Drivers for Apollo16

[Dave Labrecque]

Three years later...

Tonight I've been reading up on UA Apollo threads, so I offer this here for future SAW/Apollo searchers: MM has said more recently that in order to get the ins and outs to be available in SAW, you need to configure them in the UA Console software.

So if you're having issues, it appears you need two thing to make an Apollo interface work with SAW:

1) 64-bit SAW
2) to configure the driver I/O in the UA Console software

That said, I understand that there are still playback challenges due to Apollo expecting to see a full-time live audio engine (SAW normally only goes live during recording and playback). One work-around appears to be using SAC as a front-end to SAW. Another is to keep SAW in Live Mode by configuring a dummy live channel in the MT. Going to try to experiment with one or both of those soon.

[Dave Labrecque]

Thanks for the suggestion Bob but so far I haven't been able to find one. Do you know if anyone has successfully used the UAD Apollo16 interface yet?

I believe our own Michael McInnis has gotten sound in and out of Apollo with SAW, but has had issues with playback due to what he surmises is SAW's not-always-on engine. He has said keeping SAW in Live Mode may be a work-around. I have a new Apollo x8P that I'll be plugging in as soon as my new Thunderbolt 3 box is built, hopefully in the next couple weeks, and will report back then on what I'm able to pull off.

[Dave Labrecque]

Four months later...

My attic studio build is still a ways off, but I finally got around to trying out my Apollo X8p last night with SAWStudio64. It actually worked better than I was expecting based on other reports from the SAWniverse.

1) MT recording worked without apparent issue. I was only doing a single mic into a single channel/track, so there's that. But I'm betting we're good, there. I did not think to check recording in the SoundFile View, however.

2) MT playback (starting/stopping) actually worked well. The only thing I noticed was that if I tried to jump around, random-access-style, by clicking in the timeline during playback, I would get a fraction of a second of "tone" before normal playback resumed at each new start point. Sounded like it was the first buffer (or so) of audio from that location looping (when normally, perhaps, we would, instead, see the little Windows "processing donut" accompanied by a moment of silence). The frequency of that "tone" would change as I changed the playback buffer settings. And I could minimize how often I got that hesitation tone (cuz it didn't happen with every restart point) by tweaking buffer settings and by waiting longer between successive restarts (e.g., clicking a new point in the time line during playback after a couple seconds rather than every half second). But I could find no reliable way to make it work right (hesitation-tone-free) all the time.

3) Playback in the SoundFile View worked fine except that the only ways to stop playback there were to a) reach the end of the sound file or b) right-click in the MT. IIRC, trying to stop playback with a right-click or a spacebar tap would cause that sample-looping "tone."

4) Despite past suggestions that Live Mode might be a work-around to improve UAD Apollo/SAWStudio playback issues, I found that it made no difference.

5) I believe the main/only thing I needed the UA Console software mixer for was to change the Apollo's buffer size (in a settings window).

6) Interestingly, on SAW's ASIO drivers list, three new UA-related ASIO drivers appeared:

UA Apollo Firewire
UA Apollo Twin USB
UA Thunderbolt

...but only the last one actually caused devices to appear in SAW's In/Out device settings window. I guess the full driver package installed is ready for all kinds of UA devices, whereas I was only plugging in a Thunderbolt device. Of course I did have to select the correct one.

So... I have to wonder what kind of engine tweaks Bob might be able to do that could address these things. I'm not sure making it full-time-live would be the answer, here. I also have to wonder if there are some tweaks I could make on the Apollo side of things that would address this. Sure wish I was in a better position to continue testing and experimenting, but I've had to put the Apollo away, again. Renovating a house is not conducive to this kind of thing.

Perhaps there are other enterprising Apollo users out there who will take up the baton until I can get back to this? West End, have you gone 64-bit yet?

[Tommy McLoughlin]

Thanks for the suggestion Bob but so far I haven't been able to find one. Do you know if anyone has successfully used the UAD Apollo16 interface yet?

I had the Apollo16 as well as a LYNX Aurora(n) and SAW did not work with either one. It's a driver issue to which I took myself out of the ring. I bought a RME HDSPe MADI FX card and the RME M32 Pro AD converter and haven't had an issue. Bob's software works perfectly with RME products, whether it's his drivers or the other manufacturers, I'm afraid that if there isn't enough complaints it will not get looked into.

[Dave Labrecque]

Recently-updated threads have described the symptoms when using UAD Apollo interfaces with SAW. SAW's not an officially-supported DAW with UA, so I wouldn't think they'd spend any time tweaking their drivers for us. I'd think our only hope is if Bob does the work to make SAW compatible with them. I suppose it's possible UA would work with him if he reached out, but I can't imagine our complaining to UA is going to get us very far.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, though.