Max. 12: Babyface Pro + Octamic II + DAV BG No. 1 😃🍀👍.

Studio: 3x Stereo for monitoring. For recording (on location only): 32 channels with 4XTC over madi to my ufx+ in the control room (and a Digiface USB for backup in the stagebox)

Thank you RME for nice explanatory video. Currently we use 28 channels with UFX+ and 2x Octamic XTC. However, I in my personal field experience, USB interface is more susceptible to DAW's DPC latency variations, than Thunderbolt or PCI-E interfaces for 32 bytes buffer size. In our studio we use these parameters for low latency audio transmission over network.

fireface UC: 8 analog ins, 4 outs and all adat I/Os. ty for this lesson)

Still rocking Fireface UC: 6x Analog In for synths/drum-machine, 1x Instrument In ,1x Vocals in, 4x Adat In for IOS audio coming from Babyface Pro connected to Ipad. Needed more I/O for external effects/mastering gear and have upgraded/added UFX+, but not setup yet. On this note: where can I find info on how to use/daisychain 3 RME AUs simultaniously on Win10 ?! Thinking of connecting UC and BFPro to UFX+ per ADAT, but any related info much appreciated.

:)

Hey I am curious, when you switch to 192k, how many inputs does totalmix disable? On my UCX, it only gives me a total of 8 analog inputs to use. How are you able to get 14 channels then? I am wondering if this is a DSP limitation of the device or of the USB 2.0 bandwidth.

@@pnutbuttajellee1394 Good question. It maintains the total 12 analog inputs, but only allows 2 digital inputs and 2 outputs. It's respective to the clock.

Glad that you are happy Mike!

@@RMEAudio Just improve the Babyface Pro design

Totally agree - I had so many very annoying interface reliability issues until I switched to RME. Now, none in years and TotalMix gives complete flexibility after you learn it. RME fan for life.

@@tuneunleashedWhat do you feel is wrong with the design?

FWIW when i bought my Babyface Pro FS in 2020 RME also sent me a USB-C cable

@@meticmusic Yea, they sent you a USB-C for the HOST side connector. The BabyFace Pro FS still has a USB type-B connector on the *device* side. At least it’s bus powered though, I mean that’s really nice. But honestly, just my opinion here, all USB connectors aside from Type-C should be end of life’d. They are not as durable, it’s more difficult to find cables for them, and the connector itself isn’t as user friendly. Type C is just mo’ better!

@@5urg3x That is happening, but it won't be overnight. It would mean millions of tons of already manufactured parts being scrapped.

Nick, USB-C is completely separate from Thunderbolt. Most USB-C interfaces are either 2.0 or 3.0.... just saying. The difference is 100% mechanical most of the time.

@@jas_bataille Yes, that's why I said "Thunderbolt _and_ the USB-C connector" - Thunderbolt originally used mini DP

With USB 3, there are often transmission problems if incompatible USB 3 chips are built into the hardware (computer, etc.). Please check which USB chipset is in your Mac. A computer can have several different USB chipsets. Then it depends to which port the interface is connected and to which chipset this port is connected. USB 2 is more suitable for audio transmission than USB 3 due to the higher certifications.

Interesting strategy ;)

Agreed. Still rocking both my FF800 & UFX to this day. They have yet to fail me and are more stable than most other interfaces out there given their age.

Sadly enough, i can't use my FireWire audio interface anymore. Drivers weren't supported anymore and i didn't want to go USB again since i was looking for a new interface anyway. So i thought more of it like: Buy now with the new standard (Thunderbolt 3/USB-C) and hopefully get as long as possibly can out of that port!

If you're looking into RME audio interfaces at the moment this is probably the best way to get one... buy a firewire card into your computer and get a used firewire interface. Due to heavy inflation and shortage of electronics the only way to get for example a Babyface Pro FS at the moment seems to be buying a used one for more of the price than what a new one would have cost not even a year ago - not very alluring.

@@stefanbregenzer I personally was looking into RME options a couple of years ago, but now i have an Apollo twin X. I'm looking to buy an x8. But for now, the twin X will do as it is thunderbolt 3 and supported greatly with my Mac Pro and Macbook Air.

You’re welcome :)

Thanks Vincent :)

The music community needs passionate people like you that try to inform people - keep up the good work! We get a lot of questions around similar topics. Therefore we felt the need clarify some misconceptions. As we said, it's all a question of necessity.

Thank you! Because we're building our drivers in-house, we can always assure best performance.

That’s why I’m an rme guy all the way. The drivers are superb.

Early USB interfaces SUCKED and I was guilty of this. I can't believe how good my UCXII is, I've been PCI only for so long and it was purely bc of memories of old cheap interfaces. Oops

Thank you so much! Glad you enjoy our work!

Glad you still enjoy your FF800!

So true! I've upgraded my rig a few times, just pop the firewire pci card in. Also, I remember a few years back I had a power supply go out in my FF800 and immediately got in contact with RME and they sent me a the part I needed and didn't treat me like an infant. Will always stick wtih RME.

Hey Tomas, thank you for your support!

:)

:)

Dá-lhe BR

Thank you, Sean!

Usb C is not Usb 3 or Usb 2. It’s just the connector

@@Noisa I know. But they are still using the old style big USB connector.

@@annekedebruyn7797 I just bought a usb c hub with older connection options. Or you could just buy a usb c cable. Another expense, I know, but it’s easily remedied.

@@Noisa But that's exactly my point. Everyone is moving towards one connector across the board. I don't mind USB2.0 bandwidth but it is time to let go of the old connector.

@@annekedebruyn7797 tbf a cable is like 10$. There’s definitely some point to be made on sustainability though. But not including a cable would be pr-suicide (and including multiple cables is wasteful). The question is - what’s more common now - usb A or C connectors?

Yup but at least there's always adapters a USB 2 to USB c

@@bluebird1954 what are you, Apple?

RME has made reliable and solid interfaces within a reasonable price range for years - for a narrow customer base. As a manufacturer RME also has to take into consideration the cost designing a new PCB to adapt to a new protocol, develop new drivers and how many interfaces they're going to have to sell to cover that cost. USB2.0 is widely used and RME delivers their own, excellent drivers for all platforms, even Linux. If you think you need Thunderbolt connectivity, then go ahead and use other solutions. At the end of the day I respect stability over ( useless ) numbers race. Like buying a car while staring at the 0 - 100 km/h acceleration time - just to drive at 40 km/h in city traffic :)

​ @Tuomas Helin As I said, they have the best USB driver TODAY (it was also in capital letters on my original comment). I am not talking about today, where RME USB drivers are close in latency (but still not beating) thunderbolt interfaces. They have already reached the limit of USB in terms of latency. Thunderbolt will always have the ability to go lower, since it talks directly to the CPU, bypassing the platform's chipset. Its not about bandwidth, like they keep saying on this video, its about how fast the interface can "talk" to the CPU. RME will HAVE to switch to thunderbolt one day, if they want to stay competitive/relevant. It would be nice if they didn't have to delete this video saying "you don't need thunderbolt", when they release their thunderbolt interfaces ...

Engineers are like doctors, they all have different opinions…

Thank you so much for your support, Shlomo!

You're comparing apples to oranges. Besides involving completely different controllers you're also comparing different drivers developed by different companies for different hardware. The communication standards are not the culprit there

@@NamelessSmile I stand by my comment as I am involved in various hardware-dependent audio driver development.

@@Shred_Rocket lol that's fine. Doesn't mean you are correct, even on a fundamental level

For live use lots of synths etc, 48/128, about 10 ms of latency, usb is not doing it. Sound cards have way lower latency. 15 years of experience.

IMHO Onboard DSP is going away. CPU's and GPUs are so incredibly more powerful now a days than they were 10 years ago, the newest generation of Apple, NVIDIA, and Intel now have specific AI functions that we might see in use in pro/semi-pro audio in the next few years. The extra CPU power is not longer needed on most modern computers and DSPs are not nearly as flexible as a CPU. Plugins that used to only be great on Apollo DSPs can now be emulated easily on CPUs instead (check out Plugin Alliance especially Brainworx products).

Onboard processing won't change the necessary bandwidth, and the latency won't be different anyway. Either you have enough bandwidth and it works, or you don't have enough bandwidth and it doesn't work. DSP processing might increase the latency, but it has nothing to do with the connection protocol being used.

@@ianjohnson3546 the emulations never needed to be on dsp for any reason other than tracking with no latency. Once you have to send a signal to a computer and back out you have to play with buffer sizes and it gets annoying. If you have a dsp accelerated interface you can plug in your instrument or emulate your preamps on the way in, monitor and print them with no latency. It was never about computers being weak it was about tracking latency. That will never change no matter how powerful computer become due to having to send and receive signals. If you have the processing on the way in it deletes that.

Wow and just like that - today the biggest player in onboard DSP - UAD - just announced that many of their plugins can now be run natively on Mac M1 with no UAD hardware DSP! Never have I had a prediction come true so fast. Just 3 days ago I predicted the coming demise of DSP right here!

@@ianjohnson3546 wow! Can you post a link to that announce please? I cant find it =(

That’s exactly the point RME it’s a windows platform

@@ninolacroix6364 no it’s not lol….it works perfect in Macs as well.

@@tuneunleashed combination with UFX Plus and M1 Pro macOS 12.5.1 it’s a big mess end of discussion.

I had to send back the UFX Plus now im using Apollo X8 a wonderful thing plug and play no panic no headache

Mac users have to demand better from Apple.

That was news to me. Thank you.

Right. Class compliant drivers are most of the reason USB gets a bad rap. The other part is Hubs.

:)

:)

It can be an advantage, but not all ports, hubs, and power delivery circuits are made the same. Having external, dedicated power still has advantages.

Just search for UFX Plus via USB and Thunderbolt. I watched a video a few days ago. No difference in latency.

why are people so stubborn? the developer is showing you all the information and you can google everything and yet people are yelling USB - C for no fucking reason

@@ShablulZoem The point was made towards the end of the video with no further elaboration. The only comprehensive resource on the Internet (the LL performance database) is a multiple hundred page forum post you have to sift manually through. Data from RME would be better and definitely would be more proper than just stating the claim and leaving the proof to a user-unfriendly resource.

Doubling down on this, there are people who claim to use both and that they found that Thunderbolt performed more stably under high CPU load, which is where I find myself at all the time. USB is still USB with all its limitations. I don’t just need low RTL, I need stable performance at low RTL under high CPU load conditions.

​@@ShablulZoemthat is my case..😁 that it doesn't matter that thunderbolt is more modern and has more power. this video showed it all. maybe it's just a matter of time to acquire an RME.

pun intended

That is an extreme misunderstanding of how computers and specs work regarding those transmission protocols. USB can be a bit more complicated (after all, on a fundamental level, everything inside your computer is typically connected via PCIe SOMEHOW these days, whether that be through the chipset's lanes connected directly to the CPU's registers or through directly attached PCIe lanes and the CPU's registers.) The reason USB can be more complicated is that multiple USB root hubs are branched off from PCIe since the bandwidth requirements of USB are typically not nearly as high. This means that depending on what's RUNNING on multiple hubs, your speeds could fluctuate as the bandwidth is reallocated towards higher priority IO processes. But you misunderstand the specs; those specs are continuous transfer rates. There really isn't such a thing with computers as "burst rates." That's just not how they work. When you see data transferring through Windows and the graph move up and down on the speed of the transferred file, that is not because the interface is "bursting" and then slowing down again. It's because of the nature of the data being transmitted. CPU and handshaking overhead has always existed with more modern connections like this and will probably always be a thing, and depending on the types of data being transmitted and even what particular block of data is being currently transmitted, actual speeds can vary, even if the total available bandwidth is still the same. Now, could there potentially be advantages to formats that are more directly connected to the CPU and memory? Of course, that's the whole point of Thunderbolt and DMA. Thunderbolt *IS* essentially 4x lanes of PCIe. It's basically a direct window into the PCIe connector that a graphics card or networking card (etc) would use. This advantage still doesn't really matter all that much outside of channel counts though, as the directly available bandwidth and the type of data being transmitted is a known constant, and thus this video is 100% correct.

If you try a RME USB interface, the RTL is easily as good as Thunderbolt. For what ever reason, RME just makes really good drivers compared to other companies interfaces. Check out Julian Krause's videos and he shows this.

It's only got two XLR, what else does it have.

RME thunderbolt drivers on the RME Fireface UFX+ sucked. People had to use the USB drivers. RME is a bunch of lying scumbags

Hey Andrew, sorry to hear that. Could you explain a little bit more?

@@RMEAudio Well, after the driver update that was sometime last year in November I started to hear a powerful pop in the speakers if I turn them on before the interface, and a relative low volume at start, not correlated with the one on the unit display, touching the fader in TotalMix will make the audible volume jump to the level shown on the unit display. The second driver update which was sometime at the beginning of this year, the volume glitch disappeared but the pop in the speakers at start is still there. And it is annoying btw, if not dangerous for the speakers. Sometime I forget and turn the unit on before the speakers. I am on Win10, and using Yamaha HS8 monitors.

Thank you!

Glad we can help out!

Right. There are problems at the host implementation level that no amount of RME custom work at the usb device level can overcome. Ground loop noise problems is one of them.

;)

The good old original Babyface :)

Buy second hand!

many brand such Focusrite supports many of their old AI for quite a long while, my Scarlett 8i6 which is 10+ years old are still supported and being updated, also Motu does it. now a days, you dont really need to worry about it as many brand supports it at least 10 years which is the maximum life span of your hardware once you want to switch to a newer tech. But then again the biggest key is the drivers, the stability and support for OS updates later on.

@@yasunakaikumi well said, however i have both a focusrite clarett8pre and an rme multiface 2, and the asio drivers on the rme are just a level above focusrite. the multiface 2 is probably a 20 year old product as well

Well I’ve owned multiple Motu units and about 3 to 5 years seems to be their lifespan, although they have replaced units free of charge when they do fail. I also own a focusrite soundcard, 8i6 mk3 I think, glad to hear their support is good too. I’m glad to hear other companies do similar to rme, only makes for a better experience for more people. I’ll gladly recommend rme based on my own experience of the units I’ve purchased.