Upgrading iPad Recordings with Apogee BOOM

welcome to Good offset my name is Emily

and I just want you to know that if you

want that pumpkin spice latte you should

get one don’t let the haters dictate

whether or not you get the drink that

you want

I’m here today because Sweetwater sent

me something to demo and review it is

the apogee boom it has a really small

footprint so it will fit in a backpack a

purse or on even the smallest desk it

feels really robust and I think it’s

quite handsome like I’m biased towards

purple and you know that so it has one

microphone input with one of their class

leading preamps but that can also be an

instrument input or you can put some Pro

level gear like a mixer into there as

well it also has a separate instrument

input which is your standard uh quarter

inch adapter

but you might be wondering like how do

you control things on on this I don’t

see a button for phantom power uh I just

see one knob I don’t see a way to select

between them so let’s take a look so

you’re going to be looking at these

lights right and one so right now

I’m on input one and I can control the

volume just like that move to input two

control the volume and then that’s the

output

so there you go you also might notice

there are two little effect symbols this

is great if you’re on the go and want to

record through like an iridium and have

some extra like EQ and compression

settings I think it’s especially great

for people like podcasters and streamers

so normally when you record a podcast

like a video podcast or a tool like Zen

Caster or if you’re streaming through

stream Labs you don’t have much control

over shaping the tone of your voice or

an instrument if you’re using that their

software

by the apogee control which is free

allows you to set a high pass filter has

a three band EQ where you can specify

the frequency that’s being cut or

boosted it also has a compressor that

has quite a few controls you can also

control the routing of the compressor of

the EQ it’s it’s pretty impressive

actually so I’m going to show you that

but first i’m going to talk about a few

other features of the apogee boom and

I’m just going to unplug it

it was plugged into the iPad I want to

just be able to power it to show you so

this is bus powered even on an iPad or

iPhone which is great because if you’re

on the go uh getting a quick recording

of a demo and recording your podcast or

doing a a brief stream from your phone

you uh don’t have to find another Outlet

you can just you can truly just be in

the back of the van with your iPhone out

and your little lap guitar your synth or

whatever recording notes so that’s just

again one less thing you have to worry

about for the streamers and podcasters

this also does have a loopback feature

so you can get audio from your phone

into your recording it makes live

streaming multiple audio sources very

easy and that’s one of the biggest

issues when you’re trying to get

computer audio

so it’s really great that you can mix

those

loopbacks separately that’s one of my

favorite features for any inner for any

interface I have if I’m streaming with

it it also includes Ableton Live Lite as

well as the apogee 2 Control software so

um yeah again totally portable and bus

powered but the heart of this I think is

in that Control software and the effects

that you can apply to each channel so

I’m going to go ahead and plug this back

into my iPad get a guitar set up through

the stream and iridium and um let’s

let’s do a little bit of recording see

in a second welcome back I have my

apogee Boom hooked up to my iPad via a

USB C2C cable

um Mac users you probably have 100 of

these lying around I did have to buy one

but it was really inexpensive so I’m not

complaining so I have my mic hooked up

to analog N1

the guitar and the Iridium hooked up to

analog N2 and let’s just start to talk

about some of these controls first we

have general settings sample rates

output format main output level some

options for how long the indicator light

is on for meter peak hold and overhold

I’m going to go ahead and set overhold

to infinite X out and now we’re in the

channel view

so this is called the Channel View for a

lot of audio interfaces you would

control some of these elements on the

front panel of the interface

for apogee boom you can you control it

via the Control software and that

obviously has its pros and cons not

everybody likes digging through software

to make changes or like turn on phantom

power or adjust gain and you don’t

actually have you you can still adjust

gain on the front of the panel you just

press in on the panel until it’s at the

inputs you want or the output level and

you can adjust it that way but for

phantom power effects inverse polarity

things like that padding you do want to

go through the app the benefit of this

is it’s less stuff that can break on the

device Itself by going through the

software instead of putting it on the

front I just less less buttons to break

so I’m for it personally so you can see

that analog N1 is set to mic analog into

a set to instrument I can turn a pad on

and off like this

now I’m 10 decibels quieter

and I can I can select uh various

levels for um the instrument as well for

example the plus 4 DBU that’s great if

you’re plugging in some Pro Audio gear

like um like an external mic preamp

pretty pretty good for that

otherwise there’s also a low z option

that I’m also not going to use next we

have gain control and that’s pretty

self-explanatory you just

you just adjust it whoops

that sounded great you suggested like so

or on the front panel you can also group

the channels so if I was just recording

the Iridium right now I could have one

half of the Iridium going into like the

left side going into the left side and

the right side going to the right side

you’d be able to click that and then

they would adjust at the same rate so

you can turn them up and down the same

level for both sides so they’re always

exactly the same

that’s really cool and that’s just one

of the pros of using software instead of

controls on the front of the interface

next we have a 48 volt so that’s phantom

power so this would work with

um condenser microphones so that’s great

we have SL I’m pretty sure that’s a

limiter some apogee interfaces do have

limiters built in so I have it on it

seems to be helping with my overall

volume levels so I’m going to keep it

next we have effects so you turn effects

on or off right there and I’m sure you

could already hear a difference in my

voice that’s because I’ve already been

fiddling with some of these effects so

let’s take a look at them

first we have an EQ

and you can turn that on or off so you

could just have the compressor not the

EQ you can hear a bit of a volume

difference there then we have a high

pass filter right now I have it about 80

that’s generally where I leave it but

you can set it anywhere from 20 to 300

Hertz and it’s in it’s a fixed 18

decibel slope

there you go you also have

cut or boost up to 15 decibels each way

for a low mid and high frequency and you

can set that frequency to whatever you

want to set it to within obviously these

limits so low is 35 to 300 net is 250 to

8 kilohertz high is four kilohertz to 16

kilohertz

you can also set the queue to be wider

or more focused so let’s just so you can

hear it I’m going to just do the mids

because that’s what’s going to be most

apparent with vocals you can really hear

it uh

uh so yeah too much minutes on vocals

can get a lot so I’m not going to boost

it quite that much

next we have the compressor which we can

also turn on and off so you have the

threshold the mix I don’t want fully

compressed mix on my vocals but I do

want a higher threshold for example and

you can compress it three to one five to

one

or ten to one

so yep they’re just different you can

also set uh drive and output level so

I’m going to go back to a three to one

compressor so you’re gonna have the EQ

before the compressor or after it uh

that’s personal preference whatever you

think sounds better you also have the

output level from the compressor so we

can turn that up a little bit and I’m

not going to have any Drive

next let’s look at the guitar so I am

not plug I’m not going straight into the

iPad via the apogee I have the streyman

iridium in there because I think it

sounds better than the options I have on

this iPad by a garage band but yeah

let’s look at the effects for the guitar

turn that up

foreign

[Music]

hear the difference so high pass again

about 80 you can adjust the low

you can adjust the meds

[Music]

maybe just a slight boost to that

frequency

and then the highs

then we have the compressor so we have

the threshold

the ratio

[Music]

put some press

[Music]

turn that up

[Music]

100 what

and then EQ and comp

[Music]

adjust the drive and the output level as

well there

[Music]

[Applause]

I’m going to turn up my bass because I’m

not going to be fighting with a bassist

and I would like a fuller sound just for

what I’m hearing right now

cool

so we also have a mixer View and this is

any standard mixer view but it is

helpful if you’re going into something

like garage band or any other recording

app and they don’t have great track

controls which is just seems to be the

case so you have your analog in one and

two you can pan them left and right

you also have your playback so that your

loopback stuff

and a main master

so that is the gist of the software

let’s go ahead and try to record

something into GarageBand maybe so I

have GarageBand open instead of going

through the Dreadful amps

no offense I’m gonna go uh into the

audio recorder here so let’s go and

record an instrument part we could add

some room sound and some compression I

already have compression

and also that I actually already do have

some room turned on but

via the Iridium it is such a great

little petal

um so we got nice room dreamy chorus

one thing I didn’t do is turn on the

monitor so right now right now obviously

obviously it’s defaulting too it’s

default because garage band is

so I can do so I can put one input and

put two which is a guitar

or both at the same time so I’m going to

go back and it’s going to be

uh should I just do this I don’t want

any of that just acoustic guitar which

you know is not exactly what I want I

just want a straight input let’s get a

nice room

monitoring is on

and uh 12 bars is good

Let’s uh

record

nice so that was a success and let’s go

back

and record

uh vocal take

me all right let’s listen

strange

[Music]

[Music]

that’ll work and you know that still

sounded a lot better than uh the

built-in effects

um on GarageBand and I was able to shape

everything more or less the way I wanted

to because of apogee Control software

so I’m gonna turn everything down and uh

give you my final thoughts turn that

down so my final thoughts it’s a great

little interface it retails for about

299 dollars so it has the one microphone

input and you can do two instrument

inputs into uh into it because it’s the

Dual microphone and a quarter inch input

jack

you know at first I was like why aren’t

there more controls on the face of it

but the only thing I ever really would

need to adjust on the fly on normally at

least would be the volume or the gain

levels and you can very easily do that I

think it’s really Nifty if you want a

little bit more control to make like

quick recordings on your iPad while

you’re traveling or something like that

I also think that this would hold up on

the road the enclosure itself feels

really robust and since there’s less

stuff on the front panel I worry less

about things breaking or falling apart

the the more mechanical elements you put

in things like this just the easier that

it is if it gets dropped or gets knocked

around that it will break so that’s a

really uh big downside to trying to

travel with similar smaller interfaces

this I think I think that would hold up

it’s also really handsome

um apogee is really well regarded in the

recording industry itself I know that

it’s maybe not the name brand when

people think about at home audio

interfaces I think that’s a shame

because they make some really high

quality products they really really do

and as far as the software I especially

like it on the iPad my only complaint

for it on the computer itself is very

small text it’s really small text and

you couldn’t really make the window

bigger I anticipate that’ll be fixed at

some point because I’m probably not the

only one who noticed it but it it was a

little bit hard to to read

but on the iPad everything is intuitive

um it just works which is really neat so

again about 299 dollars if you do choose

to buy one please consider using the

affiliate Link in my video description

it’s a great way to support the channel

um doing things you’re going to do

anyway doesn’t cost you any extra money

but I do get a portion of the proceeds

back so that’s a huge help again thank

you to Sweetwater for sending me this to

to review again Sweet Water other ways

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thanks for understanding until next time

my name is Emily goodbye