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the window always shows an information pane for the interface in question, a pair of large dials for speaker and headphone levels, with separate Mute buttons, and a Clear Meters button (more on those functions below). The five pages of the application let you fine-tune the Duet 2’s functions for Inputs, Outputs, Device Settings, the low-latency Mixer, and System Setup. We’ll walk through these pages and acquaint ourselves with all of the Duet 2’s functions as we go. Features and functions The Inputs have gain settings with a Group button to gang the two Inputs together for single-knob control, and individual phase flip and 48V phantom buttons for each Input. You can select each input to receive +4 or –10 line-level signals, a miclevel signal, or an instrument-level/high-impedance signal, and the mic inputs have up to 75 dB of very clean gain, suitable for all but the most finicky vintage ribbon mics. Note that the Group controls preserve offsets between the Inputs; if they were set, say, 6 dB apart when you turned Group on, that 6 dB spread will stay there as you change gains, and will be reflected on the OLED as well (all levels are shown as they’re tweaked). The Outputs page lets you dim (drop level by 15 dB), mute, or sum to mono either of the two physical outputs, the Speakers and the Headphones. Each physical output can receive signal from Outs 1–2, Outs 3–4, or the Mixer. Said Mixer is a fullon low-latency mixing system in the Duet 2’s hardware, with input muting/panning/solo and a Software Return signal that can be routed to either output pair and muted/soloed. As is common on Apogee interfaces, the full round-trip latency is so small (as low as 3 or 4 milliseconds) that you might not need the Mixer at all, but that depends heavily on how powerful the host Mac is; for us mere mortals with older machines that run at higher buffer settings, the Mixer is invaluable. The Device Settings and System Setup pages cover a variety of useful utilities. All of the Maestro meters (and the OLED display meters) have peak and over indicators that can hold for 2 seconds or indefinitely; you can set up the Mac’s keyboardbased volume controls to work the speaker or headphone levels, too. The front-panel touchbuttons can be programmed for a variety of uses— you can mute, dim, or sum to mono with a touch, and apply the command to the speakers, headphones, or both; clear the meters’ peak and over lights; or toggle between any two of the three output sources: 1–2, 3–4, or the Mixer. A rotary source-switch function—from 1–2 to 3–4 to Mixer to 1–2 again—would be a nice alternative implementation. Maybe in a future software version? In use The only fiddly part of using the Duet 2 was the initial setup, and that only took me about ten minutes. The website offers a User Guide in printable, webbased, and downloadable forms; the latter is an application that opens your browser and displays the web manual with links and so forth, even without an Internet connection. You must remember to grab one or more versions on your own, as it’s not included with the software/firmware installer. Once you’ve done the install, getting started is practically instantaneous.

The Duet 2 working experience is a class act all the way. The OLED provides very quick access to all major functions, and instant metering right at hand; Maestro 2 gives you all the control you need, and then gets out of the way so you can work in your DAW. I should note that the touchbuttons took about 10 seconds to go from “that’s sort of a cute gimmick” to “Wow, how did I ever manage without these?”... if I had any complaint at all about this setup is that there should really be more buttons, as there are so many useful things they can do that I found myself frustrated at having to choose! I want to be able to mute the speakers or the headphones, and clear the meters, and dim everything at once...

And then there’s the question of sound quality. As readers might expect, there’s really not a lot more to say than “Apogee”. Impeccable clarity, exquisite detail, and nothing hiding beneath a layer of obscuring digital gunk. Highresolution WAV and DSD playback has never sounded so good to me, and mic and instrument recordings were unimpeachably lovely-sounding—except when the sources themselves had issues, which were exposed with vividness. (Yes, that little grindy hum thing your old digital guitar-effects processor lays under all your tracks is noticeable when soloed. Sorry.) This is a recording and playback interface that neither accepts nor allows compromise, and that is probably a major selling point right there. Final thoughts What else would I have liked to see? Aside from there being too few touchbuttons, the only thing the original Duet did that the Duet 2 doesn’t is integrate directly with Apple’s Logic DAW without Maestro. But the User Guide explains precisely how to set up the Duet 2 as you would any conventional audio interface (this page was probably put in expressly to help old Duet users who have never had to do this before). Maybe a future update to Logic will re-introduce this control setup, but right now its absence will barely slow you down. The Duet 2 significantly raises the bar on the original Duet, which was already one of the finest-quality portable audio interfaces available for the Mac. If you’re in the market for something world-class to handle your audio signals in a portable format, you’ll find the Duet 2 a very pleasurable experience. Price: $595 More from: Apogee, www.apogeedigital.com
RECORDING FEBRUARY 2012

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Recording - February 2012

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