New Music Gear Monday: Aphex USB 500 Rack

One of the coolest pieces of audio gear that I've seen in a long time is the Aphex USB 500 rack. 500 series racks are all the rage these days and with good reason; they're a great way to get some fine analog processing in a small portable space without spending a huge amount of extra dough that would normally be spend on the individual boxes and power supplies for that EQ, mic amp or channel strip. The problem is that interfacing them with your DAW isn't always the easiest thing to do, especially when it comes to mix time.

Aphex takes the 500 series rack to a whole new level by adding a USB port to it so that you easily connect the rack to any DAW, plus they added an easy way to chain the modules to make an onboard channel strip, and included two high quality headphone amplifiers.

What really excites me about the USB 500 is the fact that now some analog modules can take the place of their software plugin counterparts. As cool as plugins are, you do have to constantly update them with every new version of the operating system or DAW, and that usually means you have to pay for it again. With the USB 500, you can always use your analog modules, which don't care about your software version. Plus we all know how much they can add to the sound.

Check out the informative video on the USB 500.

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