Apogee Symphony Desktop FX Complete Audio Interface

General

With the Symphony Desktop FX Complete, Apogee serve up a high-end audio interface with DSP and a fistful of included effects. In essence, this is the more stripped down version of the Symphony I/O MkII, with some new features, including the support of a set of 'vintage' British and American microphone preamp emulations for the built-in Alloy preamps. These emulations ensure that your recordings are given shape by the much sought-after warmth and harmonic distortion from the golden years of analogue recording. Meanwhile, an ultra-modern DSP chip steers high-quality effects, including Pultec EQP-1A, Pultec MEQ-5, ModEQ 6, ModComp and Opto-3A EQ, and compressor plug-ins.

The Apogee Symphony Desktop: Alloy Preamps

The microphone preamps form the base of the Symphony Desktop and offer 75dBs of gain, and since a unique Stepped Gain Architecture is used, any possible noise and distortion is prevented, no matter the audio source. A deeper low-end and a brighter high-end is also achieved by 'matching' the impedance curve with the recording source (whether a microphone or instrument). To finish, the set of Alloy preamps even offers a selection of vintage British solid state preamp emulations, or '50s American tube emulations, as needed.

The Symphony ECS Channel Strip Plug-In and DualPath Link-Technology

The Symphony ECS Channel Strip plug-in is not only completely fresh but comes included with the Symphony Desktop. This channel strip plug-in offers EQ, compression, and saturation controls - ever useful when recording acoustic instruments or vocals. Symphony ECS can also be used as a standard DAW plug-in and, to sweeten the deal that bit more and ensure that your workflow is made as smooth as possible, Apogee also throw in a copy of the brilliant DualPath Link. Using this smart bit of software, you can use the plug-in while recording; sending the signal through the hardware DSP of the Symphony Desktop itself and, as soon as you hit play, the DualPath Link seamlessly switches back to the plug-in in your DAW. This not only relieves the CPU of your computer during recording, but guarantees latency-free recording.