A Frictionless Workflow Beats Better, Any Day of the Week.

When I got back into recording in 2025, I owned a couple of audio interfaces: a Focusrite 2i2 3rd-generation, which I purchased during the COVID-19 pandemic (so I could move my existing guitar students from in-person to virtual lessons), and a Universal Audio Apollo Twin X (gen 1). The best thing I can say about the 2i2 is that it worked. It was easy to connect my Mac, guitar, and mic. It was simple. I should have left well enough alone (but where is the fun in that), but I wanted more. I wanted a “really good” guitar tone for teaching. All the cool guys on YouTube seemed to have the same setup, a Universal Audio Apollo Twin X (gen1). So I researched, and the more I researched, the cooler it sounded. So I bought one.

The headaches started immediately. Installation on an Apple Silicon computer required some shenanigans of rebooting and changing security settings that took more than an hour. Then the real fun began when I realized everything had to run through the UA Console app first, and the included plugins only included one guitar amp sim (a Marshall Plexi) that sounded horrible. Then the real shock came when I logged into the Universal Audio store and saw how expensive the Apollo amp sims were-$100, for this one, $150 for that one.

Despite hours of trying, I couldn’t get a guitar sound I liked with the Apollo. Truth be told, I just didn’t understand it, and each time I tried to, I got frustrated. I ran into several issues with it and Zoom that were distracting during teaching, so I reverted to the Focusrite. The Focusrite’s simplicity, ease of use, and low friction were welcoming.

I’d like to say that I just stayed with the Focusrite, having learned my lesson about “better”, but I did not. For some reason, loopback recording became a need of mine (probably something I read, then decided I “needed”), so the shopping began. I bought a refurbished Focusrite 4i4 gen3, returned it; a MOTU M-2, returned it; an Audient ID4 MKII (I still have it); and finally a Focusrite 4i4 Gen 4 (I still own it).

I eventually figured out the Apollo, thanks to an amazing tutorial from Why Logic Pro Rules and the purchase of an Apollo Console pack from Steve Kinney. These two resources together helped me understand the Apollo and Console, and I almost committed to it. I purchased the Apollo Solo I mentioned earlier so I could use it with my laptop and use the Twin X with my desktop (the room I regularly use is not heated, so when wintertime rolled around, I needed a mobile option). The Solo’s processing power was very limited, and I ran into the same conundrum of overpriced plugins and frustrations with the Console app, and I almost felt forced into using LUNA, which I did not love. Final conclusion: the UA Apollo ecosystem is very good. I was able to get some very inspiring guitar tones, but it’s also expensive, and in the end, I decided it’s just not for me. Anyone want a great deal on an Apollo?

I’ve settled on the Focusrite 4i4 4th gen, not because it’s the best audio interface I own, but because it’s frictionless. Like the 2i2 before it, it simply melts into the background, and I forget it’s even there. And sometimes that’s exactly what better looks like.