The Analog Beast: McDSP APB-16

[@AudioAnimalsStudio]

I bought an APB8 and thought it was good and loved how everything sounded. I later added another 5 APB16s and realised just how good it is. 88 channels of analogue processing opened my eyes to how beneficial it is in mixing. Unbelievably good product.

[@ДмитрийМахаев-й4о]

На будущее поймите плагины это хорошо но их нельзя потрогать руками так как педаль эффектов допустим и минус я не всегда понимаю ваш язык .

[@MrJbreez85]

Would be wonderful to have some line level i/o so you could utilize the converters and use it as an interface.

[@sxproaudio]

Not really necessary though - as part of the workflow you can simply route out to other bits of gear from your DAW/interface as you wish anyway. It only becomes a problem if you have bad converters in your interface but if you have an APB, you would hopefully have decent conversion sorted already anyway.

[@Rhuggins]

I know its likely not going to ever happen due to a multitude of complicated reasons, but if this ever becomes available for Windows I will immediately make an order!

[@sxproaudio]

@@Rhuggins McDSP are listening carefully…!

[@AH20XX]

​@@sxproaudio Hope so!!!

[@thomaschek_cz]

I guess there is a VERY GOOD reason for mac only ... people are willing to pay for pipe dreams .... there is literally nothing to see here. Digital->Analog->DSP process->Analog->Digital .... since input and output is digital, all DSP between can be 100% simulated in realtime on recent office PC (not even hi-end). With the power of today computers, not mentioned generic GPU accelerators, this is literally nothing. I believe this is SCAM like those "special audiophiles" power or digital(!!!) cables for tens of thousands, which is ridiculous and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see it is just a scam. I believe the same apply here, so no windows version, because technical people could start digging into this "audiophile" shit ...... anyway, it is probably just HW key for the software on mac ..... or maybe mac is not powerful enough to do realtime transformation? Maybe combination of both. But it figures why it is for apple toy-computers only.

[@blasegangbeats1865]

The summing mixer is amazing I got 2 apb 16s

[@sxproaudio]

It's actually ridiculous how good that mixer is, it can add a subtle console-like weight to mix, or take a bad mix and utterly transform it into a finished sound. Colin is a bit of a magician....!

[@kisho2679]

can it run as independent vst host controlled with a midi controller or wirelessly via iPad?

[@gtk_NO]

Its a proprietary patended system it says but what are the actual components being reconfigured per channel? VCA operational amplifier, inductor bla bla or whatever else? I mean it would be interesting to know a bit more about the inner workings. If someone wanted to reverse engineer the tech and have the boards they would anyway. Or them RED boxes are filled tamper proof epoxy of some sort maybe?

[@sxproaudio]

@@gtk_NO The actual workings of it are not in the public domain for obvious reasons. The red boxes you see are WIMA capacitors which are widely used in high-end analogue gear. It’s an incredibly complex product to have designed and McDSP deserve a lot of credit for just how ingenious the APB system is!

[@gtk_NO]

@@sxproaudio Yet someone motivated and clever enough would be able to reverse engineer it and probably wouldnt be able to sell clones of it anyway due to the legal battle that would surely ensue. Also people wouldnt trust such clones anyway or their resulting clones software ecosystem so no one would buy them anyway. This is a kind of product that depend on a strong support and maintained software ecosystem and a known brand. Security by obscurity usually wont work anyway in any kind of system design but may keep motivated reverse engineerers away for only a bit. But security by obscurity may also just be the thing that will actually motivate someone to reverse engineer it to start with as they view it as a challenge in the hardware hacking communities. Like encryption schemes in game platforms, consoles and rooting of mobile devices. But this is such a niche product anyway where the market is so specific. Im not asking them to give away all the details of their inner workings, just describe the building blocks a a tad better. Also dont forget they themselves have quite probably had to base the tech of several known audio circuits already that they have drawn upon. Anyway not that many companies around with already AD/DA circuits ready and a software division that would be able to make some similar devices. But they exist. I guess thats why they are keeping the tech so guarded. Im gonna go out and a limb and say that it would be almost trivial to make such a box with only one type of processing on its own. Like only compression or only EQ channels. Its the reconfigurable circuit they are guarding. But if someone makes such a box with only one type of processing on every channel, if the price is right they would still sell. If just by merely describing the building blocks better would give away their tech to their competitors the tech is not that deep man, its merely a cloak and daggers game. Not saying this to be mean, just stating the obvious. Its a product I could be interested in myself. But I want to know slightly more whats under the hood.

[@sxproaudio]

@@gtk_NO I’m a little confused about what point you’re trying to make; the video isn’t about clones, it’s about the APB. If someone wanted to copy the APB there are several issues they would face that aren’t immediately obvious but occur once the product is made available for sale. Regardless, McDSP thought of this and got it to market first. It’s a stunning product. Thanks for watching 🙏

[@gtk_NO]

@@sxproaudioThe point im trying to make is the description of the actual inner workings of the product is too vague. For me atleast. Then im elaborating about why they are being vague. Which surely has to be because they are afraid someone making a similar product or clone. I have found the actual patent, but since the patent has afaik not been tested in a court of law it remains to be seen if its enforcable, like many other patents. Which again explains the obfuscation. Anyway I found more info now from the patent text "Only fundamental processing-multiply, add, accumulate-is done in the analog domain of the signal processing component.". My understanding of this now correct me if im wrong is that its passing audio through analog computer functions essentially in the analogue realm but with the possibility of additional analog saturation circuits added. It replaces digital multiply, add and accumulate with analog versions of those functions. So should be possibly for the developer to hear their pure software version of an algorithm and replace their digital multiply, add and accumulate with their analog versions and hear the difference.

[@sxproaudio]

@@gtk_NO ah ok I see what you’re getting at. The video is not intended to be an electronics lesson; it’s purely about what the product does in practice as a tool for mix engineers. It’s not deliberately vague about the inner workings; it’s more that the function of the specific individual circuit components is not relevant to anyone who is realistically going to use it hence there isn’t a need to explain it here. The only reason the insides are shown at all in this video are to help explain that the unit reconfigures its circuitry ad hoc and is able therefore to act as multiple different types of product on a per-channel basis.

[@larswillsen]

Wauw ..

[@niklassilen4313]

The proof is in the pudding so to speak. Personally I don't think these things sound all that impressive. Sure, you do get a lot of bang for our buck.. but it's not worth much if it isn't all that impressive to begin with. There's not a single good youtube video actually deep diving through the plugins and the few that try end up with mediocre audio examples at best. This in it self is a sign that it's not exactly a desirable piece of gear. Also doesn't help that you end up running tons of AD/DA conversion steps and that the unit is Thunderbolt 3, which will soon be obsolete. There is a real risk of these units becoming paper weights.

[@RicardoSoeAgnie]

Maybe, but as for thunderbolt 3 it's easily incorporated in USB4 so...

[@sxproaudio]

That's a reasonable opinion of course. It may not be desirable to you, but given that we sell tons of these and sales only continue to go up, it seems a lot of people would disagree with you on this. I happen to think, if you're using half-decent monitors, the brief audio examples I gave here are extremely convincing and do far more than pretty much any other piece of analogue gear does (in particular the mixer example), given that it processes compression, EQ and saturation all in one go. You are right about the various AD/DA conversion steps but at the super-high quality in the APB the difference is rather minimal. The processing does a lot more to the sound than the conversion and therefore any sound of the conversion is not apparent at all. We will be looking into testing the conversion more closely at a later date, mostly for reasons of curiosity. Also to come next is a video doing exactly what you were talking about; a deep dive into most, if not all of the plugins! These definitely will not become paperweights; thunderbolt is massively ubiquitous and in case you didn't know, Thunderbolt 4 is backwards compatible. The USB-C style connector is here to stay for the long term it seems, so the current connectivity will work for a good long time yet, and the unit is modular internally and therefore upgradeable so should there be a need in the distant future, the connectivity could be changed to suit.

[@MexManny]

@@sxproaudioi spent 10,000 i. hardware i might have to get this. sheesh 🔥

[@alessiogiorgianni_official]

@@sxproaudio I agree, maybe not 100% but most of it. Just a quick note on Thunderbolt 3 vs 4 or 5, this is a comparison on speed not in audio quality, because having a T4 or T5 connection vs T3, does not affect the quality of the audio. Regarding the overall audio quality, APB is good, but is it worth the price? I mean, an APB 16 is up to 7k euros, I can easily achieve the same results with a UAD-2 Satellite octo core, at a fraction of the price and you won't be able to spot the differences in a blind test..

[@MrPanpanam]

@@alessiogiorgianni_official UAD Satellites are just DSP or computing units. With the Apple silicon there's no real reason for having external DSP with quite old Shark processors for UAD plugins, and UA know it themselves :)