Apogee Duet Firewire Recording Interface

This one is for the musicians out there. By day I'm a geek, but by night
and on the weekends I write, play, and produce music. Since this is one of
my primary uses of technology, I have spent a boatload of time and money on
the right gear for the job. Not so long ago I had the need for a small
recording interface I could use with my MacBook Pro to get rough cuts of
guitar parts I've written. I find that I have trouble remembering
EVERYTHING I come up with, so recording is a good way to jog my memory if I
need to. Since my practice space isn't at home and my recording studio
is...I had to find something mobile that would fit in my laptop bag and not
take up too much space.

The Apogee Duet is a 2 channel Firewire recording interface for Mac. Sorry
Windows users, this one's not for you. I'll have a review of some Windows
compatible gear soon. It has 2 balanced XLR inputs for microphones or DI
boxes, 2 Unbalanced 1/4" inch inputs for instruments such as guitar,
keyboards, bass, etc., and 2 unbalanced 1/4" outputs to connect to your
studio monitors, monitor management system, or amplifier. All of the I/O is
provided via a breakout cable and the entire interface matches the Macintosh
aesthetic well. It provides phantom power on the XLR inputs and is host
powered so you don't need a power adapter. I won't go into installation of
the driver and software here, but rest assured, it's a painless process.

The first time I monitored a mix with the Duet I was blown away. I was
using a Presonus FireStudio as my primary interface which sounded good, but
the Duet sounded clearer and seems to have a flatter frequency response than
the Presonus. I could hear such a difference that I could pick out flaws in
a recording I had already mixed within the first few minues. Since then,
I've also replaced my studio monitors with MUCH nicer monitors and I'm
reviewing the mixes again. I'll review those monitors soon.

I've used all of the inputs on the Duet. To be clear, you can't use both
the XLR and 1/4" inputs simultaneously on the same channel. You can use
different connectors on separate channels, though. I've used each
configuration available on both channels. The frequency response and
headroom are very good. Recording guitar from my Line6 Spider Valve
amplifier couldn't have been easier. There is a balanced XLR output on the
amplifier which sounds superb when connected directly to one of the XLR
inputs. I use this for quick recordings at least once a week and am quite
pleased. Plugging microphones into these inputs works very well. Also,
recording dry guitar signal to re-amp works nicely with the 1/4" inputs.

All in all, the interface is solidly built. There's tons of headroom in the
Mic Preamps. The frequency response is superb. For anyone who uses a Mac
to record and needs either a solid 2 channel interface or something small
that can be packed away in a laptop bag, the Duet is at the top of the list.

I give the Apogee Duet a perfect 10 out of 10







Amazon.com WidgetsApogee Duet Firewire Recording Interface

ASUS P6T Deluxe - X58 Motherboard

I recently built a Core i7 computer, and my motherboard of choice was the Asus P6T Deluxe.  This is my first Asus motherboard, however they are a pillar in the computer hardware industry and have been making top notch motherboards and other hardware for years upon years.  Clocking in at a hot 299.99, this is definitely an expensive motherboard, and I didn't even get the "ultimate" version. You can step up to the OC/Palm edition, which has some kind of funky external LCD display that will tell you volatages, temps, and other such things.  I didn't feel this was necessary, so I stuck with the deluxe version.

Installation was a snap.  My Antec Twelve Hundred case gave me plenty of room to get this sucker installed in no time.  Oh, and for those reading, that case I mentioned is FANTASTIC.  I'll get to that review later.  Anyway, the board is laid out very nicely and offers a ton of connectivity.  Although 3-way SLI is not going to happen on this board, that is pretty much a non-issue for everyone but .000000001 percent of the computer gaming population.   You also get 8 SATA ports, so you can really load up the hard drives if that's your thing.  It's also a nice looking board.  For those of you with see through cases, this board is certainly a looker. Also, the power and reset buttons on the board itself will be handy for extreme overclockers or system builders who prefer to have the guts of their computer just hanging out on a table somewhere. That's not my thing, but overall I was impressed by the look and build quality of this board.

Normally when I build a computer, the first time I hit the power button nothing happens.  Not this time baby!  Everything worked perfect from the first push. After installing my OS, I proceeded to begin overclocking this beastly system I made.  This board makes overclocking a cakewalk.  In 10 minutes I went from 2.66Ghz to 3.62GHz and even as high as 3.9GHz (with Hyperthreading enabled). I ended up scaling it back to 3.63 in the end as this was the sweet spot of temps/performance.  Under full load (8 instances of Prime 95) my temps were in the 65-67 range.

I've now been running this setup for over a month without a single problem.  I love this motherboard, and the Intel Core i7 processor just destroys every other processor on the market.  I couldn't be happier with this system.  It's expensive, but well worth every penny.

ASUS has a real winner on their hands with the P6T Deluxe motherboard.  It's rock stable and even a novice overclocker will have his/her (I'm betting his) system overclocked in no time at all.  The version I have is being phased out for a slightly cheaper (10 dollars) version that removes a 3rd party SATA controller (and I think 2 of the SATA ports) but everything else remains exactly the same.

This is a great board for anyone looking to build a Core i7 system.  However, there are now X58 boards on the market much cheaper than this version.  If you are planning to overclock, then by all means go with this board, however if you are planning on running at stock speeds, I'd recommend looking into Gigabyte's entry level X58 motherboard.  It packs a ton of features for about 100 dollars less.