record that is low in volume you can also connect into the quarter inch instrument inputs of the Duet by using a 1/4″ to RCA cable. You can then boost the level of it using Duet’s preamp.Keep in mind this is not a phono preamp.You would still need a phono preamp if you are connecting to a turntable.”

“Now launch the Maestro software, and set the In 1 and In 2 to XLR line minus 10. Play your record and you should see the signal in the IN 1 and IN 2 meters.If you’re using the 1/4″ instrument inputs, you would set it to instrument, and  you can now adjust the input gain.

Maestro will not record the audio so you will need an application that will.Garage Band is already on every new Mac and records at high resolution. We will be using that. Launch Garage Band and set up a real instrument track. Under preferences, advanced, select the audio resolution. We are using the best setting here for the highest quality possible.”

“Make sure your input source is set to stereo 1/2. Duet. You should now see level in Garage Band. Start the record over, hit the record button and record the full side of the album.Once it’s finished you can now simply cut the long file into individual tracks.The great thing about using Garage Band is that you can export the file directly to your iTunes library. Set the loop tool for the length of the song and do a save as to name it. If you are exporting to Itunes,you can also fill out the other song info, or you can just save it to your hard drive by clicking export  onto disc and import to iTunes later.”

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Video Transcript

“Welcome to the Apogee tutorial for how to integrate Duet into your home entertainment system. In todays digital world, most people have their entire music collection stored in their Itunes library. Whether you download songs from the Itunes store or convert your CD’s into iTunes, the problem has been getting quality sound while playing your Itunes library through your home stereo system.”

“The new Apogee Duet allows anyone with a Mac to have professional quality sound from their iTunes library. After installing Duet’s software, simply connect Duet to a firewire port and the companion software Maestro will automatically launch and give you the option to use Duet as the default sound device for your Mac. Click yes. Now we are ready to connect your speakers. There are different types of speaker systems out there. So let’s first cover how to connect to powered speakers.”

“Use the connector on the Duet breakout cable labeled Out-L and connect a cable from it to the input of your left speaker. Now connect Out-R to your right speaker. The OUT-L in the breakout cable is a 1/4″ jack and the cable looks like this. The other end of the cable should match the input of your speaker. The speakers we are using here have RCA inputs. So you’ll need a 1/4″ to RCA cable. Make sure the green OUT LED is lit on top of the Duet. If it is not, push down on the volume knob repeatedly until the out LED is lit. Now adjust the volume using the top panel knob.”

“You can also connect directly to your home stereo system. Use the same 1/4″ to RCA cable and connect it to an available input on your home stereo receiver as shown here. Set your receiver to the input you plug your cables into. In our case we use the AUX input.”

“Connecting to your home stereo is a little different then the powered speakers we talked about earlier. Rather than using the knob on Duet’s top panel to control the volume, you will turn Duet’s volume all the way up. This allows you to use your home stereo system to control the level of playback from your iTunes library the same way you control the volume of your CD player or TV. Another cool feature on Duet is the mute function. Hold down the Duet knob until the out LED starts blinking. This mutes the volume. Pressing and holding the knob again unmutes the outputs.”

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Video Transcript

“Inspiration is a gift that can come to you anytime. As an artist, you need to be prepared. With Duet, you can plug in guitars, keyboards, microphones, and record your music anywhere. In this tutorial, we will go over how to connect different input sources to your Duet. We will discuss using the XLR Mic Input, the XLR Line Input, and the 1/4″ HI-Z instrument inputs.”

“Duets breakout cable has 4 inputs. 2 xlr connectors, and 2 1/4″ HI-Z connectors.Any combination of two can be used at the same time.”

“We will first start with the XLR Mic Input using a dynamic microphone. Connect your mic cable to the Duet breakout cable and to your Mic. Launch Maestro, if it’s not already open. In the Maestro control panel, you will see In 1, In 2, and out. In the drop down next to In 1, select XLR Mic. You can now increase the gain of the Mic in the Maestro control panel, or on the Duet itself by first selecting input 1 and increasing the gain.”

“You should now see the signal on the level indication meters in Maestro, and on the Duet when you speak into the Mic. Raise input fader 1. You can set it to 0 by holding the apple key and clicking on the fader. Under the master output fader, select 1 and 2 in the drop down box. Plug in your headphones to the front of Duet or plug in monitors to the out L and out R connectors of the Duet breakout cable.”

“Let’s take a look at the Maestro mixer for a moment. The Maestro Mixer is simply for low latency monitoring and is not a recording application. It is to be used in conjunction with a recording application such as Garage Band or Logic. Remember when using Maestro, make sure that you have the software monitoring in your recording application set to off. Input 1 and 2 are controls for how much Mic or instrument plugged into Duet you want to monitor. The pair of faders labeled from Mac are for monitoring the tracks or loops that you have already recorded in your recording application.”

” To hardware is the master volume for the overall mix of all of the inputs. Raising the fader on the Maestro Mixer does not affect the level of the signal going to your recording application. Only adjusting the mic pre in Maestro or on the Duet itself, changes the level going on to your recording application.”

“If you have a condenser mic, you do the exact same thing we did to set up a dynamic mic. The only difference is you will need the Duet to send phantom power to the mic. You do this by checking the box labeled 48v. This sends 48 volts to the microphone to power it, this is also known as Phantom Power. On input 2, we are going to connect the guitar on the HI-Z input. In Maestros control panel, you will change the drop down labeled IN 2 from XLR mic to instrument. Raise input fader 2 on the Maestro mixer and you should now hear your guitar along with the mic.”

“Keep in mind the instrument IN can be used for guitar, bass or synths. If you have a stereo synth, you can also change IN 1 to instrument giving you a stereo Hi-Z input. Another thing you can do is group the 2 inputs by checking the group box, This allows you to increase the gain of the 2 inputs at the same time. This is great for stereo synths, or stereo mic set ups. You will also notice the icon that looks like a circle with a line through it. This is a phase switch. When checked it reverses the polarity of the input signal.This is sometimes needed when using 2 microphones on the same source to avoid phase cancellation.”

“The XLR inputs of the Duet can also be used as +4 or -10 line level inputs. This is great if you want to use an external mic pre. Most mic pres are +4 output so you would change the drop down to XLR line +4. If you’re using a device with unbalanced outputs, such as the rca outs on a cd or cassette deck XLR line- 10 may be a better setting.”

“In addition to great sounding I/O, Duet offers a very cool muting feature. Holding down the volume knob until the green out light starts blinking mutes the main outputs and the headphone output,pressing and holding the knob again unmutes the outputs. You can also set it up in the Maestro control panel so that it just mutes the monitors or just the headphone outputs. This is great if you are recording your own vocals. You can mute the monitors while you’re recording, and just have the headphones playing. When you’re doing recording, you can now switch it back to play through the monitors by just holding down the knob again.”

Related Apogee Gear
Duet

Video Transcript:

“I’m Gary and I’ll be guiding you through a tour of Apogee’s Duet. Meet Duet. Duet is a professional portable audio interface designed to give you the best possible experience for creating and listening to music on your Mac. And how does Duet do it? Simple. Ease of use, unique integration of Apple hardware and audio software, and the incredible sound quality that made Apogee famous. And because Duet is powered through the firewire connection to your mac, you can take it and your laptop anywhere your creativity takes you.”

“With Duet, you have complete control over the sound of your digital world and you can enjoy both creating and listening to music on a whole new level. Anyone who demands superb sound quality,ease of use, and total integration with their mac will love Duet. Duet’s controller knob allows you to access nearly all of Duets functions with a press of a button. Adjust the level of your guitar, crank up your iTunes library, mute your headphones, do it all with a click and a turn.”

Made for GarageBand and Logic
“Duet isn’t just mac compatible, it’s made exclusively for the mac, and it’s totally controllable from within GarageBand and Logic. Built into each of these applications, you’ll find a unique intuitive control panel for Duet that allows you to easily make adjustments to the inputs and outputs for quick and effortless recording.”

Connections Made Easy
“Duet features a single breakout cable that makes connecting instruments. microphones, and speakers a snap. Each connector is labeled with it’s own corresponding icon and the separation of the cables allows you to group and direct them any way you want to.”

Duet for recording musicians
“If you’re a musician and you’ve tried to record music to your computer you know what a hassle it can be. Many plug n play systems are difficult to use and frankly take too much time away from what you want to do and thats make music. When that moment of inspiration arrives you want to grab it, instantly. Duet was made for this. It’s like a great writing partner. Duet enables your best performance by letting creativity rule, while you record the perfect vocal or riff and capture all of your musical ideas with quality, and without effort.”

Duet for performing musicians
“These days live performances are often enhanced by additional backing tracks or software instruments, like those found in Apple’s mainstage. Duet and a laptop provide a great high quality solution for these enhanced performances.”

Duet for Music and Podcast Producers
“Duet is the center of an easy to use audio production system that you can take anywhere. Work with an artist at their studio, make an intimate live recording, or capture a podcast interview in podcast quality wherever, and whenever.”

Duet for iTunes
“We all know that Itunes is a powerful way to catalog your music, and Duet is the ultimate way to hear it. With Duet, your speakers, and your mac, you can experience your music with the same astonishing  clarity that is captured in the studio. And Duet is the perfect tool for transferring your record and tape collection into iTunes. So thanks for joining us on this guided tour of Duet. As you can see, Duet truly makes recording and listening to music on your mac easy, and fun. So, ready for your Duet?”