Antelope Discrete 4 Pro Synergy Core

I want to upgrade my interface so I decided to try Disrcete 4 Pro + free Edge Solo deal - it looks like really good bang for buck. I was blown away with sound quality. I have Audient iD14 mk2 for year and half and also tried UAD Apollo Twin X. Apollo is too much colored and doesnt have that transparent sound i need so i have to returned it. Audient is really good quality for money but Discrete 4 Pro sounds about 20% better in clarity, image, transients and instruments separation. Its really preasure to listen. I saw a lot of mixed reviews on Antelope and during testing this device for second time it suddenly stop playing sound from outputs. It needs to reconnect to computer. That happens 5x in three days. I used included USB connection to my Macbook M1 Pro. Now i understand frustration from people to Antelope products. I dont even have time to try Edgo Mic or any plugins and emulations. If i cant mix with this device without any troube i cant imagine situation to recording artists and something suddenly stop working - thats crazy. I decided to return this product because i need function interface from start and not trying to fix software issues from day two. Thats my mixed experience with Discrete 4 Pro. Really great sound but it have to work.

What I knew about DSP powered interfaces? They are complex, hard to learn and in the end, are they very helpful with their DSP processing? Now I know the answer is yes. What I love Discrete 4 Pro SC for? 4 discrete preamps with 65 db gain provide more solid(honest) sound than opamp chips. Inputs types(Pre, Hi-Z, Line) switched by relay to minimize noise! 16 FX slots(AFX) can be loaded with up to 8 plugins each and their inputs assigned to any input or output. Everything after that can be summed on 4 mix buses and got on 24 channel slots in DAW with USB and 32 slots for Thunderbolt. Great! You and your singer/performer may listen dry or wet different mixes and different mixes or dry signals can be routed to DAW for recording! Buffer size can be lessed to 8 samples. Honestly I didn't find it useful at least with USB. USB reported latency for 44k/16 samples is 75/59 samples or 1.70/1.34 ms in/out. Measured RTL - 17 sampels more. And with 32 samples buffer size the RTL measured on USB increased only up to 3.5 ms. It's just a dream! And everything works flowlessly as I need it with HP Victus notebook (CPU AMD 5600h, 32 Gb RAM). 4 independent headphone amps can drive 300 Ohm of HD600 easily! 65 db gain and huge dynamic range may give you a good tone even on low signal microphones. I took also Ultimate FX pack on sale. And now I have about 70 astounishing FX processors to use in the recording. Microphone emulations may be not suiable for every taste. But if use Edge Note SDCs than the emulation of Neumann KM 184 SDC is a great choice. Do I trust to Anteloipe FX also mixing and mastering? Not yet, but need to check. I got interface only 1 week ago but already had 1 stage performance using mic pres before X32 console and one studio recording with 2 singers. Excellent results!
Update after 1 month. After buying this device, I urgently needed Discrete 8 because of the larger number of channels :-)

I have the previous model in use and, frankly speaking, it suited me in everything except the thunderbolt2 port and the presence of only 4 afx slots. The new discrete 4 pro has everything I need, a thunderbolt 3 port has appeared and now the device has 16 afx slots.

The priamps are very clean, their sound is just something incredible, even budget microphones start to sound much more expensive through them!

In terms of AFX processing, their plugins sound fantastic and the library has just about everything you need to get the job done.

The disadvantages of this device is the lack of a Thunderbolt 3 cable.

And one more, but for me a very serious minus is that having bought discrete 4 pro for the promotion and having received a full set of afx plugins, I cannot use these plugins on my old card! I don’t know what it is connected with and why they did it, but this is a very unpleasant moment! When buying a new card, I expected that I could use all the plugins on my old card. Now both cards are registered on my Antelope account, but all plugins work only on the new one!

ersmal die Plus punkte
-Sound der Oberklasse
-Software Emulationen werden auf der Hardware selber berechnet
-Software Emulationen jederzeit upgradebar
-sowohl USB- als auch Thunderbolt-Betrieb
-sichere Verschraubung der Stromzufuhr
nur leider auch vieles was mir gar nicht gefallen hat und ich mich deswegen auch dagegen entschieden hab
- das schlimmste ist die Mix Konsole , in meinen Augen völlig unübersichtlich und überhaupt nicht gut gemacht die Routing Matrix ist wirklich ätzend und macht keine Freude so was hab ich in meiner Laufbahn noch nicht ertragen müssen .... dazu kommt das die Plug-ins nur über Umwege in der DAW nutzbar und man dann schon wieder ordentlich Geld hinlegen muss ...
Ohne afx2daw lassen sich die Synergy Core Effekte lediglich für das Monitoring oder Tracking einsetzen, mit afx2daw stehen sie auch für das Mixing zur Verfügung und belasten die Computer CPU nicht. Es können 32 Mono- und 16 Stereo-Instanzen des Plug-ins geladen werden. Jede Instanz enthält ein virtuelles Rack, das bis zu acht Effekte aufnehmen kann.Das afx2daw Plug-in kostet 199,- Euro. Das ist ein ganz schön stolzer Preis für eine Funktion, die eigentlich selbstverständlich sein sollte. Bei allen Hybrid- oder Thunderbolt-Interfaces funktioniert afx2daw leider aktuell nur per Thunderbolt und nicht per USB 2. Lediglich das Zen Go Synergy Core Interface funktioniert auch per USB 2 mit dem afx2daw Plug-in. Das afx2daw Plug-in eignet sich nicht für das Tracking, da es nur mit hohen Buffer-Einstellungen betrieben werden soll. Für das Tracking sollten deshalb die Plug-ins direkt über das Mischpult des Interface geladen werden. Natürlich ist es auch jederzeit ohne das Plug-in möglich, Return-Kanäle anzulegen, mit Plugins zu bestücken und dann wieder zurück in den Computer zu leiten und dort aufzunehmen.