New discoveries of “old” tech when recording guitar
Posted: Oct 10, 2025 4:59 am
Bear with me, this will be a somewhat long post…
I just discovered a new way of using my “old” Universal Apollo Firewire interface. I upgraded it a few years back with a Thunderbolt card since I changed system from Mac to Windows. I’ve used the virtual channels to route things inside, like the output of Windows goes to virtual channel 1 & 2 which means I can easily mute system sounds when recording for instance. Channel 3 & 4 is the output from the DAW. And that was all I needed. At least I thought so.
Just a few days ago I found another HUGE bonus of using more virtual channels but first let me get you some backstory. I like to play guitar and bass. Technically I’m somewhere between utterly useless and a borderline mediocre player of both said instruments but I find great pleasure in playing and recording since I can chop it up and put together the better parts in the DAW.
I’ve got some pedals going into a Laney Ironheart IRT Studio, a 15 watt tube head with built-in powersoak meaning I can record in total silence. When playing bass I also have a few pedals going into a Laney Digbeth Pre. For a few years I’ve used the excellent Two Notes Torpedo CAB M+ as my go to cab emulator for both the Ironheart as well as the Digbeth bass preamp. Since I owned the CAB M+ I got a license for GENOME (Two Notes follow up to their Torpedo Wall of Sound software) for free, but I never checked it out in full. Until now.
A few days ago I fired up GENOME in standalone mode to test it out. I liked it a lot. Good amps, nice selection of pedals and effects and the ability to actually "see" the cabs you setup. You can select inputs and outputs from everything your audio interface has on offer and thats when it hit me! Apollos virtual channel 5 & 6 could be my gateway to finally have chorus in stereo and multiple cabs like in Softubes Amp Room (which ony works as a plugin with added DAW latency)? But would it work? I knew I can record the virtual channels, I’ve done so with the channels coming from Windows but would it work in realtime with a guitar amp sim? Yes, I know that playing guitar through Apollos guitar amps is good but I always found it hard to use, small interfaces and I really (really) dislike the UA Console.
My signal chain (bass in parenthesis): guitar → tuner → DI-box split → A/B-Y split to a guitar or bass path → pedals → Ironheart (Digbeth pre) → Apollo channel 1 (or 2) → line out 3 (or 4) → X/Y/Z switch → Apollo ADAT channel 4.
This setup lets me add plugins after the amps before the signal hits the cab if I want to and since I can’t play both instruments simultaneously I just switch between them with the X/Y/Z switch and have that output into one of the inputs of GENOME. I could have have used both directly into GENOME since it has support for stereo input and switched between left/right depending on what I’d like to record. I found a another rather nice use of the two different inputs though.
Sometimes I just want a nice clean sound and since GENOME has support for NAM, Proteus as well as AIDA-X profiles I can load up for instance a model of a Roland Jazz 120 amp and play through that, add a beautiful stereo chorus, perhaps some delay and a nice reverb and it sure beats the 15 W clean channel and it's so-so digital reverb. GENOME in standalone mode has two inputs which can be anything your interface has to offer, I can select the DI-box channel as an input instead of the amps and thus have a clean signal into GENOME and use all of it's pedals, amps and effects. Playing through GENOMEs left channel gives me a clean signal and all of GENOMEs wonders. Playing through the right channel gets my amps into GENOME and I simply setup chorus, tremolo, delays, reverb and the miking of the cabs I want.
My normal use for the DI-box is that I always have a clean backup copy of my playing and if I want to change anything afterwards I can just re-amp or setup something in software. Now, running GENOME in standalone mode feeding it with the signal from the DI-box with outputs set to virtual channel 5 & 6 I can in the DAW record those outputs as well as the clean DI-signal! That is one stereo track from GENOMEs processing as well as the clean signal that is also fed into GENOME as an input! This is some sort of wizardry for sure since it seems illogical, but it works! It also means that I could go straight into a Hi-Z input, feed that to GENOME and record the clean signal as well as GENOMEs output without the need for a separate DI-box.
The funny thing is that the day after I got this working GENOME was updated to version 1.11 which had a whole bunch of new processing gadgets to play with. Whom has never wanted to play through a 6x12” cab for instance (I never knew those even existed)?
I find great pleasure in the fact that there is always new things to learn and that this kind of “basic” tech still can suprise you. My interface is almost antique, bought it new in 2016 and have been happy with it ever since and now 9 years later it still feels new since my discovery of this
So, bottomline is that my Torpedo CAB M+ is now up for sale and I’ve started eyeballing a MIDI-foot controller to control GENOMEs pedals and effects. I even had a quick thought of all I could buy if I sold all my pedals and amps but that would be too thoughtless I guess.
Fun times ahead!
I just discovered a new way of using my “old” Universal Apollo Firewire interface. I upgraded it a few years back with a Thunderbolt card since I changed system from Mac to Windows. I’ve used the virtual channels to route things inside, like the output of Windows goes to virtual channel 1 & 2 which means I can easily mute system sounds when recording for instance. Channel 3 & 4 is the output from the DAW. And that was all I needed. At least I thought so.
Just a few days ago I found another HUGE bonus of using more virtual channels but first let me get you some backstory. I like to play guitar and bass. Technically I’m somewhere between utterly useless and a borderline mediocre player of both said instruments but I find great pleasure in playing and recording since I can chop it up and put together the better parts in the DAW.
I’ve got some pedals going into a Laney Ironheart IRT Studio, a 15 watt tube head with built-in powersoak meaning I can record in total silence. When playing bass I also have a few pedals going into a Laney Digbeth Pre. For a few years I’ve used the excellent Two Notes Torpedo CAB M+ as my go to cab emulator for both the Ironheart as well as the Digbeth bass preamp. Since I owned the CAB M+ I got a license for GENOME (Two Notes follow up to their Torpedo Wall of Sound software) for free, but I never checked it out in full. Until now.
A few days ago I fired up GENOME in standalone mode to test it out. I liked it a lot. Good amps, nice selection of pedals and effects and the ability to actually "see" the cabs you setup. You can select inputs and outputs from everything your audio interface has on offer and thats when it hit me! Apollos virtual channel 5 & 6 could be my gateway to finally have chorus in stereo and multiple cabs like in Softubes Amp Room (which ony works as a plugin with added DAW latency)? But would it work? I knew I can record the virtual channels, I’ve done so with the channels coming from Windows but would it work in realtime with a guitar amp sim? Yes, I know that playing guitar through Apollos guitar amps is good but I always found it hard to use, small interfaces and I really (really) dislike the UA Console.
My signal chain (bass in parenthesis): guitar → tuner → DI-box split → A/B-Y split to a guitar or bass path → pedals → Ironheart (Digbeth pre) → Apollo channel 1 (or 2) → line out 3 (or 4) → X/Y/Z switch → Apollo ADAT channel 4.
This setup lets me add plugins after the amps before the signal hits the cab if I want to and since I can’t play both instruments simultaneously I just switch between them with the X/Y/Z switch and have that output into one of the inputs of GENOME. I could have have used both directly into GENOME since it has support for stereo input and switched between left/right depending on what I’d like to record. I found a another rather nice use of the two different inputs though.
Sometimes I just want a nice clean sound and since GENOME has support for NAM, Proteus as well as AIDA-X profiles I can load up for instance a model of a Roland Jazz 120 amp and play through that, add a beautiful stereo chorus, perhaps some delay and a nice reverb and it sure beats the 15 W clean channel and it's so-so digital reverb. GENOME in standalone mode has two inputs which can be anything your interface has to offer, I can select the DI-box channel as an input instead of the amps and thus have a clean signal into GENOME and use all of it's pedals, amps and effects. Playing through GENOMEs left channel gives me a clean signal and all of GENOMEs wonders. Playing through the right channel gets my amps into GENOME and I simply setup chorus, tremolo, delays, reverb and the miking of the cabs I want.
My normal use for the DI-box is that I always have a clean backup copy of my playing and if I want to change anything afterwards I can just re-amp or setup something in software. Now, running GENOME in standalone mode feeding it with the signal from the DI-box with outputs set to virtual channel 5 & 6 I can in the DAW record those outputs as well as the clean DI-signal! That is one stereo track from GENOMEs processing as well as the clean signal that is also fed into GENOME as an input! This is some sort of wizardry for sure since it seems illogical, but it works! It also means that I could go straight into a Hi-Z input, feed that to GENOME and record the clean signal as well as GENOMEs output without the need for a separate DI-box.
The funny thing is that the day after I got this working GENOME was updated to version 1.11 which had a whole bunch of new processing gadgets to play with. Whom has never wanted to play through a 6x12” cab for instance (I never knew those even existed)?
I find great pleasure in the fact that there is always new things to learn and that this kind of “basic” tech still can suprise you. My interface is almost antique, bought it new in 2016 and have been happy with it ever since and now 9 years later it still feels new since my discovery of this
So, bottomline is that my Torpedo CAB M+ is now up for sale and I’ve started eyeballing a MIDI-foot controller to control GENOMEs pedals and effects. I even had a quick thought of all I could buy if I sold all my pedals and amps but that would be too thoughtless I guess.
Fun times ahead!
