Build a $12,000 Voice Over Rig for Less Than a Grand with the Apollo Twin 

Mark, how do your audiobook settings contrast to your commercial settings? Think you’ll do a video on it? I’m quite certain more than a few of us would like to know. Thanks!

@@liquidvelvetliterature That’s a good question. I stopped doing audiobooks because I prefer shorter format jobs, but I get it that a lot of folks do them. Let me think about it and I’ll see if I can articulate how to approach the different needs for audiobooks.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff -That would be awesome, Mark. Thank you!

Thanks Gabriel! Yeah man, a couple of other awesome things about building rigs inside the Apollo system is that you never have to chase down grounding hum from the cables in your rack, and you can get vintage tones without the (often costly) maintenance issues that come with vintage gear. The gear modeling UA uses is killer and even getting better and better over time. A producer I know in NYC was telling me he cut his teeth on an SSL 4000 console and after running some tracks through the new SSL unison plug in, he couldn't believe how identical it was to the big board he knew so well. Dude, congrats on your purchase and enjoy your new Apollo gear. When you can build endless chains and setups like this, the only limit is your imagination!

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff I thought it would arrive until the 21st but turns out it gets here this Friday! I'm so pumped, I always walk around in Guitar Center and every time I would see the Apollo by the computer rigs I would feel so intimidated because I know it's top shelf but I saved up, it was my birthday and I went for it. Haha. I can't wait to unleash the potential of my Vocal mic and Acoustic guitar. Do you recommend I get some plug ins during registration or wait til later? If so which ones? Because I know UA has tons of great stuff, it's all so intimidating but I can't wait to work with this thing! :D

That's way awesome you bought yourself one for your birthday. What a cool present! When you buy a new Apollo, UA gives you a limited time option to buy a " welcome bundle" of plugs at a discounted rate. I think any 3 plugs for $399 is the smallest bundle. The nice thing is that you can test drive any plug in you don't own for 2 weeks, fully functional. This way you can mix and match plugs to see what you like best. A lot of people love the UA Neve 1073 and the API channel because they have those very iconic sounds nailed. And, of course, the 610B preamp plugin that comes with it is a total beast, so you may want to just use that as your pre. The built in pre alone without any plugins is very clean and sounds great too. Since there are so many plug ins, my advice would be to "try before you buy". Whatever you don't get now can be picked up later... it's not like they're going to sell out of Neve 1073 plug ins! :)

Thank you!

Right? And then imagine you can drop that whole rig into a backpack with a laptop and take it anywhere.

@The Microphone Assassin is there a difference in processing power between the x2 and x4 or is it just IO ports?

@@CryptoFreaks X4 also has twice the DSP as the Twin.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff seems like if you have this and a good flat mic, you can get almost any sound out of it with these plugins.

@@CryptoFreaks Well, I don't know about any sound, but you can really look at it as a system that you can personalize to be able to create sounds that are only limited by your imagination.

Hi Fernando. Thank you, sir. You have a good point. The 416 is an incredible mic. Designed primarily for location sound and dialogue capture, it's frequency response is custom fit for recording the human voice. Generally, I’m about 6 to 8 inches off the 416 on most jobs, sometimes leaning in a touch when I need a bit more proximity effect. It has that detailed “in your face” sound that cuts through a mix with ease and it’s a sonic signature clients love-and that is why, after trying out, obsessively modding and custom building many, many microphones to find my Excalibur, I am now convinced the only mics that allow me to compete in this extremely competitive business are the 416 and the Neumann U87. Commercial clients just expect that sound today. Of course you can begin and build a career with any mic you sound good on, but for certain levels and types of work there is just a certain sound you need to hit. Some people live and die by the TLM 103 because it puts you in that neighborhood and for certain jobs I use my vintage U87 clone, the MYN “Secret Weapon”, but most of my daily VO jobs and auditions are all cut on the 416 because it’s proven it’s worth. And because you can’t win jobs with just a great mic, you need a great pre and ADC and DAC converters to get that sound down clean and that’s why I love the Apollo Twin for VO work. The versatility and instant setup recall make my job a lot easier than when I was dealing with a hardware rig. With the ease of workflow I can truly focus on what happens between me and my 416, knowing what goes into the pre is the best quality sound I can achieve.

Yeah I love UAD. Got an Apollo Twin and the Octo-Core. I'm about to get the Neve 1073 preamp. The 610-B is just not cutting it... I use an SM7b. Def going to get a Numan TLM 102 at least. Make a video on your u87 clone!! I wanna hear it! :)

The UAD Neve 1073 is fantastic. I'm also a huge fan of the Unison SSL. I should make a quick video of my "Secret Weapon". I'll try to put something together before too long. The TLM-102 is a very underrated mic IMHO.

As asked for... here is a short demo of the my 87 clone I cut while goofing around during my morning warm ups. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TJqWsUQlTFY.html

@@FUFUWO have you tried the 610 b with the 102

Nathan Henry, you are very welcome.

Thank you, Sean! I hope you are digging your new Twin. With all the different preamps and plugins available, both for free and for purchase, there are a nearly endless number of tonal variations you can achieve with this system. It's really a VO/musical artist's dream rig.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thanks. I literally copied your rig and it sounds fantastic. Of course I'll be tweaking it a bit. Really appreciate you sharing this.

Hi tobbe, Thanks for watching. I’m not a RU-vid guy. This was a one-off video for a friend that I’ve left up because others started commenting. I don’t have plans to make other videos at this time. Now, I see what you’re saying but unfortunately you can’t ever reproduce the sonic quality of a well-treated room in an ambient space with a noise gate. What you will get is silence in between syllables that are soaked in room ambience. You won’t get a professional VO sound in an untreated space no matter what gear you use. Even a dynamic mic with a high level of rear rejection will still have that room-tone-boominess. You can get a living room to work for music or a podcast but for VO, you really need as well-treated a space as possible. Also, I see where you’re coming from with recording with no plug ins as a way to build your sound through analysis. I’ve never tried that kind of microscopic deep dive. Up to now, I’ve relied mostly on a few decades personal experience recording to guide me toward what choices will work for me, but that sounds like a fun experiment to try someday. :)

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff nah forget all that!! Make video showing me how to mix my plugins for uad console to give me best voice when I stream through OBS. You a genius bro don't be stingy now! ;-)

@@MAMAvsGOD First off, thank you for calling me a genius, which I hardly deserve. LOL. Truthfully, I'd be remiss to offer you advice on how to optimize your voice for OBS since I've never used it. My best guess would be to start with the cleanest capture you can get with your rig/room and use a plugin like the SSL which has a great expander/gate to keep noise at bay and then dial up that compressor to infinity to use it as a limiter, maybe even the Oxide tape plug in at the end of your chain to give it warmth. I bet there are people who have made videos on this already.

Let me know if you like it and how it works out for you.

Thanks Bill. Check these out. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8Meiz6Tty50.html

Thank you, Tarek!

I don’t have an Aston spirit. Nor do I use the Apollo any longer.

Yeah they need to include a de-esser set to French Roast in the free plug in package.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff LOL. I'm subscribing to your channel 1000% based off of your sense of humor. this is amazing lol

So true. When you do VO for a living, I suppose it's kind of a prerequisite for the job.

Hi Paul. I’m fairly certain you should be able to run this chain on a Solo. Let me know if it doesn’t.

Kona blend. Medium roast.

Yes, but I'm not 100 percent certain how many of them you can run at once on a Solo. There's a good chance you can, but you'd have to check the UA Plug in incidence chart to see how much DSP each one would take up on a solo.

Hi Tommy! Currently my go-to chain is all UAD plugs. Avalon 737 > Precision DeEsser > SSL E (Legacy). I'm using a very similar dual compression setup with the Avalon and the SSL both doing very light compression from each just to tame the bigger transients without squashing or making it sound processed. The Legacy SSL doesn't really have that SSL sound like the non Legacy version does, it's actually more transparent--but the dynamics section and the EQ are very precise like an SSL so you can really fine tune the Expander to cut out noise and I give tiny eq bumps at around 4K and 10K for vocal clarity. I personally prefer to have my chain set up so that what I hear going in is what the client gets and to not do any compression or eq afterwards. Sometimes you can ruin a great take in post because post compression can amplify sibilance you didn't hear going in. The truth is that because every voice is different, every recording environment a variable, what works for me may not exactly work for someone else. It takes a lot of experimentation with your gear to find your sound, but always aim for the most natural sound you can achieve while also making sure it is flattering to your voice, if that makes sense. Personally, I vote for you trying to get your sound without having to rely on post eq or compression. Hope that helps!

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff thank you, Mark, for a truly refreshing and insightful response. I really appreciate and understand your approach, and thanks so much for sharing so much detail about your setup! Truly impressive chain, Sir. I've been experimenting near endlessly with doing precisely as you - get that sound down, pre production. I host a podcast and am now wondering if you think this approach is still appropriate? I will be attempting voiceover work soon, but my intention is to lockdown a solid UAD based approach, in the chain, for both. I interview most of my guests online (via zencastr), and hope to (post covid) do live interviews soon as well. Do you think a solid Unison-driven pre production setup would apply well for podcasting, too? Thanks so, so much for your wonderful insight, Mark. And again, kudos on your talent, sound, and kickass boutique mic!!!

@@illshowyou2 I think the Apollo is a podcaster's dream. With podcasting, there aren't really a lot of the same considerations to keep it unprocessed as there are in commercial VO, so you can feel free to really experiment with compression and EQ to get a thicker podcast-y sound if you want.With VO, you are creating an element of the production, oftentimes a production you have zero involvement with in post. With podcasting you are producing the entire program. If you haven't checked out Luna, UA's free DAW, it may be worth a download for you. With Luna, you can record through it the same way you'd use Console and then run each channel through the provided Oxide tape plugin to get some of that tape warmth and compression. There's a lot of post production things I'd take into account with podcasting that I'd never do with VO, but podcasting is a great way to get comfortable with the process of recording your voice.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff ah, thanks again so much for another detailed and insightful response, Mark. I completely understand where you are coming from, and the distinction between VO and pod production is really helpful. Even with my monitors, when listening to your UAD VO demo, I have difficulty really hearing the difference between a VO product and a podcast product. The recording you made (via the 610 pre, pulteq eq, and some compression I believe) was such a clean, round, warm sound. Is it something that you'd do differently for a podcast? I've tried, for example, using multiple pres in the UAD unison config, followed by a host of different plugins provided by UAD, to replicate a target podcast sound. In my case, I tried to get as close to the Joe Rogan experience sound as I could. Along the way, I found that the API Vision through the pulteq and the Fairchild produced a frankly nicer sound than Joe's show (I find the compression in his show warm and round, but his eq is kind of hurting from what sounds like a bit too much in the 500hz and 1k range). I've tried dips in these ranges to achieve a great sound in the API. But interestingly enough, most presets I've seen on UAD pres don't have dips anywhere near the 500hz and 1k area. In fact, i often see boosts in these ranges, or a flattening off altogether. I suppose this is due to the nature of the circuitry and the uniqueness of what each pre brings to the table. As I'm sure you've noticed, I find myself in analysis paralysis 😂 at times. Does a VO tone make sense on a podcast? Perhaps not? I suppose Ive read too much on different forums about corrective eq, compression tricks, and so on to be able to zoom out enough to make a decision. Mark, once again, I'm thoroughly humbled and grateful for your time and thoughts. Thank you.

@@illshowyou2 Hi Tommy! Ok, the abridged version is that, in my opinion, the standard "podcast" sound is more akin to an FM radio voice sound, which has an exaggerated bottom end and highs rolled off around 12k. A VO sound, in general, is a more natural tone that would be more akin to what it sounds like if I'm talking to you across a table. Or, podcast = dynamic (ex: RE20, SM7) because they are easier to use in untreated and less-treated rooms, and VO = condenser. Now, of course there are no rules for podcast sound and a lot of people just plug in a USB mic and go with little or no processing. But I believe Rogan uses an SM7, eats the mic and probably has a broadcast limiter on it squashing the crap out of it. Now, remember that EQ, any EQ is really just a form of phase smear, so in VO you really don't want to have to heavily EQ going in. A couple DB here and there, a little nip/tuck is fine, but if you have to heavily EQ a condenser to get your VO sound, it's the wrong mic. Podcasts though, again have a lower sonic quality threshold of what a listener will accept. You can use a VO sound for a podcast, but I wouldn't recommend using a podcast sound for VO. Back when I was podcasting for a living, a decade ago, the weapon of choice was a Heil PR40. These days, I use a Chandler TG mic on the most exaggerated bottom end sound and heavy UAD SSL compression and Oxide tape sim. As obsessive as I am with my VO sound, with podcasting, I really just open the mic and go because after having done hundreds of podcast episodes when my audio quality was questionable, I've come to believe it's much more about what you say than how you sound. Don't let choice paralysis stop you from podcasting. Use what you have, go for it, and let your sound evolve over time. I've told the story before that when I started podcasting in 2005, it took me 120 week-daily episodes to get comfortable on a microphone and find a sonic direction I could start really working with.

This one is a 2nd Gen twin duo. The converters have improved since. I think this is the same converter that is in the current solo.

You are very welcome :)

🙏

Hi! Thanks! like the Precision De esser. It’s effective, easy to dial in and I’m of the belief that you always de ess right after the preamp before you hit the compressor. Otherwise you end up compressing the sibilance and making it louder.

Thanks Krunker! The beauty of the Apollo system is that I’m always evolving my sound and can save every iteration of my chain so experimenting with paid plugs is a must! Right now my favorite rig is through the UAD Avalon 737 > Precision DeEsser > SSL Legacy (for the dynamics section) and then if it’s a high energy commercial or character voice read I’ll put the Precision Limiter after the SSL.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thanks Mark, what are your settings on your Avalon and SSL Legacy, if you want to send me a foto my email is danielbekteshi8@gmail.com

Krunker Pro Avalon just a little 3:1 compression. No EQ. SSL is just the expander set with fast attack and the compressor set for fast attack raging from 2:1 to 8:1 depending upon the type of read. If I need a bit of HF boost, I may add a couple dB of 10k on the SSL as well.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff God Bless You!

Thank you, Tigerry! I do think you can get similar quality with an NT1 and the UA arrow. I've never used an Arrow, but I know it only has one sharc DSP chip in it, so I'm fairly sure you can, but not 100 percent certain you can run all of these plugins at once, while tracking live. The NT1 is a very sensitive mic so you will get best results in a treated space. It may be too sensitive for live sound work. It's also a fairly bright mic, so you may want or need additional EQ options in your chain to get the right sound. Oh, and also make sure the computer you are planning to use with the Arrow has Thunderbolt 3 or it won't work.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff thx for the fast reply and also for the Information. I do have thunderbolt 3. Also i was talking to my buddy yesterday and he gave me the combination of a yamaha mg10xuf and a dbx286s. But the question is, will it even get close to the arrow? Sadly i dont have the chance of testing in some kind of music Store so im not sure what to buy. Maybe you have experience with the dbx and a yamaha mixer

@@tyz0n Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to use either of those pieces. I have owned a couple of other DBX pieces, (a 266 comp from 25 years ago and the 520 de-esser) and felt the noise floor was a bit higher than what would work for me. I have used a fair amount of outboard gear with the Apollo, including outboard preamps and compressors, and it always adds a bit of noise to the chain, and sometimes hum through the cables that needs to be chased down. One thing that's pretty nice about the Apollo is that you don't get that increasing noise floor when you add things to your chain, it's all pretty quiet. Overall, I am inclined to believe that the UAD plug ins would yield a higher quality audio path than those two pieces of budget gear. And yeah, I hear ya, it is not easy to pick gear when all you have to evaluate is internet clips and nowhere to try stuff out. I agonize over it, sometimes. But realistically, I find the only way I can make a determination of whether a piece of gear works for me is to get it into my space and really work with it for a while. It helps to find a good gear seller with the right return policy, or to accept that you may have to buy it, use it for a few months, then decide if you don't like it, sell it and take a 25% loss as the cost of doing business.

​@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff thank you so much for the fast reply and great help ! i think im going to get the arrow.If its ok i will contact you as soo as it arrives ( could take a little longer due to corona and the price of 499 ) and if it is no problem for you you can maaybe help me out a bit C:

@@tyz0n Sounds great. Sure, ping me here and I'll do my best to answer. You'll be surprised at how easy it is to work with the Apollo system, and of course one of the great benefits is the ability to create many different sets of chains and recall them instantly.

Depends upon the sensitivity of your mic, the volume at which you speak, etc... so my exact settings may not translate into what works best in your space. As long as you're not overdriving the pre or whatever effects come after it in the chain, that's a good place to start.

Yeah, one nice thing about being completely "in the box" with a rig like this is that you don't have to worry about grounding hum or cable buzz in your device connections in your signal chain. That's one nice advantage software has over hardware. There's no "vintage gear" maintenance or replacing of tubes, either.

Hi Lucas, Man, that's a good question. I can tell you that it is very dependent upon how many tracks you think you will be working with because the UA DSP runs out fast with some of the bigger plug ins. For example, the Neve stuff is pretty DSP dependent and just a few instances of it will eat up all you have. I think if you plan on doing any mixing, you should either consider using other plug ins alongside of the UA stuff or invest in something with 4 chips, and also consider that you may need a UA satellite down the road. Now, if you are just cutting a few tracks, you can probably start with 2 chips. I'm really not the biggest expert on this kind of thing (as you can tell by my meandering answer) because I usually only ever record my voice and don't do any mixing, and I also have a DUO 8 rack mount unit hooked up to my Twin for redundancy. I think if you're doing songwriter demos, 2 chips will be good. If you're doing simple songs with a few tracks and aren't trying to do major mixing, go with 4. But if you think you'll be mixing more than 8 tracks, you'll need more chips. I hope this helps.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff man, first of all appreciate your answer. So, I’m kindda new to the music production word. As a guitarist and basist, I used my free time during quarantine to switch from using loopers (I had a Boss rc-30) to start dealing with a daw. Its been a hard but amazing experience as I’m slowing progressing. Anyway, I have an Roland studio capture áudio interface and recently bought an apollo twin x duo to be able to use UAD plugins. I didnt use it already because I use windows and I’m waiting for a thunderbolt 3 pcie card to arrive. The only live instruments I Will record will be voice, guitar, bass and electric guitar. Drums and keyboards I’ll use samples and vsts. When I direct record tracked instruments in the daw (ableton Live), once recorded, the UAD plugins used can be desabled? (Sorry for the bad english, I’m from Brazil)

@@lucasorione8373 You can chose to record through the UAD in one of three ways. You can record without any plug ins at all, like a regular interface. You can chose to record while listening through the plug ins, but not printing the plug ins, so you end up with an unprocessed track. Or you can listen and print through plug ins while recording. Now, of course that means you are committing to a certain sound going in, like we used to do in the days of analog tape. And in that case, you may not need much or any processing wile mixing, so you won't use as much DSP in your mix. If you use a combination of UAD and vst plug ins on your mix, you can chose to have the VST plugs do some of the easier tasks like EQ, and leave the UAD plugs for the kind of heavier duty things you may want a Neve, API or SSL or some other UAD-specific plug to do. But assuming you are only going to record one part at a time, you should be fine as far as DSP during tracking.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff thanks my friend! I ended up buying a sattelite quad, now I have 6 DSP. I think it might be enough 😅👊🏼

Absolutely. You may need to play with the compression settings depending upon your style but definitely try it as a starting point to see if it works for you.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thanks for the valuable reply Bro💓🙏

Hi Chris. Thanks! I totally get where you're coming from. I do a fair amount of character voice jobs on a regular basis and often times that dialogue can get pretty emotive, right? And a lot of it can go from calm to hyper at the drop of a hat because what you're recording has to be exciting for those playing the game or watching. You don't want to lose your ability to be dynamic and you definitely don't want to blow up that perfect take because you distorted your input. What I do is increase the ratio on the 1176 starting at 8:1 and generally try to dial in the 1176 to manage the really big transients and keep them in check. Sometimes, depending upon how rapid the dialogue is, you may also have to shorten the attack setting so that it can grab those big transients faster. You just want to make sure you don't go too extreme with the 1176 that your track sounds like its pumping. Then after you get your 1176 set to where you like, you can goose the LA2A to increase the girth of your sound. If it starts to sound like you're recording radio promos, then you've dialed in too much. What's great too is that once you get that setting where you want it you just hit save and recall it whenever you're doing that kind of gig. That's one thing I love about the Apollo Twin, it's so versatile.

Brilliant! Exactly, most VO is a bit more 'laid back' or controlled for most narration or explainer reads. Games and animation it's all over the place dynamically speaking. Yeah I'm still teasing with the plugins. This is new territory for me at this level, big step up equipment wise! Cheers, really appreciate the info. This chain sounds utterly rich - I dig. I will be doing this tonight!

You're very welcome, Sergey!

Thanks Paul! The settings are what you see on screen. The UAD presets are also fun to play with but here in the video it’s all just small-ish adjustments. On an 1176, unity gain on input/output is 12 o clock in the dial so we’re not asking the 76 to do much aside from a slight touch on the transient spikes and then imparting that 76 mid-forwardness. The LA2a adds a bit of thickness and then, depending on your voice/room/mic the Pultec then gives it a touch of eq and tube tone. If the 2a makes it feel too thick, like if you have a voice that is heavy with harmonics already, you can take that out and dial in a bit more compression with the 76. The goal with this basic setup was to add some nice vintage color and tone without making it sound too processed. Of course there are countless setups and tones you can coax out of the Apollo with the different plugins they sell, but you can get pretty far just out of the box with these.

Dude you are an audio wizard

In that case, I'm casting a tone spell on you. "Soundus Humongous!" The real beauty of this system is you can tweak and tweak each setting and component to your heart's content and always save each setup as your sonic experimentations evolve, and have instant recall of every different rig. Half the fun is just playing with your settings to see what different tones you can get.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff I know you do great VO. My Apollo Twin came with a Manley VoxBox. Do you recommend any additional plug-ins (currently June and they are on sale til the last day of the month and have a small budget of a 200 or maybe 300 bucks). Any UA plug-ins you feel are game changers for VO? Thanks for everything!

Thank you, Paul! The VoxBox, IMHO, is outstanding for VO. The de-esser is fantastic, the opto compressor is smooth, you get a bit of color and it has a built in Pultec style EQ to touch up your tone. There’s also what feels like a -2db notch around 400hz to mitigate some of that muddiness you can often get from proximity effect. If you like how it sounds, you can build a great rig with basically just the Voxbox. I’ve used it on a lot of VOs and the only reason it’s not my main Unison pre is because I have more projects cut on the SSL, and more experience with that sound. I like the expander on the SSL and the limiter feels transparent on my voice. I also like how the black knob setting on the SSL can tighten up the bottom end. I’m also a fan of the Oxide Tape plugin, especially with the Sennheiser 416. I have always had this love/hate thing about the 416 or a u87 with digital recording and then thought one day about how these mics were designed decades ago to record to tape. So, adding a touch of tape sim to the 416 helps smooth some of that high end harshness I can get with my voice. Also, because the SSL doesn’t have a spectacular de-Esser like the Voxbox, I use the Precision Deesser plug in, which once you get dialed in, works quite well on my often sibilant voice. It’s hard to recommend individual components because every voice and every recording environment is different so my best advice is to demo the crap out of everything and never make a spot decision after just 5 minutes. Record with a plug-in over at least a couple of days to know if it’s worth the investment because there’s no return or resale of a UAD plug-in.

Hey Doc! Is it possible that what you're describing could be the inherent noise of the mic? Every mic has self noise and the 416, even as a premiere dialogue mic, ironically isn't the quietest mic out there. Also, even a treated room will have a some kind of sound or "room tone" unless you're in an anechoic chamber. Treated vs soundproof is akin to comparing water-resistant to waterproof, and the general rule is that if you're room, if filled with water, would leak some of that water, it would also allow some sound in (and out). As long as the sound isn't noticeable, like you said, when you speak, you should be okay and if you want complete silence in between your dialogue it can't hurt to try an expander/noise gate.

Maybe you raised gain too much.

I use a cloudlifter for the SM7b, even with my expensive preamp there's a slight hiss in the back that just annoys me. You've more than likely solved your problem now but it might help someone

A Dolla Yup. I think there’s little doubt you can put together a nice VO rig with just the free plugins UA gives you. When you start adding some of the other plug ins from their catalog to your arsenal, the variety of tones you can coax out of a Twin is deep.

Thank you, Sir! I have a Twin Duo and also a rack mounted Apollo 8 Duo networked together for more inputs and DSP, but in this video it's only the Twin Duo.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Awesome, thanks! I hope you publish more videos about voice-over. I believe, your talent makes this art shine (but the plug-ins help for sure!).

@@inancgumus4125 Thanks. I appreciate that a lot, but this was just a one-off.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Gotcha!

I think it depends upon how many channels you will be EQ'ing and which plug in you will use for EQ. Personally, I believe that once you start down the road of using plug ins, you'll find other things you want to do or try and more DSP will make that a lot easier. There are some great resources on the UA website that detail how much DSP each plug in will use. help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/215262223-UAD-2-DSP-Chart

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff I needed up going with the twin x duo Do you think that would be just fine for EQ on just my voice, and using plugins I would potentially use down the line

@@saltypancreas5866 You should definitely be able to get a lot of milage from the twin x duo. I think you should have enough DSP to cover those tasks on just your voice. Have fun!

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff thanks man, eventually I want to add Somone to my channel do you believe I could do the same with a separate vocal like two different tracks ( by the way not live effects but after the recording adding the effects )

That’s a really good question. I actually do not know the answer. And you’re right. It would have been a good idea to show that. My best guess is that since the 610 looks like it’s fairly well driven that you’d probably see it peaking just a hair into the red on the 76 if you set the VU meter to see your input level because that’s what I would do if I was using these components in an analog-only situation without the benefit of Console’s digital meter bridge. I’m fairly certain I put this rig together a couple of months before I got around to making this video so I’d like to think I properly gain staged it as I set it up, but again, I’m not entirely sure since I didn’t document anything when I first made the rig. But yeah, for a proper demonstration that’s what I should have done.

Hi there. Sorry I haven't seen this comment until today. My apologies. Yes, I am in a very well treated booth. There is no noise gate in this particular setup and for some reason UA doesn't give you one with the free plug in package, but you can easily integrate one by using the SSL channel strips or the API channel strip plug ins which have expander/gates in them. However, do remember that recording in an untreated room will cause reflections and ambience that you can't really kill with a gate. The common wisdom when it comes to critical recording, such as with VO is (in order of importance) Room, mic, preamp, processing. If you do record in an untreated room, you may find that a dynamic mic (like an RE20) will work best instead of a condenser. You can absolutely run this stack with a Solo. In fact, if all you plan to use the Twin for is VO, you can do this and a lot more with just a Solo, however, you know the way it always goes, no matter what you buy, you'll always want it to do more eventually--and if you plan on doing any music, especially some mixing with your UA plug ins, a Solo probably will be a bit underpowered. Again, sorry for not seeing this for so long.

You're very welcome! The UAD ecosystem is really a joy to work with.

Hi Gabor! Well, my hesitation here is, first, the lack of acoustic treatment. Way back about 3 lifetimes ago when I started out podcasting with a Heil PR40 dynamic mic in an untreated bedroom, I realized that even with a good dynamic with decent rear-rejection, I was still getting that reflective sound from the walls around me, and while it was good for podcasting, it would never have flown for VO. I think that if you intend to do voiceover for hire, your setup needs to have some sort of acoustic treatment, even if it's just a temporary setup you can put up and pull down when you're done, but it has to be effective. One thing to always remember is that if you are trying to get hired as a VO talent, you are competing for work against a large pool of people for every job, and a good number of those people have broadcast quality setups. You can have the best voice in the world, but if you don't have the right "sound", you will audition and audition and audition and not see the results you want. It also doesn't help that the audition process doesn't come with feedback to let you know why the client passed. Now, second, while dynamic mics can be fantastic, especially the SM7B, they are not really the best tool for commercial voice over because they lack the depth and character of a condenser mic with a polarized capsule. And, of course, given that condensers are far more sensitive than dynamics, when using one you really need to have a well-treated space to obtain the best results. Always remember, as a VO artist, you have one product: the recorded sound of your voice. And that sound needs to stand up to the quality that producers are used to hearing every day.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thank you very much for your quick reply. I admit, these are very valid points. What my space lacks in terms of acoustics, I am going to try and make up for it with the UAD plugins (I think not many voice artists use those to further enhance their 'product', or when they do, just for a quick boost, without delving into much detail...at least on my level of competition), and some 'de-reverbing' in Adobe Audition, which sounds useful to me. Granted, acoustics will be still in the way. Does it help much if I put up a fabric behind my monitor (and on the wall)? Regarding the mics, I thought I can get away with using a classic dynamic, such as the RE-20 or SM7B. I have a baritone voice, with a great emphasis on the bass range, and used to have projects from clients in the past, with much weaker equipment than this planned one (one client event commented, that the ladies in the office have chosen my voice out of 40 other male voices...but that's just good to remember for confidence :) ). What's your opinion on the SM7B (or insert a good condenser here) -> ISA One -> Apollo Twin chain, with possibly the dbx 286s stuffed in after the ISA? Thank you again, I truly appreciate your help.

@@gaborkiss1425 Just fabric between you and the wall won't really help much. In order to tame reflections, your best friend is mass and density. Maybe you can add a commercially available reflection filter to your setup or DIY a panel with acoustical foam to hang on the wall. One of your biggest issues will always be your untreated ceiling and if the room is square or rectangle, the reflections bouncing back and forth. As for your chain, the ISA One is a really great preamp for voice but the weak link would be the DBX. Unfortunately, the op amps they put in the lower end DBX stuff is the culprit as they are kind of grainy. Whatever processing you may intend to use the 286 for, you'd be better off doing with UAD plugins. Often times, the best way to determine what works and what doesn't is trial and error followed by trial by fire. If a setup makes you money, and that's your intention, that's all that matters regardless of what anyone else thinks. Everyone starts somewhere. Bon Chance! And keep us posted.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thank you, I noticed the inherent graininess in the dbx's sound, and it's somewhat there even with its processing module turned completely off. However, for rock vocals it just..rocks. :) For VO, I am contemplating getting a SE Dynamite mic activator for my Scarlett 2i2 Gen 3 and skipping the dbx altogether. Do you think that's a good solution and would the Scarlett Gen 3's converters suffice for nice results? I really like its sound when recording at 96 KHz (through the dbx, though). Also, there is a damn nice end of year deal going on at UAD, and I have the chance to get their Manley Voxbox plugin for 95 EUR for life. I demoed it recently and it's awesome stuff. Would this be a good decision or should I spend that amount for the SE Dynamite DM1 instead? (Though the DM1's price is constant through the year, while the Voxbox plugin stays at about 300 EUR off-holidays. And it has no real alternative in the native plugin world.)

@@gaborkiss1425 The Scarlett's all have converters that will work for VO. However, the one thing to look out for is overall noise level and when you add any mic activator that induces 20db or more of gain, especially before the preamp, you also raise the inherent noise level of the mic significantly which may work against you. I have an old Scarlett Get 2 that I bought years and years ago and one thing I noticed was that it did lack the kind of gain I thought was necessary to use a dynamic (Heil PR40 for podcasting), so I'm not sure if the Gen 3's fix that issue. I do think the thing with the DBX 286's are that they don't have a clean enough signal path and suffer from having the cheapest op amps DBX could have used to keep unit cost down. Now that I think about it, going back to your previous question concerning the Reflexion, you may even be better off investing in some padded moving blankets to hang (even temporarily) on your walls or even just a corner. I think that investing in getting your dynamic mic chain to improve your VO signal chain will ultimately be a slow road to a dead end and the issue will always be the room.

Thank you very much, Marco! Getting the plug-ins dialed in for what works best for you is always a bit of a process, but not a terribly difficult one. On the 1176, you start with what's called the "Dr. Pepper" setting (you can Google why it's called that), but it's attack at 10 o'clock, release at 2 o'clock and ratio at 4. Then on the LA2A start with a similar 10 o'clock/2 o'clock setting on the output and peak reduction and dial the peak reduction in so you get that nice girth without it being too "compress-y" and make up your lost gain with the output. Finally, on the Pultec, you get a chance to compensate for what you feel is missing in your tone. I like to add some low end for boom and authority and a boost at 16k to get that magic pultec "air". With a rock vocal, especially one in a dense mix, you really would hit those compressors hard but IMHO, with VO, you want subtle compression, really just to tame and limit without squashing. And the EQ is there to compliment your voice and sometimes to compensate for your recording environment if need be. One thing that's nice is that with my settings, once they were all dialed in to where I like them, I really never change them. The only change I ever really make is to add a bit more compression going in when I'm doing "high energy" VO's like car spots or animation voices where the delivery is either "pedal to the metal" or wildly dynamic. It may feel daunting to have to "dial in" your sound, but all the UAD plug-ins have lots of presets you can use as starting points as well, but generally, if you start subtle and dial it up bit by bit, you can find your sound without going overboard.

Marco Starink ccc

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff what do you mean by boosting at 16k gets that magic pultec "air"? Isn't the male vocal spectrum heard at much lower frequencies than 16k? Correct me if I'm wrong but from my understanding 16k would only capture hissing sounds.

​@@tobbe8287 Adding "air" is a way to make your recording sound more open. Especially when a lot of mics roll off way before. Even though the fundamental tones or 'meat' of the male vocal spectrum is well below that, adding air through EQ can make your voice sound clearer and more HiFi, especially if, like in the video, you are using equipment that was designed in an era before digital recording.

Hi Chris. Thanks! If you're in Console, plug into channel 1, turn on your phantom power (if you have a condenser mic) and turn up the mic gain and see the meters move, then your mic should be working, so that's the first step. Then, in order to send the signal from that channel to the console output you need to make sure that channel's fader is raised, then if you see the output meters jumping you're getting signal to your outs. That's probably the basic stuff you're already doing. Now, the trickier part is making sure that your DAW is getting the signal from Console's output and the way to do that is to go back to the Console, then go to MENU > VIEW > SETTINGS where you will see your inputs and output assignments. This is your routing system. Then if you match your DAW's input to where your mic channel's output is, you should be able to get signal to it so you can record. Hopefully your issue is this simple to fix. If not, you may want to go to UAudio.com's support page or even to the UADforum.com to dig deeper. There's a ton of real experts there who know a lot more than I do.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thanks for replying so quickly. I think the problem is that when I'm recording to Garage Band, the level seems low and the wave form is being condensed after it's recorded. I can actually see the software making the wave form smaller for some reason and I'm not sure why.

@@chrislucas8449 Yeah, I find Garageband frustrating. I honestly do fear it's not designed as a straight DAW but more of a consumer program that does not necessarily save your source files as professional level non-compressed WAV's, but instead as some other codec. I could be wrong. Perhaps you may have better luck if you record to Audacity, which thankfully is still free. I also think there are some other good free DAW multi track programs out there as well.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Thank you for verifying. I thought I was going crazy. I'll look into that ASAP. Thank you for taking time to respond. I truly appreciate it!!!!!

Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun

Very true. I’ve never used Waves plug ins. Can you track live through them? I have always wondered if you can cut live through waves without latency issues. Their SSL plugins are supposed to sound great.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff I think waves multirack is the solution. Yes their SSL, Kramer Tape, CLA comps and most of the plugins I think is awesome. peace

@@mistahmath5063 Super cool. I definitely want to learn more about working with Waves sometime in the future. Thanks!

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff, Waves is a mixed bag. You can’t exactly live track with them (unless your DAW has a low latency mode) and their emulations to my ear are a bit heavy on the analog color. Some love that, some don’t.

@@toribarron5700 Interesting, thanks for the info. After that first comment I had been wondering why I had never heard of VO guys using Waves plugs. For me, it’s key to be able to print my sound while tracking, especially when doing a remote session with the client on the other end, and not have to post process it through plug ins after the fact. So, at least for me, that would probably be a deal breaker where Waves is concerned. For music, where those plugs come into play during mixing, of course it’s a whole other story. Good to know. Much appreciated.

Thanks for asking! Every plug in has a different CPU load, some are more CPU-intensive than others, such as the Neve 1073 and new SSL E Series Channel strip, so it's difficult to generalize how many plug ins one could use. For example, this very simple setup in the video, which could be used for VO or vocals, runs at a CPU load of 22% capacity on the Duo, so you could easily record and print both input channels with these same plugins at the same time, even with a single core Twin. Luckily, UA has created a Plug in Instance Chart that lists how much CPU each plug in will use. (help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/215262223) Your best bet in determining whichever chain you want to use can be run "live" on the Duo is to consult the chart. Hope that helps!

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff That's great news for me, I only have a PCIe Solo at the moment, but I really like this chain. :)

Hi Tobbe. Most people perceive their own voice as sounding different than it does in real life. That's something that actually changes as you record yourself more and more. As time goes by, the more you record, you'll find one day that the voice you expect to hear on playback is the same one you hear coming out of your mouth and into your headphones when recording. About a decade ago, I was creating tons of content for new media and had my own radio show on Sirius--I had never done any of that before-- and it took me a while recording every day before I became intimately familiar with all the real nuances of my voice and how it really sounds vs. how I thought it sounded. It just takes time and repetition. I'm not having the monitoring issues you describe. I record with all my plug ins enabled so what I hear is what is recorded. It's just makes my workflow easier that way, but generally if recording dry (while monitoring plug ins) and then adding them later works better for you, it's really up to the individual. I keep my headphones at a decent volume, but of course not too loud that they bleed into my open mic. I also am always tinkering with my plug ins and setup, which is something that the Apollo system makes easy. If I change a setting, even a bit, I just save it as a new Session and keep going. Generally, each saved Session set up at this point is the result of endless tweaking, but pretty much now that I have a chain that I like and use every day, I really only ever use that one chain on everything. Sometimes I have another Session setup for loud commercials or animation recording, but for the work I do, I use what is now an ever-evolving plug in chain that keeps getting better sounding the more familiar I get with the system, it's limitations and it's strengths. But yes, every setup that makes it into my workflow is the result of hours, sometimes hundreds of hours, of tweaking. So, in general, to fix your monitoring volume issues, you may want to revisit how you have your DAW interfaced with the Apollo. The routing is pretty deep and I can see having volume issues if you don't have your playback channels set where you want them.

I might have had something wrong in the setup when the monitoring wasn't working as I anticipated. I was simply using the console program that came with the Apollo Twin and nothing else. It has nothing to do with the way I'm used or not used to hearing myself, since it behaves as intended with my DBX 286s + Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 setup, I hear myself loud and clear in the headphones and it sounds the same in the recording as it does live in my headphones. I can even adjust the volume of the monitoring on the 2i4 separately from the system volume which is nice if you have a conversation with someone over VoIP and you want to increase the sound of your own voice while monitoring (or just turn it down). The benefit with this setup is that it's cross-platform and plug n play. I would be nice if they released an Apollo Twin that is cross-platform. I also don't have to worry about the software crashes that tend to occur, it happend a few times with the console software both on windows and mac for me. But then again with the 286s I lack some parametric eqs that I'd like to have, I can basically only tune low and high frequencies with it which tend to make the voice sound a bit muddy. I hit the subscribe button, I'd love to see more content like this from you! Thumbs up! Maybe a tour in your sound booth, setup etc? Would also be nice to hear other configurations you test on the Apollo Twin, maybe some no eq vs eq, or how this setup would have sounded with just one compressor instead of two, if there would have been any noticeable difference at all. And by the way, did you try to VOG (Voice of God) plugin from the plugin suite?

I think I may have misunderstood your first comment. Thinking back, I had an issue when I first got my Apollo where a tiny bit of phasing caused by the latency in the live monitoring was throwing me off. It wasn't a lot of latency, but just enough for my ears to catch that it did sound different from my hardware only setup that I had been using. Over time, the UAD system updates have either fixed this and/ or I've gotten used to it, but it did throw me a bit on my first attempt to use Console. The routing in Console took a bit of trial and error too. It's probably easier to manage if you're using a DAW with it's own console such as Logic, etc... Thanks for subscribing. Not sure if more content like this is in the cards, with my schedule but I can tell you I have tried VOG and while it's pretty cool, I now prefer the low mid hug you get from the Pultec, especially if you set up your EQ chain to simulate that low end bump that you get from tape with a boost at 30hz and cut at 60hz. VOG does some nice stuff and I've used it on stuff, but it doesn't seem to stick in my chain.

It's probably way too late to give you any input that's still useful, since you left these comments 8 months ago. It just occurred to me that maybe you aren't (weren't?) aware of the two buttons on the right of your console screen labeled UAD REC and UAD MON. Forgive me if this is obvious to you, but if you have UAD MON activated, you hear plugins only while recording, they're not being "printed" on your track. You'd then have to add them again later in your DAW, which gives you more flexibility. If you have UAD REC activated, the plugins are being recorded and can't be removed, with the exception of those who are in your sends, like reverbs. Most people like to hear reverb while singing, but it's not a good idea to have them glued to the vocal tracks. Again, this is probably too little too late. But who knows.

@@JohannesLabusch thanks for the input, I revisit your comment section a couple of years later and can confirm I had UAD REC enabled. To really understand what I mean you really only can grasp it by comparing how you sound with the DBX 286s compared to how you sound with the apollo. With the apollo I feel that the sound you hear in the headphones with the live feedback is more "hollow". Also if I use for instance Logic and record a flat recording with no plugins, then apply UAD plugins to the recording, copying the settings from Logics UAD plugins straight over to UAD console, it does not sound the same.

You're welcome, Devin. None of the UAD stuff currently comes with DAW software (though there's been a long-running rumor they're developing a DAW--and I guess we'll know more by NAMM on the19th), but you'll absolutely be good to go with Audition. Speaking of NAMM, I saw that the prices on the Apollo Twins have gone down this week so the speculation on the gear forums is that they may be introducing new hardware soon.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff They should the setup already looks like a DAW. Nice video I do the same but, with the Waves Mercury bundle. Plus other goodies!

Thanks Peter!

Hi Anthony, You're absolutely right. One unit to rule them all! The portability of the Twin is a major plus. The ability to throw the Twin and a mic into a bag and go is pretty cool. Another thing to consider, an important thing actually, is that the A/D and D/A converters on the Twin MKII will be much better than those on the Presonus. Funny you should also mention the 266xs, because I have an old 266 Project 1 I bought a zillion years ago when I was composing TV music, that I was using in my VO rig for a while until I upgraded to the Twin. (One neat trick is to run from one side of the compressor into the other to get that tandem compression effect like I demonstrate with the 1176/LA2a--with one side having a very fast attack and the other a slow attack to thicken up your sound a bit) But, to me, the one major drawback of my 266 was that the op amps inside weren't hi-fi enough and were sucking a bit of the life out of my tone. The problem you describe sounds like a gate setting issue. The 266 has a built in fast attack on that gate and it takes surgical precision to get the ratio and threshold settings right so that it doesn't click or chatter or release too slowly. And then if you have outside noise issues like rumble, it can mess with that gate too since there's no filter to keep low frequencies from triggering it too. And while the UAD ecosystem doesn't give you a free, or even cheap noise gate (which I think it should), I can report that the gate on the SSL channel plug in is fantastic for VO and sounds very natural. Lastly, unless you are also doing music or running a lot of tracks, you probably don't need the Quad. It's always best to buy the best you can afford, but I've found that for VO, you can run a lot of plug-ins with just a Duo. I've never tried a Solo, but again, for the much less involved needs of just VO, you're not really talking about needing tons of processors like you would on a multi-track mixdown with tons of plug ins.

A just speaks a little english

You can help me

Hook your mic up to the twin. Turn on phantom power and start by setting up this plugin chain. Beyond that, it’s your personal journey to start experimenting. Luckily there are a ton of great videos already on RU-vid about gain staging and recording. Know that it’s a learning process and it takes time, sometimes years, to find your comfort zone. Just have fun and be yourself and learn as much as you can along the way.

A timeless classic. It's kinda like the 1-4-5 chord progression of audio processing.

Sennheiser MKH-416 shotgun mic.

Thank you very much, Roland! Happy Holidays! :)

Thank you, Julio! Very kind of you.

Bulg Beats You are very welcome. Yes, absolutely. Because VO vocal chains are meant to be transient and dynamic friendly, they can work quite well for hip hop, too. The UAD 610 preamp and the vintage modeled plugins in this video do have a nice warm tone that can help a bright mic sound less sterile. The 416 shotgun I’m using here is not what anybody would call a beautiful sounding mic on its own and it’s strength is that it can cut through a busy mix, but with a chain that can give it some weight and character, it can sound pretty nice on its own. Give this chain a shot and let me know if it works for you!

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff would this be a great chain for a 102

Sennheiser 416

Hi Lydell. If you are strictly using the Twin for VO, you can get by with a Solo. The plugins I'm using in this video use 23% of the DSP on my Twin Duo. These particular plug-ins aren't terribly DSP heavy, but some others are. UAudio has a guide online that gives you an idea of how much processor power each plug in uses (help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/215262223-UAD-2-Instance-Chart), so perhaps take a look at that too to better gauge what your needs may be.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff thanks for you reply. I don't want to spend more than necessary.

I hear ya. Plus, you'll probably want to have a few bucks left over in case you decide to pick up a couple of plug ins here and there.

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff correct!

Dude, unfortunately no... to get an expander/gate of some kind, you'd have to purchase one, which sucks because that's really the one crucial thing missing from the free plugin package you get. Well, that and a De-esser, which also doesn't come with it right out of the box. However, let me just say that the expander/gate on UAD's Legacy SSL plug in is fantastic. In fact, I highly recommend the Legacy SSL because the entire dynamics section is great and the EQ is very musical. You can really just tweak your mids to get them just right with it and you get a bit of the SSL polish on your tone. The new updated SSL plug in is Unison enabled so it works great as a pre, but it's a DSP hog. The non-Unison Legacy SSL doesn't use that much DSP at all and if you just want to run it as your gate and maybe just a bit of EQ, it really rocks. It's a shame UAD doesn't fill this glaring hole in it's free plug in offering, but for the price, the SSL is a great tool for VO in your chain.

Thanks for the info! I don't know why they wouldn't have included at least a simple version of an expander/gate (and de-esser as you said.) A way for them to squeeze juuust a few more bucks out of those who need it.

Good question. The Twin is actually a square desktop unit that's approx 6"x6". It's nice because I can keep it on the desk in my booth and have the headphone out and the big control knob (which I use mostly for headphone volume) right there. I'd never keep rack gear in the booth for lots of reasons. It's a nice size too if you want to grab it and take it with you to another location or if you're traveling. The more powerful Apollo 8 and 16 are rack mountable.

They actually still come with the Realtime Analog Classics Bundle when purchased new. www.uaudio.com/audio-interfaces/apollo-twin-mkii.html

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Right now the deal is only the Neve, Oxide Tape, Fender Tweed, and Lexicon + Galaxy. Unless I'm reading this wrong. I'll call them tomorrow. Thanks for the reply and video!

@@mybiggrin As far as I know, it still comes with the Classics bundle. Check out the product page on UAD's site and click the link for "included plug ins". It's a great setup.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff Mother of God... I think you're right!!!!! I'm so excited thank you so much!!!

@@mybiggrin Happy we could get that sorted out. Also, it appears that if you buy a Twin before the end of the year, you get those additional Neve, Tape and other plug ins you mentioned, depending upon which unit you get. Plus, UAD also usually sends new owners a coupon to use in their store after you register your new Apollo... and, right now they're also having their big holiday season plug in sale so you get the best prices of the year. It's probably the best time to buy considering all the free stuff and discounts available. If you get one, please pop back here and let everyone know what you think.

"Creamy essence" mmmm yeah

Boom chika wow wow

And would the solo be able to run all these plugins perfectly fine?

You should be able to assign the system output to one of the Console’s separate virtual channels then Use console output as your main audio out.

Kooked Not entirely sure the Solo can but I have a feeling it will.

Thanks for the quick reply man! Really helpful. I’m probably going to end up buying the duo over the solo just as a safety measure. Worth breaking the bank over a piece of equipment that provides so many awesome plugins! Great video btw, and again thanks for the help!

Kooked You are very welcome. Enjoy it and make great stuff!

Why thank you, Sir!

Thank you very much, Howard. It's fun to be the architect of your own sonic tower. ;)

Ayn Rand fans everywhere!! Btw, I am a real architect, lol, but also a musician :)

And I bought the Apollo MK II thanks to you, and it is a killer !

It was in a vocal booth.

Is this a personally owned booth or a studio booth somewhere?

If it's a personal booth I would like to know what type it was please.

It's my personal booth. Studiobricks One. Walls are half foam treated and half treated with custom acoustic panels I built.

Beautiful. I'm hearing more and more about the Studiobricks One. Sounds very good.

Take your pick: help.uaudio.com/hc/en-us/articles/209535566-UAD-2-Apollo-Plug-In-Bundles-Explained Good luck!

I hear ya, De-esser's are important in a VO chain. Unfortunately, the plug in package you get for free with the Twin does not include a De-esser, and here, the sole intention of this video was to just show just one iteration of a VO rig you can build right out of the box. UAD's own Precision De-esser, is a great add on, too. It's normally $99 but with all the coupons they send out, or during the big twice-a-year sales, you can get it for less. If we're talking about de-essers that run in the UAD console, you can't go wrong with the Precision one for VO.

great response!

Thank you, Eric. Thanks for commenting!

Thank you, and you are right. If I was one of those guys who does YT videos, I probably would have thought of that off the bat or done another video doing so. This was really just a personal request from a friend who lives on the other side of the country to show them how to create a basic 'in the box' gig rig within just a few minutes using only the included plug ins. Of course there are many ways to do so, and once you start to drill down and buy other UAD preamp and dynamic processing plug ins, the options are pretty enormous.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff I get that - definitely appreciated the video. Do you ever feel like you're pushing the processing for unison recording? Been looking for elegant solution for doing a four-person audio & video podcast for big association. I'd prefer a computer-less solution, but the MixPre-6 is expensive and the Zoom H6/F6 doesn't have channel strip processing to take it to next level. The Unison processing sounds more and more compelling..

@@truce11 Maxing out the DSP is a concern. Some plugins like the SSL use quite a bit of horsepower and then you stack a de-esser and maybe some kind of dynamic after that and you're maxing out a single DSP. Even with the Twin Duo, I used to run into usage issues because sometimes I'll set up a couple of separate channels loaded with plugins to compare signal chains. It all depends because different plugins use different amounts of DSP. Realistically, most people will cut dry or just through a preamp plug in and then do all their serious processing during mixdown, utilizing their computer DSP running plugins as AU or VST, and don't need so much DSP printing all their plugins while recording. Or if they are doing larger multi-track mixes, using one of the rack mounted apollos with or without satellite DSPs. But for what you are talking about. If you mean to record 4 people at the same time on separate inputs, the Twin will be problematic because it only has 2 mic inputs. You could get more inputs by adding a separate interface that has ADAT lightpipe out, that you could plug into the Twin's optical input to add more channels, but then there's the issue of DSP for 4 separate channel strips possibly summing to one or two of the Aux's (with their own processing) for mix.

Yeah $2Gzzzz for 4 Unison preamps (8p) is compelling, butnot sure I can justify that at moment unless client pays up.

​@@truce11 You'll probably do most, if not all, of your processing in post, which could be handled for group dialogue with many of the very capable plugins in a DAW like Logic, so really all you would need to record 4 talkers at once is a good interface that can handle at least 4 separate inputs, or more if your panel decides to have a guest or two on board at any time.

Online Hustle Yes. It’s a fully treated vocal booth.

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff I have the same chain but im getting a lot of hiss and white noise

@@onlinehustle9764 Hmmmm... What mic are you using? And does that mic produce similar amounts of noise with other preamps?

@@MarkYoshimotoNemcoff blue encore 200 and no when i take the ua 610b off the hiss is gone

@@onlinehustle9764 Ok. That's really more of a live performance/stage mic that has very limited sensitivity so I can see why you're going to need to jack the volume (which adds noise), and Blue hasn't published any self-noise figures for the mic so I'm guessing the self-noise alone is probably in the 20 dB-A region, which will also work against you. Realistically, you will want a condenser mic, especially one designed for studio recording, to get cleaner signal with this setup. Hope this helps.

A couple times a year, BSW will discount the 416 to $799. I personally would not recommend buying a used one off Ebay given that I've heard there are counterfeit ones out there. What's nice is that you can pick up the new UAD Arrow interface for about $499 and that should be more than enough to achieve a great VO sound with UAD plugins for a lot less than building a pro hardware rig would run. It's actually pretty amazing that the 416 has stayed at this same price point for so many years. And it says quite a bit that nothing else has come along to knock it off its perch. I know some people like the Rode shotguns and say they sound close, but close is often the difference between missing out on the job or getting hired.

Noted my friend. Thinking about getting the Numan TLM 102. It's $400 now sounds pretty close to the U87

Thank you, sir!

igmar Yeah I wish they included one with all the other free plugins you get. Luckily though UAD does have a kickass de-Esser in their store for $99. I use it in my everyday rig and it’s very effective and simple to use.