Hi people
Im on the look out for a new soundcard and I quite like the idea of the expansion via 2x adat , my questions are :
Are the drivers stable ?
What is the quality of the AD-DA conversion like ?
In the real world what is the lowest latency settings you can get ?
Is the on board asus z77 p8 pro standard usb port good enough to run the ur824 ?
As you can see from my sign it will be integrated with c7 and to be honest I haven’t seen a lot of bad posts about running the 824 with c7 ,is it running smooth ?
Any feedback would be appreciated as im looking to move from motu this week if possible
I’ve recently taken the plunge and bought a second UR824.
Haven’t had the opportunity to use them together for an extended session yet but will be recording a band with full drumkit this weekend. On my laptop (18 month old bog standard Samsung, i7, 8gb) I’m running with a 64 sample buffer and getting about 5ms in and 6ms out latency. It seems to be stable and reliable at this low buffer setting. I upgraded the laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 8 just to try out Win8. My guess is if it runs on Win8, it will run as well or better on Win7.
In terms of converters and mic pres and quality, this is the first time I’ve had an interface at this price point; I’ve got a couple of Zoom recorders (which I think are great) and I’ve used a M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 in my desktop for years, which I also think is great. So I don’t have much to compare with directly. For what it’s worth, I think the quality is exquisite. I’ve recorded some acoustic guitar tracks with the UR 824 which I think sound really beautiful and I’m really happy and very excited about having the UR824s.
I worried a lot about spending this kind of money and I considered the Roland Studio Capture as an alternative, but the Roland has only just become available in the UK and I thought the ADAT and S/PDIF connections of the UR824 made it more future-proof.
Im just a little bit dubious about the Steinberg - Yamaha relationship .
After buying a few bits of hardware from Steinberg over the years and them not supporting the hardware with new drivers and firmware regularly and discontinuing support very early on an Item (same goes for Yamaha ) I really want to make sure swapping over from firewire to usb that these are stable as they are in case Steinberg pulls one of it’s old stunts .
Another thing I would like cleared if possible by steinberg ,are these interfaces German technology or Japanese ? (shame the relationship with RME no longer exists ,that would be just perfect) .
These are my 2 options :
RME ucx which is a bit above my price bracket atm but I love german technology .
UR824 because of the 2x adat option but nothing else
I’ve never bought Steinberg hardware before, and I"ve seen on this forum over the years people’s frustration with discontinued/unsupported devices. Again, I took the view that ADAT means these can be used with FireWire, USB, thunderbolt, or any other primary interface that has ADAT connections, but basically any purchase is a risk in terms of future proofing. If you look at other users on this forum, a number are using Yamaha n8 or n12 mixer/interfaces’ which have been kept up to date with driver updates. I use a little Yamaha kx keyboard and again the USB drivers and other software has been kept up to date.
The mic pres on the ur 824 are Yamaha designed I believe - D-Pres. I think most people think these are very good preamps in their own right.
Good luck with your research and your eventual purchase!
Im thinking the same concerning adat . ok once again cheers and it seems like the only way im going to find out is by demoing which is not as easy as it seems ,i’ll ring Andertons and see what I can sort out .
Hey G-String, I have both the UR824 (BLA-Mod) & the Mr816CSX & I Love Them… The pre-amps & the converters are top notch; preamps are very very clean on them & you woll be able to get otstanding recordings from using them…
Since I run the UR on a Mac with Logic, the only answer I can give you is that the AD/DA conversion is stunning. Extremely clean and very musical. Not strange, considering the type of converters that this device is using, and the experience of Yamaha with great sounding digital mixers.
On the Mac, the latest drivers have been very solid. My issues are (1) severe humming when connecting the audio interface to the monitors with unbalanced cables (I have not had this issue with any other interface I used in years, and I guess the problem is in the chassis), and (2) the ugly and very uncomfortable dspMixFx console - it is not even possible to click on the horizonal scrollbar to switch to the next/previous eight-channel group!
Frankly, it is the first time I see Japanese technology considered inferior to the German one, but I might have lost something of the technological advancements of the latest years. Then, I work for a Japanese tech firm…
As for continued support, unfortunately RME is not doing much better than Yamaha or Steinberg.
extremely poor performance! I was considering to buy a UR824 but I am really worried about the poor latency performance of this interface. With my MOTU interfaces (I have a few) I get 5 ms with 256 sample buffer (44 kHz)…(or even larger buffers!)
I wonder how to use midi devices in very big projects, where you cannot use very low buffer setting…
I’m not sure the figures I get can be called ‘extremely poor performance’ for a usb interface under Windows, as the point is surely how stable and reliable your interface is when recording. 11 ms round trip latency is absolutely fine for live recording of vsti or guitar. When I increase my buffer size to 128 or 256 samples, the latency increases to about 7 or 8 ms in - it increases incrementally but it doers not double or quadruple as the buffer size doubles or quadruples.
Are yor MOTU interfaces usb or firewire? What sort of figures do you get under Windows as opposed to using a Mac?
sorry but I don’t consider 11 ms fine when recording. Ok, for audio you can use the direct monitor and that is absolutely fine, but when I use my my keyboards to record vsti, well 11 ms is really too much, you don’t have the responsiveness which is crucial.
My MOTU interfaces are hybrid so they can work with firewire and usb and their lantencies are small in both cases. I suspect it could be related to the drivers. Also RME is known to release incredibly good drivers making their product work (well) at very low lantency.
I was really considering to buy a couple of UR824 (mainly because of their integration with Cubase) but this story about latency is really preventing me to jump…
I also considered to buy a couple of MR816 but I am not sure about their future support as they are out there since many many years…
I’d like to hear from SB if the current UR824 performance is related to drivers (so in principle it could be improved) or it’s something related to the hardware.
How small? What are the actual figures? What round trip latencies do you regularly play your keyboards with? Do you know what the latency is when you stand three metres away from your amp?
I completely accept that you may find latency a worry, but I just wonder what figures you routinely play with yourself. If latency is a strong determining factor in your next purchase, I’d strongly recommend you measure what you actually play with. Good luck with your next interface, whatever you choose.
who does record a guitar being 3 meters away from the amp??? I record being about 1 meter from the amp which is less than 3ms of delay. And that is also the latency I use when I record using vsti.
11 or more ms can be absolutely heard! Try to record a singer with that latency…he will complain (I know it by experience).
I’m very happy with my UR824 under Win7 64 and using Cubase 7. I also have a MOX6, and the integration of both the keyboard and interface under Cubase is excellent. I have not found latency to be a problem.
Never had a problem using the 8Ch + 8 Ch Thru Adat (always use this for drum recording), once I tried a full 24 Ch in 44K 24bits and worked fine, but I didn’t tested the latency there.
