Home Recording Studio Setup- UAD Apollo 8x - 2020

[@TheSteveKinney]

Check out the new presets here: thestevekinney.com/

[@katrina_burgoyne]

Love those presets.

[@pamelak.4794]

“The most Beautiful way to Start and End a Day, is with a Grateful Heart” What am I Thankful for? Such a long list, but the Greatest of them being, My Super Sweet Husband, and my two Amazing Sons, all of them which I have been richly blessed. My fur baby’s; Lil Scooby do, (and Bluey too). I am also Thankful for the two Beautiful women who have a special place in my heart, for loving our sons and making them happy. I wake up each morning, thankful for the wake of day, and go to sleep at night, thanking God (and my lucky stars), for everything else under the sun.

[@pamelak.4794]

Your Studio set up (and video of it) is awesome! The desk is awesome and so thrilled that you love and appreciate it the way you do! Your Dad put his heart and love into making it....and its great to see it working for you!

[@Solomon_King_]

The big Puppy is helping Dad with his projects.. My dog does the same thing :)

[@TheSteveKinney]

Ha that’s awesome! Dogs are the best people. Cheers mate!

[@Beatsara_com]

My dad helped me out to build my home studio too so im thankful👌🏻

[@katrina_burgoyne]

Great Job Steve! Always proud of you!

[@TheSteveKinney]

Thanks babe!

[@fblmusic7058]

I had a brown out like that yesterday here in Lexington, KY. Glad to have my battery backup and furman

[@TheSteveKinney]

When that happened I was like. Wth lol Then watching it back - busted out laughing. Cheers!

[@streetlogic]

yeah once i built my desk workflow increased 10 folds. great video

[@TheSteveKinney]

That’s badass man. Glad to hear it! Do you mix hybrid too?

[@streetlogic]

@@TheSteveKinney I just started to lately bought an art pro vla 2 compressor as well as the preamp and I love running my mix through the compressor.

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@streetlogic dude. I started out with the ART pro channel and also got the pro VLA. It’s such an underrated piece. Sounds fantastic on acoustic guitars and voice.

[@HollyProdIt]

The people who always looked out for me no matter how much i didn’t listen 🤞🏼

[@MsMay32]

I'm grateful to have found you! :-)

[@TheSteveKinney]

Thanks mate!

[@BradDollar]

Saw the Dolbys in another video and HAD to come find out why you were using them. Super dope!

[@TheSteveKinney]

I just freakin love them man. They rule. If you can find a pair in good shape - well worth it! Cheers mate!

[@rohitRraina]

You're right, It's not mandatory to have a latest gear to make awesome music. *Lol, UAD hardware is like the Apple of Music Industry.* Nice video 👍

[@TheSteveKinney]

I mean. To be fair. Even pro tools just copied what UAD is doing with pro tools carbon. They are definitely doing something right. And it’s hard to disagree with your premise. If anything - really it’s an ode to how much Apple blows and has ruined the concept of doing things right lol. They did things right for so long that they are doing things wrong now. And that makes people skeptical of other companies who do things right. That being said. UA could easily fall down the slippery slope. But for now - I don’t think there is anything better. And I’m fully ready to not update to the latest software at any moment! Lol Cheers mate!

[@rohitRraina]

@@TheSteveKinney quite a debatable topic.

[@Hughsteph]

I went to school with a Steven Kenny funny guy he was, great video other Steve

[@TheSteveKinney]

Not too many of us out there.. but we’re mostly all comedic Geniuses. Cheers mate!

[@erik2446]

Thanks for the video! It would be interesting to hear about the monitors you're using!

[@TheSteveKinney]

truthfully - I don't like the ones I'm using - it's just what I had at the time - my other set (event 2020's) are an old pair and I like them a lot more.

[@halolife5953]

Amazing desk 🔥🙌

[@TheSteveKinney]

The stuido desk rules! It’s awesome!

[@jamainemanalo8251]

Could I connect a digital piano to the x8’s line inputs at the back using two TRS cables for stereo as opposed to just a single TRS cable mono?

[@TheSteveKinney]

100% yup. This is a great way to go. Also - remember to take the midi as well, just incase you wanna change sounds in the box later during mixing - you've got both the direct wav sound from the line in and then you'd also have the midi captured too.

[@wallacek8703]

You Sir are Welcome!! It was a labor of love. I really enjoyed doing that for you, glad to see it's helped you out. If anyone is interested in buying one visit www.buildyourowndamndeskyoulazybastard.com lol, jk.

[@TheSteveKinney]

Hahah 😂😂

[@CuzzinCoo]

Man, I laughed so hard @0:08 😅

[@TheSteveKinney]

Ha ha it’s amazing that I got that on film. I think while I’ve lived there, the power went out all of about twice. Lol

[@CuzzinCoo]

@@TheSteveKinney the, wtf look on your face! lmao

[@KenFoxmusic]

Beautiful desk man

[@TheSteveKinney]

Thanks man. Handmade courtesy of my pops. Took a while to design but well worth it. My productivity has went through the roof. Looking to add an ssl uf8

[@KenFoxmusic]

@@TheSteveKinney That's awesome! I love anything SSL. Very Curious about the uf8. Review perhaps?

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@KenFoxmusic yeah. I’m still on the fence though - holding out hope that UA has something of their own lined up soon.

[@Abdullah_Studio1]

I Wish you the best

[@RS-pp7ng]

I may be wrong but your room sounds rather live.. time to think of some acoustic treatment now ;)

[@TheSteveKinney]

It's definitely live! lol I live in a studio apartment, aka Concrete box. However, I don't think I'll be here much longer so I don't wanna invest the money in treating this space. Good ears though! The Lav mic helps out a lot, you should hear my first few videos. huge difference. Cheers!

[@studio_person]

Beautiful shepherd)

[@TheSteveKinney]

Thanks! He's my best friend. Great loyal companion!

[@stevieknighten]

Can you explain exactly how you're using the Dolby 361s? Thanks1

[@TheSteveKinney]

Hell yeah. Loooove these things. It’s the mutt Lange secret weapon. Listen Def Leppard photograph BGV’s and that’s what these things do. Hyped sound vocals. Some always attributed this to “breath” tracks. Which is stupid. I have two. So I can run in stereo. I use them on big group BGV’s. I can also use them on a lead vocal if I wanna. That’s all I really use it for lol and all you gotta do is turn them on. Biggest secret of all time. Revealed lol But I can happily do an example of this in a video!

[@MartinFellerMusic]

Amazing down to earth video! Keep it up 😎

[@TheSteveKinney]

Thanks brotha! 🙏🏻 Always will. Cheers!

[@1eidji652]

When you finish working do you turn off your equipment? More specifically, do you turn off the furman?

[@TheSteveKinney]

Yeah I usually turn everything off lol I just don’t want my power bill to be up there ha ha

[@gutenberg117]

Great Video ! you should consider keep your Mac Book Pro for mobility and buy a Mac Mini M1 for your Studio when everything will be ARM-M1's compatible...

[@TheSteveKinney]

Unfortunately, crazy large topic to unpack - but I have no plans to migrate to their new processor architecture. It’s got a ton of hidden spying features now. And I just don’t like where that’s headed. You get the most “powerful” Mac ever made but you trade your privacy to do so. You should check out Louis rossmans video on this. It’s insane. What I will more than likely do is eventually plunge into a Mac pro tower, since that can be upgraded into an insane device. Clean install Catalina. And just keep that with the latest software updates for my UA gear. Cheers!!

[@gutenberg117]

@@TheSteveKinney Just watched the video, simply Creepy !!!! I think on day I'll come back to an good Reaper on a Linux Machine.... When I think about 1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial..... in fact they were just warning of what they were going to do. Thanks to this content !!! If one day you come in France, tell me, you will be my guest !!!!

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@gutenberg117 man, that’s so nice of you! Will do, cheers! France would be sick!

[@dannyveras]

Can you just get by with just virtual pluggins, or do you really need all the phisical racks to make it sound better?

[@TheSteveKinney]

This is the million dollar question. I’d say that an inexperienced engineer with the best rack gear in the world vs an experienced engineer with stock plugins ... the experienced engineer is still gonna win. From a realistic point of view - real hardware will have an edge harmonically due to computing power for some time. That said - the differences are almost completely unnoticeable. Unless you were to a/b the same source in real time - no one would complain or notice a difference. More importantly - if there is a song on Spotify - no one listening is gonna go “man I wish they used a real la-2a instead of the plugin”... lol they will just go “gosh I love this song”. Some of the reason I have real hardware is because I like it - or it was too good of a deal to pass up on. Or it’s so rare that they don’t make a plugin version. Hopefully this clears it up! Thanks for watching Danny!

[@dannyveras]

Thanks Steve , of course it makes sense, some of the pluggins are a bit pricey but you look at the hardware version forget about it it’s 20 times more …. Thanks Steve and keep doing such great videos!!

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@dannyveras Indeed! At the end of the day - it's all just tools In the arsenal of tools to get the job done. Find out what the tool is good at - and then you'll realize why the pro's have so many pieces of gear. A lot of them are for specific things and situations. pretty cool! Keep up the journey and don't worry if it's a plugin or hardware - just worry about if it sounds good. Cheers!

[@apostolicway2604]

Hello, I’ve been considering the x8 but just learned about the console and I’m not too excited about that. What can you share w me about it? I’ve been using GarageBand for about a year and still consider myself a newbie. I wanted to upgrade to Logic but my Mac specs won’t allow it. Anyway thanks for any info

[@TheSteveKinney]

Console is just the software that controls what’s going on with your Apollo. It’s like a monitoring controller. Super powerful. Not a bad thing.

[@1eidji652]

When you left the studio do you turn off the Furman power conditioners ?

[@TheSteveKinney]

I do personally, but I’ll turn off everything else before turning off the furman. You don’t have to, but I do. Plus it saves me on the electric bill.

[@1eidji652]

@@TheSteveKinney when you turn off everything else, if the power button is located behind the rack, you go behind your desk ?

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@1eidji652 that would be a negative. I’ll just let the furman handle that. My Dolby 361’s don’t even have a power switch - so they just turn on and off via the furman cutting power.

[@coreybyrd9622]

Hey Steve

[@billymack4258]

Can the apollo 6x mic preamps be bypassed? Thanks

[@TheSteveKinney]

Yup - 100%. You go to line level. Done. 😎

[@billymack4258]

@@TheSteveKinney Awesome!! Do you know how to do this? I'm recording lead vocals using external hardware uad la 610 mic preamp into the Apollo 6x . Do I come out of the la 610 preamp into any of the 6 line inputs 1-6 or 3-6 inputs and what settings do I set in the UAD console? Thank you very much for your time!!!. macbook pro cubase pro 10.5 La 610 mic preamp hardware audio-technica 4033 Recording input level in cubase -18 -12 -9

[@TheSteveKinney]

@@billymack4258 “do I know how to do this” Bro, it’s all I DO. 😎 I got you. That said, not sure if you’re saying that you have a real external 610-b mic pre or if you’re using the Unison plugin. If you have an external mic pre, what you wanna do is take the output of that mic pre and run into any line level input with a balanced TRS cable. Then inside of UAD console or on the Apollo, switch the channel to line level so that your daw will see the signal of the channel. Your input levels sound about right. Kinda want it to average somewhere in the -18 to -9 range. Ball park it and don’t over think it. Recap: Mic pre > any line Input (switch the input to line level if it’s lines 1 or 2) > daw Hope this helps and makes sense. Cheers!

[@meomarte]

I´m grateful I´m not an american. We don´t have this awkward tradition here. :) Cool desk that one, hidden compartment and all.

[@TheSteveKinney]

Ha ha we have tons of weird traditions. thanks mate!! Cheers!

[@dspoet1]

Can he build me one? I live 3 hours away.

[@TheSteveKinney]

I'm sure it all depends on the complexity of what you need. Turn-around time, budget, etc. If you're needing to build a bigger desk - we'd have to redesign for some support or so. I'll talk to him about and respond and let you know. Can you do me a favor and shoot me a message on Instagram for PM. @thestevekinney Best, Steve

[@dspoet1]

@@TheSteveKinney I just sent you a DM on Instagram?

[@glocktyson351]

STUIDO!!!

[@TheSteveKinney]

You’d be surprised how much better it is than a studio. It’s insane.