Get Better Mixes with Apollo and Sonarworks

Learn how Apollo Monitor Correction improves your productions, no sound treatment required.

Your listening environment is one of the most important elements to achieving the perfect mix. And while your space's acoustics are important for accurate playback, room treatment can be expensive and complicated, though still worthwhile. (More on that in a future blog.) So what can you do to ensure that your mixes translate? Room correction tools are a great place to start in understanding and optimizing the shortcomings of your studio space. 

Universal Audio and Sonarworks teamed up to bring DSP-based room and headphone correction to Apollo X Gen 1 and Gen 2 interfaces. By combining the standalone Sonarworks SoundID Reference app, a measurement microphone and Apollo Monitor Correction running on your interface, you can fully calibrate your listening environment for the flattest frequency response and best mix translation. 

Here are some of our favorite features of Apollo Monitor Correction to help level up your mixes.

Custom-Tuned Profiles

Using a specially designed measurement microphone, Apollo Monitor Correction creates a detailed profile of your listening environment.

At the core of what makes Apollo Monitor Correction so game changing is SoundID Reference from Sonarworks and how it integrates directly with Apollo. SoundID is a standalone app that creates a one-of-a-kind correction profile tuned perfectly to your room and monitoring setup.

By taking a series of precise measurements of your space with an omni-directional measurement microphone (available separately) across multiple points around the room, SoundID corrects for acoustic imperfections that cause noticeable peaks and dips in the frequency response of your setup. 

This uniquely adjusted correction profile is then applied to your monitor outputs —with 24-bands of corrective EQ spanning 20 to 20 kHz per channel, so you can mix with confidence, minimizing the impact of your room at your listening position and improving your sonic sweet spot. 

Realtime Monitor Correction

Apollo Monitor Correction runs directly inside UAD Console for a perfectly integrated workflow.

Integration with Apollo X’s onboard DSP is what brings AMC to the next level. By running directly on Apollo's monitor and headphone outputs, everything is corrected with the lowest possible latency using 24-band correction filters on realtime SHARC DSP.

All audio playback from your computer — whether it's Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or music production software apps such as UA's  LUNA Digital Audio Workstation — are corrected without eating up your computer's processing power. Never forget to bypass a correction plug-in on your master bus before bouncing the final mix ever again!

System Wide Cohesion

Rocking multiple monitors, referencing on headphones, or having a late night mix session? AMC has you covered. By integrating seamlessly with UAD Console and its routing options, you’re able to run multiple profiles on a per-output basis. 

Apollo X desktop models allow stereo main monitors (speakers) and one headphone output to be corrected with unique profiles per output, while Apollo X rackmount models allow main monitor correction for stereo or surround speakers plus two independent headphone outputs that can be corrected at the same time with unique profiles. 

Perfectly tune each playback source in your studio – from open-back to closed-back headphones, in-ears, to full-range studio monitors – ensuring cohesion between them all, leading to improved collaboration with artists, and more consistent playback when cross-referencing. 

You can easily switch between multiple profiles in an instant with SoundID Reference’s single-click “Apply to Apollo” functionality, allowing for near-identical playback quality and calibrated frequency response between different sets of main monitors and headphones in an instant.

Perfect Translation

Seasoned engineers know referencing your mixes on multiple playback devices is an essential part of the mix process. Checking how your mix translates in the car, on your phone, or to a good old-fashioned Auratone-style single driver “grotbox” monitor can make or break a production. Luckily, AMC allows you to do just that — without leaving your desk. 

With Translation Check mode, you can emulate an array of speaker options on top of your custom tuned personal room profile to accurately recreate the effect of listening across multiple playback systems, all applied to Apollo in a single click.

Full Multi-Channel Support

Easily integrate Apollo Monitor Correction into your surround mixing workflow with a rackmount Apollo.

With immersive and surround mixes becoming standard deliverables for the modern engineer, more and more home studios are beginning to integrate complex rigs for mixing in Dolby Atmos and other similar immersive formats. Luckily, AMC supports a slew of surround setups all the way up to 9.1.6 for Apollo x16 and x16D interfaces.

Watch more about Apollo X interfaces and Apollo monitor Correction in this deep-dive video with UA's Geoff Manchester:

— Austin Lyons

Related Articles:

• UAD Console with Apollo Monitor Correction
• Sonarworks Apollo Integration