Apogee Electronics announces multi-unit support for its Ensemble Thunderbolt audio interface.
Now you can connect up to four Apogee Ensemble Thunderbolt units from a single Thunderbolt port on your Mac for a total of 40 analog inputs with 32 mic preamps and 8 instrument preamps. Each Ensemble includes 8 Advanced Stepped Gain mic preamps, monitor controller functionality including talkback, front panel Guitar I/O, two headphone outputs and digital connectivity for a total of 30 x 34 I/O.
Ensemble’s proprietary Thunderbolt driver has been written from the ground up. Latency has been reduced to 1.1ms round-trip (Logic Pro X at 96kHz / 32 buffer setting) allowing you to monitor through your DAW, plug-ins included, simplifying your workflow and leveraging the power of your Mac. Even when your session’s demands require a higher buffer setting, Ensemble’s low latency means no longer having to choose between power and speed.
Ensemble’s driver includes two features to maximize the performance of the software-hardware interface: a full 32-bit signal path from the output of your DAW straight to the ESS DAC, and Direct Memory Access (DMA) engine to more efficiently read and write data directly to Mac memory independent of the Mac CPU.
The DMA engine, running on Ensemble’s hardware logic chip, reads digital audio data directly from your Mac’s memory in a 32-bit format, increasing the driver’s efficiency and providing high resolution signal to the DAC stage. This implementation reduces the demand on your Mac CPU.
Ensemble is currently shipping worldwide
Multi-unit support available Summer 2015 – free update from Apogee’s website