Nailed it? Record directly to your DAW through Symphony Desktop Hardware DSP. With Print mode active you can commit and record Apogee FX Plugins directly from the hardware DSP in Symphony Desktop to the corresponding channel in your DAW. The triangular mirroring of information between Apogee Control 2, the Channel FX plug‑in and the touchscreen is generally excellent, but does fall down in one small respect. There are on‑screen buttons in Apogee Control that tell you whether Print FX and Monitor FX are switched on for each input, but nothing to tell you whether any plug‑ins are actually loaded. The only way to tell whether an input is being processed or not is to open the plug‑in window for that channel. British Solid State - Class A console sound Inspired by the Marinar “Round can” input transformer and discrete transistor design of our Class A Neve 1066 mic preamp, this emulation gives you the sonic weight and smooth transient response of the hardware. Push the level for increased width and punch.

mic preamps with Advanced Stepped Gain Architecture and up to 75dB of gain ensure clean, low-distortion resultsOne of the main goals of a hybrid system is to make it unnecessary to leave the DAW environment to make changes in the input and monitor paths. Many attempts to implement such a system fall down on this very point, but the Symphony Desktop’s touchscreen makes all the difference. It’s not often you can say that an audio interface is a pleasure to use, but I think the Symphony Desktop absolutely deserves that compliment". Symphony Control App only available in Thunderbolt Audio Interface mode. Firmware update not required. Unique hardware-software integration with Apple Logic Pro X gives you an incredibly streamlined workflow

You’d expect an interface costing this much to sound good, and the Symphony Desktop has impeccable audio credentials. The preamps offer 75dB of digitally controlled gain with a highly impressive EIN figure of -129dB unweighted. A-weighted dynamic range on the inputs and outputs is 123 and 129dB respectively, while Apogee’s “zero Ohm” headphone outputs also promise —and deliver — excellent quality. This level of audio performance is still relatively unusual in a desktop interface, but the Symphony Desktop really does come within spitting distance of Apogee’s flagship modular Symphony I/O" D/A CONVERSION - A widescreen window into your mix Symphony Desktop’s digital-to-analog stage employs brand new technology to provide uncompromising Symphony DAC performance in a portable product, including a robust ultra-low distortion, high-current output driver. Regardless of downstream connections, Symphony Desktop provides a transparent, widescreen window into the sonic landscape of your mix. I've been using it for the last week and I'm very, very happy with the Apogee Symphony desktop. The quality is great, which is the thing. There are lots of interfaces out there at the moment, and some very affordable and some very good ones, but you definitely get what you pay for. It's well-built it has the touchscreen UI, and it's very, very clean and transparent, which really lets you hear into your recordings. I'll be sorry to see it. Conclusion A/D CONVERSION - Faithfully capture every nuance Similar to Symphony I/O MkII, Symphony Desktop’s analog-to-digital convertor stage features ultra-low distortion, high-slew rate, fully differential analog op-amps plus a cutting edge A/D convertor in a performance-enhancing dual-sum configuration. Create with the confidence that every nuance of your analog input is faithfully reproduced in the digital domain. Symphony Desktop is equipped with Apogee Alloy Mic Preamp emulation. A combination of DSP processing and some clever analogue circuitry transforms your inputs to sound like some of the most sought-after studio hardware. Critical aspects of the model such as input impedance, transient profile and distortion characteristics are first implemented in the analogue domain, followed by precise and accurate refinement in DSP, for a hybrid result that’s greater than the sum of its parts. There are currently 2 emulations available –‘NV-1066’ modelled after the Neve 1066 &‘AX-601’ designed to sound like a 50s era Ampex 601. With more emulations in the works, the Alloy Mic Preamps will have even more to offer in the future.Whereas the Duet 3’s DSP is limited to a simple but effective channel strip which can be placed only in the record path, the Symphony Desktop’s implementation is vastly more ambitious, both in its scope and its flexibility. Apogee have coded an entire suite of plug‑ins, both in all the usual native formats and as DSP processes that can run within the Symphony Desktop’s own mixer. On top of this, they’ve developed something called Apogee Channel FX. This looks to the host program like a conventional native plug‑in, but is in fact a specially designed ‘container’ plug‑in that can communicate with the Symphony Desktop. The idea is to allow the creation of a single chain of processes that is simultaneously accessible from the DAW, from Apogee Control 2 and from the front panel of the Symphony Desktop. Variable impedance settings on both mic and instrument inputs optimize their input stage to match your specific device Like every product in the Symphony line, Symphony Desktop benefits from Apogee’s core mission to design the finest performing audio interfaces using cutting edge analog and digital components, carefully selected by ear. While others cut costs and rely on conventional design approaches, we use innovative components and circuit optimization to consistently improve the performance of our products A/D Conversion - Faithfully capture every nuance A/D CONVERSION – Like Symphony I/O Mk II, Symphony Desktop’s analog-to-digital converter stage features ultra-low distortion, high-slew rate, fully differential analog op-amps plus a cutting edge A/D converter in a performance-enhancing dual-sum configuration. Create with the confidence that every nuance of your analog input is faithfully reproduced in the digital domain. Symphony I/O Mk II includes the most refined analog-to-digital converter we’ve ever designed. The analog stage uses the same fully differential op-amps as found in the original Symphony I/O, but now in a circuit precisely streamlined to provide the most transparent path to the A/D stage possible. A Dual Sum A/D stage – where two conversion stages are summed for each analog channel – offers the lowest distortion and greatest dynamic range of any A/D converter we’ve ever designed – you get digital recordings that are true to your analog inspiration.

So, if you were wondering if you could record a multi-mic'd drumkit with Symphony Desktop – the answer is yes, with an ADAT expander! This touchscreen affords access to all of the same settings you would typically find in control panel software. So, you can set input and output levels, manage routing and monitoring, and even configure the Symphony’s built-in preamp models and channel strip, which run on the unit’s internal DSP, all from the touchscreen.The full review of the Apogee Symphony Desktop can be found in the May 2022 issue of Sound On Sound, as well as here. However, in cases where the same manufacturer makes both DAW and interface, it can be possible to integrate the two much more closely. Avid’s Hybrid Engine, for example, automatically switches between DSP and native versions of a plug‑in depending on whether it is in a live input monitoring path or not, and UA’s LUNA has similar capabilities.