Apogee Duet + ?

[Doug]

In a continuing effort to liquidate my checking account, I just hit "click" and ordered an Apogee Duet from Amazon. Now that I have the Duet, the Axe Fx, Macbook Pro, and a pair of Adams I think I'm about ready to focus on the important thing - playing the guitar.

I do need one more thing though - I need a Midi connector. The Duet Breakout looks good, are there any other nice options?

 

[mark_melling]

In a continuing effort to liquidate my checking account, I just hit "click" and ordered an Apogee Duet from Amazon. Now that I have the Duet, the Axe Fx, Macbook Pro, and a pair of Adams I think I'm about ready to focus on the important thing - playing the guitar.

I do need one more thing though - I need a Midi connector. The Duet Breakout looks good, are there any other nice options?

The breakout box is fantastic..the cables on the Duet, while serve a purpose are a pain in the a** i guess the OCD in me wants everything in it place looking neat..if you in the mood for spending you can get the breakout with balanced output, its double the price of the standard one, but its an option if you want a balanced signal to your monitors.

M-AUDIO 2x2 is a good Midi interface.

 

[Doug]

Thanks Mark, I appreciate the advice. Isn't it kind of odd that there isn't an affordable unit that just incorporates all of this stuff? Midi doesn't seem like it needs to be a stand-alone device.

 

[LMO]

The 2x2 Anniversery is class-compliant, but with the regular 2x2 you are stuck with the supplied drivers, which may or may not work on your system. There are some less expensive units that incorporate both audio and midi; the Tascam 122mkII is one example. Don't expect to get high-quality A/D without spending some money.

 

[Doug]

The 2x2 Anniversery is class-compliant, but with the regular 2x2 you are stuck with the supplied drivers, which may or may not work on your system. There are some less expensive units that incorporate both audio and midi; the Tascam 122mkII is one example. Don't expect to get high-quality A/D without spending some money.

I'm ok with spending money, I'd actually prefer not to have two or three units do what one unit could do.

 

[Doug]

I'm having a weird problem with my Duet, and I'm wondering if anyone can help. Here is my setup:

Guitar through input 1 (on front of Axe). Balanced outs (Output1) left and right, to Apogee balanced In-1 and In-2 cords. The Apogee is plugged into my Mac via the firewire interface. In System Preferences Output, the Duet is set up for FireWire output. But, when choose the Duet as the device for sound output (in Sys Pref, output), there is a note under the box stating "The selected device has no output controls".

When I strum a chord, the input 1 and input 2 levels rise in the Apogee Mixer, so the signal is going through the Axe and then into the Duet. The problem is that I'm not getting any output into my headphones (plugged into the Duet). I don't have the phones muted. However, if I switch to Itunes and play a song, I can hear the songs through my headphones (still plugged into the Duet). So, the signal is going into the Duet (from both the Axe and from Itunes), but the only signal out is from Itunes.

 

[Doug]

Just to close the loop on this - I fixed the problem. I wasn't able to make the Apogee output to the headphones unless I routed the signal through GarageBand. I don't know whether that's the standard procedure or not, but it works now. I'm not using any EQ or effects in GarageBand, so the signal isn't modified at all. I'm interested to see if anyone has been able to make it work without GarageBand or some other processor.