I have a budget of about $3,700 and I was think about either the antelope or Apollo interface compatible with pc. WIth the rest of the money I'm just going to buy some more acoustic panels and diffusers. Thoughts.

 

so then you don't truly have a budget of $3,700. UAD is expensive and doesnt come with any plug ins. Ive seen that Antelope comes with free plugins. I have an Apollo Thunderbolt sounds great, sure the antelope also sounds great. Question is are you really going to spend some cash in plugins? if the answer is no, then i think you decision is kinda made for you.

 

UAD does come with a plugin bundle by the way... Realtime Analog Classics bundle, even for the Apollo duo...
but correctly, unless you are going to continue acquiring more UAD plugs.. then opt for the Antelope...
My Apollo duo also sounds great.. and I don't regret buying it for it's good points.. not that I am entirely pleased
with UAD's policies and marketing stealth, the plugins do seem to deliver...

search some side by side comparisons.. read some reviews.. but ultimately you will find some things to like about both,
and probably not like so much about either of them... comes down to which one has enough good points for what you
want to do... cheers and happy pondering..

 

Uad comes with plugins just not a lot or top of the line (in there collection)but for that much money they do have options like https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Apollo16Bk.They also update pretty often with about 3 plugins each time also they have unison which is like tracking through the hardware itself which they are updating old plugins for that also.Antelope does look good and from what I heard sounds good also the selection of vst http://en.antelopeaudio.com/hardware-based-fpga-effects/ is smaller though but they have been adding to the selection but just no where near the rate of uad http://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/all-plugins.html. You also need to think about connectivity because uad has all kinds of different interfaces ect.Antelope probably does have the "unison"type technology in there own way but I can't really speak on that because I don't know but I do own uad also uad has sales every month pretty much for what you don't get spending that much money in the first place you would still have 700 left to spend on what you don't get initially.What kind of music do you make?Do you need a lot of inputs?What os would you be using does it have thunderbolt?Me personally for that much I would go with uad just because of the options and I have dealt with that company for years antelope dosnt seem to really add new plugins a lot last time I looked was months ago and they seemed to only add maybe 1 or 2 were as uad has added close to 10 already just having an update a couple days ago.Also the antelope plugins have to be ran through there mixer from what I have seen they don't work like normal plugins or uad plugins where they can go inside you daw mixer or the uad mixer.

Antelope reverb plus a look at how to route the plugins

Antelope eq's

Plus uad is able to work with console

Uad unison technology

 

Last edited: May 20, 2017

I don't really need the plugins from either companies. I've heard UADs compared to vsts in professional mixes, and honestly I have a few plugs in my repertoire that sound just as good and better than some of UAD's best like Neve 1073, EMT 140 and their LA-2A collection. IMO the MJUC, Lexicon vsts and Steve Slate's collection sound better. I'm choosing between these two because of their A/D reputation. I hear both are world class.

 

Okay that unison technology is pretty dope.

 

antelope, as i predicted, is going the slate and uad unison route with their own mic emus.
i´ll opt for antelope they are killing it, and i think the conversion + clocking (even if its only the internal clock you are using)
is more advanced than uad.

 

A friend of mine has the Antelope Zen Studio. She had a big budget and it came highly recommended. She says it ended up being the best audio purchase that she ever made....and she has some killer gear!