Reviews for Apogee ONE USB Microphone and Music Interface

The mic pre's are great sounding but the device has basically failed in only 2 years of occasional use. I have replaced both the usb and breakout cable, reloaded the maestro software but nothing will stop the unit from constantly cutting out and putting static on any recorded audio

20 of 27 people found this useful

I needed the best converters. Analog to digital, as well as digital to analog. This has it. Apogee one is small, bus powered, simple, and built for macbook and logic. Right now I have two old sansui bookshelf speakers (SP-10) hooked up to the output jack on the apogee one. I am using the device to play my digital music, and the one's output amplifier is powerful enough to drive two 8ohm bookshelf speakers. Essentially, these speakers are my monitors because they have a flat response. The point here, though, is that the one's output amp is great, and powerful. Other plus's are, that the input preamp has lots of gain, with little noise floor. Only negatives are that when my laptop's power charger cable is plugged in to the computer, there is some hum. When I unplug the magsafe, there is less hum. When I touch the metal mic connector on the one's breakout cable, there is no hum. This is a ground issue. I can fix it by making a groung wire clip, but it is a circuitry flaw within the utilizing of the grounding on the usb power bus. Also, the usb cable that comes with the One, it's connector, on the device end, which is micro usb, is flimsy. A good cable coupled with a 90 degree micro to standard usb adapter will fix this. Bottom line, for the price, you get the best sounding conversion, with solid compatibility to Mac OS X, a great stereo condenser internal mic, and a simple one input device to record instruments or to power and use any great mic. For the same price, you can get units that have more in's and out's, but they are bigger, more complicated, not as cute, and without a great internal mic. It's a great device, and is perfect next to my black macbook for recording professionally anywhere. Thanks!

35 of 38 people found this useful

I bought this device HOPING it would be the device I was looking for. It is SO MUCH MORE. I wasn't very tech savvy and I was threatened by the idea of purchasing the ONE and not being able to configure and/or use it. When I got it in the mail, I was drooling. I felt like the kid from A Christmas Story, getting his new Red Rider BB gun! It hooked up in less than a minute...maybe two. All I had to do was follow prompts and press yes or no a couple times. That's it. The sound quality is another factor that scared me. Being a digital device with one "hole" to pick up audio made me nervous. It is unreal. The playback is super smooth and it picks up the slightest sounds. It's a super mic. Once the initial installation is complete, you can hook up and start recording in less than 20 seconds from then on out! Thank you Apogee. You've made me a customer for life. GREAT product. Kudos to the developers.

36 of 36 people found this useful

I use Mainstage 2 in my band to do all of my electric guitar effects since it is a lot more convenient that carrying around my 83lbs amp. I tried using my line in but it made some very annoying and unwanted distortion fuzz sound. I then got an Apogee on to try if it got rid of the white noise sound. And it did. Although I do not use the internal mic at all the line in preamp interface works very very good. I would recommend it to anyone who needs a good preamp interface to use with Mainstage or to record individual tracks. Especially since it's cheaper than the Duet.

12 of 13 people found this useful

I got the ONE last month to use with a not very sensitive dynamic mic that needed the 65db gain. The big unpleasant surprise: Apogee comes with its own non-intuitive software, Maestro, that you HAVE to use. This is not a normal USB device that plugs into the class driver and "just works" - nope, you have to install the software and have it running anytime you want to use the ONE. The software has some kind of incompatibility with Skype as well. And when I went to use the internal mic I couldn't get it to work.

Another problem: once you plug in the cables - USB, mic & output, headphone - the nice black monolith looks a lot less cool with all the cables hanging off it. Not all that solid feeling either.

The audio quality is all that people say it is - although I can't vouch for the internal mic - but the negatives are such that if had known I would have bought another pre-amp.

16 of 44 people found this useful

I just picked this up and WOW I play Flamenco and Classical guitar as well as rock. I have a recording studio as well. I downloaded Apogee's update for ONE and was up and running in less then 5 min. The internal "Tuned Aperture Microphone" sounds amazing as well. This will be so easy to capture ideas when on the go. I can see using this for podcasts and voice overs as well. This is the best 250.00 on pro audio gear that I have spent. I have owned Apogee's products Ensemble and Duet. I just love this ONE for me its perfect, I take my Mac Book Pro and One and I have a studio ready to go anywhere when I travel. You may need to play with the levels but this is by far the best audio interface out there in this price point.

Thanks Apogee.

16 of 17 people found this useful

Very impressive unit, like a single-channel version of the DUET, with an in-built microphone running on USB. It sounds rather good and the on-line demo certainly shows how it can be used with GarageBand, Logic or MainStage. However, I'm puzzled as to why Apogee choose to employee a mini-USB connector on the unit. Good luck if you forget your cable or have the misfortune to need to buy a replacement on the road.

It's especially odd as they used a standard Firewire 400 connector on the DUET product.

9 of 20 people found this useful

I heard the One in a Tokyo music store today and instantly knew that I had to have it. I bought this unit home, loaded the software up, dialed up an iTune track and WOW! The veil on my computer music has totally been lifted. The clarify and depth of the music, along with an excellent sound stage, can now be truly appreciated due to the pro quality 24-bit AD/DA converters. I was totally blown away when I compared how my music sounded coming out of the Apple headphone jacks vs the One into my Tascam VL-M3s. So much for the output quality. My next test included checking the instrument line level input recording quality. Plugged my piccolo bass guitar directly into it and recorded some jazz tracks into Logic Express 8. Again, WOW! Clean and clear as a whistle. This little beast makes recording music with a computer exciting again. One wish though: if only Apogee would include a 1/8 phono to stereo RCA jack cable in the package. However, the quality and looks are well worth what I paid. I've been researching and checking audio interfaces for my computer and small powered monitors for six months and I would honestly say that nothing in this price range even comes close. Well done Apogee!

15 of 16 people found this useful

JUST LIKE APPLE TO BE PART OF SOMETHING SO SMALL YET POWERFUL. VERY SMOOTH LOOKING NOT WITH ALL THE KNOBS & BOTTOMS LIKE OTHER INTERFACES. SAVES SPACE ON HOW THE BREAKOUT CABLES ARE FAR OUT THE WAY OF MY HOME SET UP. WITH THE INTERNAL MIC I CAN ALWAY USE MY LAPTOP ON THE ROAD WITH THE RIGHT MIXING & TALENT YOU'LL BE IN MUSIC RETAIL STORES IN NO TIME.

6 of 9 people found this useful

I really like this product a lot. It's compact (really compact) and sounds great. I recorded some vocal tracks the other day to test the mic and was quite impressed with the results. I get totally lost listening to tracks from my iTunes collection. Get yourself a decent pair of headphones and hear the difference. Plug in a good mic and wow. I haven't played any instruments through the One yet but I'm sure I'll be impressed. Take it anywhere, looks cool, sounds great, this is the one!

13 of 15 people found this useful