ANTELOPE AUDIO ORION STUDIO REV. 2017 Audio Interface
Getting an Antelope Audio interface up and running is like reaching the Promised Land — it was everything you hoped it might be, but you have to wander through the wilderness to get there. This is the third time I’ve fought through Antelope’s installation hedge maze, and it hasn’t gotten any better in three years. It’s a shame, because once you find your way out the exit, the milk and honey flows in torrents.
Antelope has tried to mitigate the issues by uploading a few video walkthroughs and how-tos outlining the ‘simple’ procedure, but while I’m sure it works for some, we’ve never had a clean run.
In my case, when the initial — and automatic — firmware upgrade failed, it got stuck in Primary Boot mode, for which there’s no official solution other than plug it into another computer and try again. It’s exactly what I had to do, but having access to another computer should never have to be a solution. It’s bonkers.
When I thought I’d finally got it to update — after sticking to the provided USB cable, not Thunderbolt like the manual suggests — following the prescriptions of deleting all existing Core Audio preferences and doing a factory reset of the device, I could control the unit, but it wouldn’t pass any audio on the inputs, just playback via one headphone output. I tried different mics, different instruments, and nothing would show up on the unit’s meters, let alone on the control panel or in a DAW. After almost giving up, I found a forum post where one user had found that unplugging the unit, doing a factory reset, plugging it back in again, then unplugging it, restarting the computer and plugging it back in would get it
