In this article and video, Luke Goddard looks at the Apogee Symphony Desktop, a premium audio interface that gives professionals high-end performance from a compact system that fits in your bag.
For the musician, producer, or engineer who demands excellence in a portable, expandable footprint, the Apogee Symphony Desktop promises to deliver.
What Do I Get With The Apogee Symphony Desktop?
The Apogee Symphony Desktop is a desktop audio interface for Windows, Mac, or iPad Pro that brings the company’s Symphony converter technology into a sleek textured aluminium desktop-style enclosure. It’s operated via a TFT touchscreen interface in concert with a large rotary knob, giving the user intuitive “point-and-turn” control of all parameters.
Symphony Desktop is 2 in/4 out, expandable up to 10 in/12 out via ADAT. You get a 6.35mm instrument input and headphone out on the front, plus two combo inputs and two 6.35mm monitor outputs on the back. There is also a second 3.5mm “Zero Ohm” headphone output designed to drive IEMs and earbuds. All output sources are fully configurable. Power input is from the included DC adaptor with a secure locking connection. The entire enclosure is metal with laser-etched legends, and the whole thing has a premium feel.
In addition to the un-modelled SD-MP mic pre, the unit comes with two Apogee Alloy Preamp hybrid emulations; the AP66 British Solid State style mic amp, and the AP57 American tube model. These offer more than conventional software emulations; they actually model input impedance, transient profile and distortion characteristics using analogue circuitry before the A-D for refinement further downstream in the digital domain. Very cool.
The interface also ships with the vintage flavoured Symphony ECS Channel Strip, and the Clearmountain's Spaces Reverb (native). You can find out more about ECS and hear it in action in Julian Rodgers’ article and video here. The ECS channel comes in both native and DSP versions that can run either in the DAW or on the Symphony Desktop’s hardware DSP as part of Apogee’s innovative DualPath system. This gives the artist near-zero latency, even through DualPath-enabled plugins. This is all managed using the Desktop Control Software forming the familiar “console behind DAW” setup.
In Use
Along with the excellent PDF manual, navigating the Symphony Desktop is very simple. All functions are accessible through a handful of screens which can be swiped or tapped through, and the whole thing is very intuitive.
The large top panel encoder controls levels, mute, and power by turning, tapping, or pressing and holding. Mute behaviour is fully configurable to do things like toggle monitors and headphones, or just monitor mute among other things. I like the toggle setting a lot which just makes sense to me. The headphone output can be easily mono-d (so useful for placing spaced pairs), goes very loud when needed and is very clean.
The two combo inputs can be configured to bypass the pre for true line-in. This is a pro feature that often gets priced out- owners of external gear should like this. Both the mic amp selection, and the ECS strip can be controlled on the hardware running on the Symphony Desktop’s own DSP. The latter can then be printed using the “Print FX” button. The DSP mic pre is always printed.
Apogee tells me that users can expect full support very soon indeed for the full Desktop Control app for Mac, Windows, and iOS, and touch control bringing Monitor and/or Print FX as featured in the manual which will extend to any plugin running in the Apogee FX rack plugin.
DualPath Monitoring
Monitoring latency is neatly sidestepped using Apogee’s innovative DualPath monitoring system which is coming in an imminent update. Essentially, it is an extension of the tried and trusted method of monitoring live input through a mixer in front of the DAW, but with a twist. You can monitor through ECS or Apogee Rack FX plugins either through hardware DSP or natively in the DAW to maintain seamless latency-free performance even through plugins. This is Apogee’s take on an increasing number of DSP accelerated hybrid solutions on the market today which you can read about here in our Production Expert article.
When using DualPath, you have functionality that’s akin to large console workflows where the talent hears hardware input monitoring in record, followed by DAW return on playback for drop-ins and overdubs. I’m looking forward to seeing this outstanding feature which makes Symphony Desktop a serious contender for anyone who cannot afford to have that conversation about latency with the talent!
The Recording
Any interface is only as good as its sound, and despite the wealth of features offered by Symphony Desktop, at its heart is its world class AD-DA taken directly from the Symphony IO. Given this, I decided to make a minimalist stereo recording of a concert grand piano, in this case a Yamaha C7. At the Symphony Desktop, the un-modelled SD-MP mic pre was used with no Print FX. There is no EQ or dynamic processing on the audio below.
In the video, I use the Neumann TLM103 into the SD-MP mic pre to give an impression of the quality you can expect to achieve for dialogue and voiceover work. I would usually use some low-cut and compression for this application, however this time there is no EQ or dynamic processing on the dialogue whatsoever.
Video Transcript
The Apogee Symphony Desktop is a premium 10-in 12-out audio interface for the discerning musician or engineer. The whole thing is built into a lovely aluminium case and the unit is controlled using a TFT touch -screen interface. The Symphony desktop promises to deliver premium results on anything that you put through it with the whole emphasis being on quality.
I've been working with the Apogee Symphony Desktop for the last week and I must say I am very impressed. the first thing that strikes you about this unit is the build quality it's very, well-made, it's an all metal chassis and it has a lovely kind of textured aluminium top to it. All of the legending is laser-etched on the back, so it won't rub off and the whole thing feels very convincing indeed.
The second thing that I like about the Symphony desktop is the TFT screen, the touch screen interface and the large rotary encoder worked really well, so you've got a touch and twist type thing where you touch the interface and then make the adjustment on the hardware itself.
You can also control the ECS channel strip on the hardware, that's the DSP version that can be used for the print and monitor effects options in the forthcoming software release.
The third thing that I really like about the Apogee Symphony Desktop is the sound, it's clean, it's transparent and it imparts absolutely nothing especially when you use the built in Symphony desktop, mic pre, which is the unmodeled option. The unit does come with a Neve style pre and also a tube style pre, but for me, the whole point of the unit is it's unparalleled quality. So the sound quality is excellent and using the built in SD, mic pre really does the business for me.
To fully test the Symphony Desktop sound I went to record a concert grand piano in a large space. I used to stereo pair of Line Audio omnis, placed 30 centimetres apart, around 40 centimetres out from the, curve the piano, at head height, looking into the frame. I wanted to get close enough to capture the intricacy of the piano, but far enough out just to catch a little bit of reverb.
I used the Symphony desktop's powerful headphone, and mono feature to check for any cancellations in the spaced pair. At the Symphony desktop, the unmodeled SD MP might pre was used with no print effects inserted.
I've been using it for the last week and I'm very, very happy with the Apogee Symphony desktop. The quality is great, which is the thing. There are lots of interfaces out there at the moment, and some very affordable and some very good ones, but you definitely get what you pay for. It's well-built it has the touchscreen UI, and it's very, very clean and transparent, which really lets you hear into your recordings. I'll be sorry to see it.
Conclusion
To conclude, the Apogee Symphony Desktop is a very nice piece of equipment in terms of its features, and above all its sound, delivering clarity and depth to anything you put through it.
The digitally controlled, linkable mic amps make stereo work a cinch, with 75dB of clean mic gain and total transparency on tap when it counts. I also love the hardware soft limiters, true straight-to-AD line inputs, and powerful mono-able headphone outputs that are reminiscent of high-end location recorders, making this an indispensable professional tool both in the field as well as in the studio. Living with the Symphony Desktop for the last couple of weeks has been a real pleasure, but more importantly it elevates the quality of anything you put through it.
My special thanks to pianist Justin Miller and St Matthew’s Church Northampton, UK for their help in the making of this article.