Finally received my UFX+! Will be setting it up later today.
First impressions, for fellow hardware connoisseurs: Looks and feels like the fine German engineering you’d expect! The XRL connectors are the real deal, with a nice, distinct feel in the locking mechanism. The three rotary knobs sound somewhat more “hollow” than one might expect, but feel nice and distinct. The sturdy aluminum rack ears can be removed, leaving a clean looking box with rounded corners, in case you want to use it as a desktop unit.
Awesome!
I currently have my eyes on the newest Focusrite, but it’s only USB 2 which makes me hesitant. It has USB-C connection, so it does not make sense to me?
I’m not sure why some are declaring USB-C as an actual feature for USB 2 devices, except possibly for the chances of tricking the uninformed buyers into believing it’s somehow better than “normal” USB 2… Smells like a dirty trick to me. Either way, even with RME (who seem to have massively superior USB 2 drivers), I would be hesitant to go with anything USB 2 at this point, if native processing latency is important.
As for Focusrite, mine served me well while it lasted, despite the inherent USB 2 limitations. I haven’t used any gen 2 or newer Focusrite devices on Windows. (I have a gen 2 Solo in the office, as that turned out to be the least expensive way to get non-awful sound and decent heaphone amps for a laptop, but I’ve only ever used it with Linux.)
All I know is, the gen 1 devices are effectively dead now, as the drivers are not updated, and they do NOT work reliably with Windows 10 anymore in my experience. So, what’s the life expectancy of the new devices, in terms of driver support…? I also considered their OctoPre to go with an RME PCI card, but it turns out the OctoPre has “random” latency issues, which will apparently never be fixed. (Firmware update needed, which would mean RMA.) This adds up to me hesitating to buy any of their digital products in the future.
In any case, it seems the entire audio interface industry is lagging behind on this…probably thinking “USB 2 is good enough”, when I beg to differ from experience.
Yeah… I’m kind of getting the feeling that most manufacturers have given up on low latency native audio, and just assume that those who care will go for hardware DSP instead.
And indeed; I probably would go for hardware DSP too, but I don’t want to be restricted to specific DAWs (Pro Tools HDX) or closed plugin ecosystems (UAD) - and AFAIK, none of these can run my absolute core plugin for orchestral work: Kontakt. (Or samplers at all, for that matter. Seems like they don’t have enough RAM and disk streaming bandwidth to implement that.)
My previous experience with the Focusrite range is that you get a lot of features for the money but what let them down was keeping drivers up to date. My gen 1 had fairly below average LLP and when they released gen 2 with new drivers they stopped updating for gen 1.
I also had to get it repaired as a switch on the front broke internally, so I’m thinking they’ve maybe cut a few corners to get the price down. They definitely go all out on features though.
@Mikael have you checked out the Antelope Audio range? The TB series gets very good reported LLP. I was put off getting one due to some bad attitudes from the admins on the FB page but the discrete series tested close to RME for latency.
Anyway, had a bit of a troubleshooting session there, but now it works fine on USB3, with the included cable. I had trouble both using a hub (showed up as USB2), and an active 5 m cable (unstable host connection), so I’m going to have to investigate that further. That said, I wasn’t really counting on USB to handle more than about 3 m, so I’ll have to deal with that, or use optical TB instead.
Now, on the upside, quick test reveals that latency somehow feels much lower than the old Scarlett at the same buffer sizes - and even with umpteen Chrome tabs running and stuff (haven’t tried optimizing things), I’m getting pretty near rocks solid performance with 32 samples @ 48 kHz with Cantabile and the Ravenscroft 275. It was “ok” before, but this seriously feels the the sound comes before I hit the keys. Surreal. Haven’t checked the impact on CPU load, but playing all the keys with the pedal down doesn’t cause any glitches whatsoever.
Oh, and the headphone outputs have some serious oomph, even with the 250 ohm DT 770 PROs. Way more than my ears can handle, anyway! (The Scarlett amp was just barely enough.)
Thanks William, yeah I found the features on the Focusrite (rack model) is pretty amazing for the price. I guess they have to cut corners on some aspects as you say.
Didn’t have the right cables (because I’m an idiot, and forgot that the main outputs on these thing are XLR only), so I use outputs 3/4 instead, which was no problem to config, volume knob on the device working and all.
Added a WDM (Windows sound) device, routed to my 3/4 output, which means it’s covered by the Main volume of the interface, and also has its own volume control on the Windows side. Seems to work great with Chrome and Zoom, and also Reference 4. It all comes up instantly, and seems rock solid.
Oh, and I can unplug/reconnect, power on/off and stuff without BSODs! That’s a real nice upgrade over the old Scarlett right there. It all seems quick and solid. Things come up instantly, and Just Work™.
Will report any interesting findings as I set things up properly here.
Small note: It’s kind of interesting to just slap a compressor on the main output when leisurely listening to interviews and stuff. Basically the “contrast” knob that should go with every volume control on consumer devices.
If you don’t already have a monitor controller I’d thoroughly recommend the RME ARC, gives you instant access to dim, mute, switch monitors, return to reference level as well as all your volumes, gain settings and phantom power. Also can be used to switch workspaces etc in TotalMix.
Probably more handy if your interface sits in a rack but still handy for desktop as well.
@Mikael Let me know if you go for the Focusrite, I’d be interested to hear how it works out, I couldn’t find any test results on the latency but the reviews seem to suggest a definite improvement over the gen-1 I had.
Yes, I was planning on getting the ARC originally, but wasn’t sure I’d actually need it. I have the interface within reach, but it’s still a bit fiddly to use as the actual master controller. (I’m not using my old analog one here.) Some more (and assignable) buttons would be nice as well.
Its definitely good for that, very configurable within TM. I like that as a monitor controller its just one USB cable as opposed to having to cable something between your interface and speakers.
My brain just melted reading this thread! Amazing insights here! A lot of this I have had suspicions of but never fully understood. Thank you for the insights.
Btw, I suggest this thread be your first step towards Ted Talks
I had very similar criteria to you and I went with a bit of a black horse, the MOTU 828x – highly recommended.
I/O – it’s 28x30 with 2 preamps and MIDI.
Price – because it’s pretty old, it can be had for cheap. New it goes for $850 these days; I got a used one for $500 (same price as the UAD Arrow (aka UAD Apollo Solo) I was upgrading from!))
Reliability – even though it’s old, MOTU still updates the firmware and driver quarterly. It’s kinda crazy. They even beat the UAD Apollo line to Big Sur and Apple Silicon support on this 10-year-old thing.
Rack mountable – 1U.
Connection latency – this is the sneaky bit that makes it an incredible deal. It supports both USB and Thunderbolt 2. I may be misinformed here but I’m pretty sure the only difference between 2 and 3 is transfer speeds, I don’t think there is any difference in the implementation of direct memory allocation or anything like that. Since Thunderbolt 2 transfer speeds (20 Gbps) are already something like 10,000x 24-bit audio reqs, there’s no theoretical difference in latency between t3 and t2. At any rate I’m unable to discern (and Ableton’s latency measurement doesn’t report) a difference between the UAD → Ableton (t3) and the MOTU → Ableton (t2), whereas I definitely noticed the difference between my old Scarlett and the UAD.
It all seems quick and solid. Things come up instantly, and Just Work™.
