Thoughts on what audio interface to get

[puleglot]

Roland Rubix series is fully class compliant and works out of the box. All functions are controllable by physical knobs/button/switches, so no need for any special support from driver.
MOTU M2/M4 is also class compliant and is supported by latest kernels in 5.4/5.5 branches and newer. But be aware of the issues caused by poor implicit feedback support in alsa - playback and recording works simultaneously only with jack.

[muzikermammoth]

How about the SSL 2 / SSL 2 + ?

Is this a class compliant device?

[ponygol]

Can't say much about the suggestions, but I wanted to chime in with my experience.

I got a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 2 a couple of weeks ago. So far I am very satisfied with the Linux compatibility. It basically works out of the box without any issues. It's very lightweight which is good since I carry it around a lot but that also means it's plastic, not metal.

Been using it to record and also in jam sessions to shape the sound of two guitars using Guitarix, play a backing drum track, listen to everything via two pairs of headphones and record all tracks in Ardour in case something good happened. All of that on a nine year old Laptop. Everyone was satisfied with the latency which I would describe as unnoticeable (however, I'm relatively new to guitar, so your mileage may vary).

I did some measurements with lsp-latency-meter with the interface in and out of the loop. In my current settings on my workstation (96kHz, 128 samples buffer size, 2 periods), I get around 9.16ms of latency when going through the interface and 1.33ms when connecting the plugin output to its input directly. But the latency added by the interface seems to vary greatly depending on the samplerate and buffer settings so I assume that the USB audio driver also plays a role here.

The driver used is snd-usb-audio which is the standard USB audio device driver for CC compliant devices. According to lsusb, all exposed interfaces are class compliant. Only the firmware update interface is application specific but still implemented as InterfaceClass/Subclass 0xFE/0x01 so lsusb can tell you that this is for firmware updates. So there's likely no hidden features you only get with a vendor specific driver.

So far, the only thing that could be better is the volume of the headphone output. Through my 250 Ohms headphones, it's just sometimes not loud enough. Usually fine when music is leveled well, but if there's a quiet piece or you just want to blast it real loud, it could use some more oomph. Otherwise, it's completely fine and that is not an issue 95% of the day.

Edit:

One more thing you might want to know. The direct monitoring feature of this interface only sends data to the headphone output, not the speaker outputs in the back. Not an issue for me, but probably useful to know.

[Meshica7]

Howdy all! Hope everyone is safe!

I have read a bit about the Berhinger U-Phoria Series USB interfaces on here..especially the UMC204HD or UMC404HD will work right out of the box. Is this true for the UMC202HD as well?

I have an old XENYX X1204USB mixer that is hit or miss when I try to record..and getting the sound to play through it (aside from the headphones) has proven to be a nightmare. I was only able to get it to work with my Macbook running WaveForm and Traktion, but now that has stopped as well. I never could get it to work on my Acer running Kubuntu 19.10.

I am really interested in the UMC202HD. any advice would be most appreciated!

Juan

[flavor8]

Cymatic Audio uTrack24 is at the top of my list right now for budget/features combination - anybody have any experience with it? It appears that it's class compliant, and by the sounds of this thread should therefore "just work"(?)

[puleglot]

I think it's even worse. Look at Focusrite. They actively redesign their stuff to make people registering their hardware. Look at the Mass Storage Device mode of the Gen3 Scarletts and read magazines where those Gen3 Scarletts are "tested": Writers praise Focusrite because it's so easy to register now. Sure those magazines cannot blame Focusrite for trying to lock-in and control their customers, else they won't sell ads to them anymore.

Nice conspiracy theory. I think the right answer is different. Focusrite devices with ADAT ports don't support all reported sample rates in certain configurations (altsettings). So I suspect they simply doesn't work on macOS with standard UAC2 drivers and sample rates higher that 48kHz. And MSD mode looks like an attempt to force macOS users to install official drivers instead of calling tech support. Linux users should also have similar issues if they don't explicitly set the channels count. See [1,2,3,4] for possible examples. And patch [5] should fix this issue on Linux.

[1] https://discourse.ardour.org/t/clarett-8pre-usb/103163
[2] viewtopic.php?t=18815
[3] viewtopic.php?p=77151#p77151
[4] viewtopic.php?p=96330#p96330
[5] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... 88f5bb0b23

[bluebell]

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to set his sample rate. No man needs more than 48 kHz.

[Bella]

I have read a bit about the Berhinger U-Phoria Series USB interfaces on here..especially the UMC204HD or UMC404HD will work right out of the box. Is this true for the UMC202HD as well?

Probably a little late now, but if you're still wondering: Yes, the UMC202HD works 'out of the box'. I bought one a week ago and haven't had any issues with it thus far. My Mint 19.3 system/JACK recognizes it just fine.

[Meshica7]

Not late at all! Thanx for the response. This looks like a nice unit.

[flavor8]

> Cymatic Audio uTrack24

Following up on my post above, I've had this for a few weeks now, and it works fine. It has two modes - local USB recording, and audio interface (by default it operates as an audio interface if plugged into your computer). It has 24 ins and 24 outs - you'll need to buy DSUB cables. I bought 4 DSUB -> TRS cables (each terminates in 8 TRS male jacks), and therefore have 24 channels in and 8 out, going through two patchbays.

It has its own monitoring outs, but I found out pretty quickly that I needed to use two of the output channels for monitoring, otherwise you get a delay effect with whatever latency there is. And speaking of latency, I have Jack down at 64 frames per period, giving me (it says) <5ms of latency, which isn't noticeable. No xruns at that setting for Reaper or Bitwig; Ardour had a few xruns, and Mixbus was almost constant xruns. (I haven't experimented with higher latencies with either Ardour or Mixbus yet, though I might. Reaper's doing the job just fine, and I need to stop fiddling with software and get back to making music.)

[gammtrall]

Lots of bunches of thanks to everyone! Summer is slowly creeping up on us, and that's when money can be made. Will be back with what I end up with as soon as one is bought!

[onlythehungry]

I think it's even worse. Look at Focusrite. They actively redesign their stuff to make people registering their hardware. Look at the Mass Storage Device mode of the Gen3 Scarletts and read magazines where those Gen3 Scarletts are "tested": Writers praise Focusrite because it's so easy to register now. Sure those magazines cannot blame Focusrite for trying to lock-in and control their customers, else they won't sell ads to them anymore.

Nice conspiracy theory. I think the right answer is different. Focusrite devices with ADAT ports don't support all reported sample rates in certain configurations (altsettings). So I suspect they simply doesn't work on macOS with standard UAC2 drivers and sample rates higher that 48kHz. And MSD mode looks like an attempt to force macOS users to install official drivers instead of calling tech support. Linux users should also have similar issues if they don't explicitly set the channels count. See [1,2,3,4] for possible examples. And patch [5] should fix this issue on Linux.

[1] https://discourse.ardour.org/t/clarett-8pre-usb/103163
[2] viewtopic.php?t=18815
[3] viewtopic.php?p=77151#p77151
[4] viewtopic.php?p=96330#p96330
[5] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... 88f5bb0b23

It's nice that you dismiss people's concerns about Linux support on a forum for Linux musicians and users. Why are you here?

The reality is that beyond the Scarlet 2i2, there are features on the FocusRite devices that WILL NOT WORK if you use Linux. Whether or not they work on Mac I don't know or care. The company made a choice to build their device in such a way that it requires software running on the system to make the hardware do it's job. You're probably too young to remember WINmodem from the 1980s and 1990s - these were Software driven Hardware modems that ONLY worked in Windows. NO THANKs BEEN THERE DONE THAT.

Any company that builds devices like this deserves the complaints they get. They are clearly marketing to a specific Windows market - it's too bad that they built a good reputation for compatibility on their earlier devices and they are now thinking they can skimp on hardware development to bring the costs down on their new devices - MOAR PROFIT.

It's a shame really. I bought a gen 3 Scarlet 2i2 thinking it would work with my devices. I managed to work around the ridiculous mass storage hack - what were they thinking - and I'm fortunate that the device has actual buttons that turn on the features I want. I'm now looking for a device with more inputs. I won't be considering FocusRite. Oh well.

[bluzee]

I don't think that we have the numbers to draw the attention of any manufacturer frankly.

Focusrite Scarlett devices are a low end made in China device. Their revisions to the devices in Gen 3 serve solely to make the devices even cheaper to manufacture and thus increase their profit margin. There is no malice directed at the Linux community.

[sadko4u]

The reality is that beyond the Scarlet 2i2, there are features on the FocusRite devices that WILL NOT WORK if you use Linux.

They WILL WORK if you get this driver:
https://github.com/sadko4u/focusrite-scarlett-backports

Recently I've added support of 2i2 and Solo devices to the driver and now all digital controls are available in alsamixer.

Personally I have Scarlett 18i20 device and Scarlett 2i2 device and both work well with the mentioned driver which I'm currently developing.