New UR-C audio interfaces released

Thank you for your interest! The cable should be okay indeed.

Just an remark over here.

I saw the announcement that the development of drivers is ceased on the MR soundcard range. JUst as I wanted to but the new URC sound device I took notion of this devlopment.

To say it as it is, I’m disappointed. I’ve had this many times with manufacturers products which still function 100% become unusable as I switched to new OS platform and didn’t have an driver for this platform.

I’m now considering RME products as they have a very long extended life support on drivers.

Steinberg please consider the negative effects when abondoning your own users and own platfrom products!

Thank you for your feedback! The situation with the UR series being a USB based series is a little different though.
The MR816 has been in the market for 11 years and is a Firewire based interface. Firewire is dead and there are no new systems out there offering direct compatibility without adapters etc.
In addition the OS support for Firewire hasn’t exactly been improved over the last years - quite the opposite. It still works fine on most Windows systems for the time being and it also works on macOS up to Mojave. For Catalina as a 64-bit only OS, we would have to create a new driver and new 64-bit TOOLS. I am sorry to say but at a certain point, with a dead interface standard and new OS requirements, it is simply not possible to invest additional resources anymore.

Hi Ed,

As a user of the dropped MR616 I sort of understand what you’re saying. Although I’m also kind of surprised since your support page has been saying your team has been testing the drivers you say are useless to develop for the last year when it came to Mojave. But I see it’s updated so it’s just working as is.

After 11 years I understand that I have to replace it sometime. There are companies that sell interfaces with a longer lifespan, but that could be because of usb like you mentioned. So my natural instinct was to go for this new interface. There has been 1 thing bugging me about the mr816 and that is that it’s incompatible with external hardware. So I have asked if that is fixed, or that I’m just dumb, but in this thread it has been ignored 3 times. I am assuming no one wants to answer, so I am giving you one more chance to sell this item.

When you use the master volume of this new interface. Will it only affect the master out? Or will the extra volume go to all of the outputs?

In other words: If I have a compressor connected as external effect on output 3. And I want to turn up my speaker/main out volume, will this mess up my compressor settings cause the volume of output 3 will also be higher cause of the mastervolume dial?

If Steinberg does not want to answer, can somebody else? I have had to buy a separate monitor controller because of this. Am I just dumb or is this just a design incompatible with my workflow and is it also in the new interface?

Other than this , if wrong cable n connection is made , the( C type connector goes in both ways ) from what i read … U could damage the ports forever … as it transmits 40/100 watts of power ?? hope Steinberg clarifies this , thoroughly , and mark the cables accordingly … so far too much confusion on the USB 3…0 /3.1 n the thunderbolt … how about companies stuck to protocols , n dont put non technical people in this situation …

Please provide a link to what you read. I have not heard that that is true.

I now have a UR44C and can say there is no ‘wrong’ way to plug it in. I’m using a USB-C to USB-C cable, with the laptop in my sig. It’s quite awesome to have it running from bus power- which I’ve been wanting for a long time.

Are you using a Gen 1 or Gen 2 cable?

I don’t know, it came with an ssd enclosure I bought recently. My understanding is that the sole difference between 1 and 2 is the speed, 5 and 10 Gbps respectively.

Yep, that’s right.

I was just wondering because I plan to use a Gen 2 cable only because that’s the only one I can find in 2 metres. Every Gen 1 I’ve come across is only 1 metre which won’t suit me. So I was just wondering in case there’s anything I need to know regarding the Gen 2.

When I look into the manual I can see that in the Settings window you can apply the mastervolumeknob to any of the outputs or just the masteroutputs.
I want the same as you, a couple of outboard gear connected to the line outputs without messing with the volume.

We do stick to the protocols and I have yet to hear that a USB-C to USB-C connection can be connected the wrong way. That’s why the USB-C connector was introduced in the first place, not having to hassle with the connections and the ways to insert cables.

On this topic… I recently upgraded my machine from a pc to a Mac mini. I was very disappointed to learn that my previous interface (Tascam US-1200) would not work due to the USB 2.0 connection not being supported by Mac’s new T2 chip. I have purchased the UR44C (in the mail). Can you comment on whether Mac’s USB 3.0 connection will work with the UR44C, or if a USB C to USB C cable plugged into the T3 input on the Mac Mini will be necessary / sufficient?

Thanks

Should not be any reason why you can’t use the USB 3 cable supplied with your UR44C. So just plug into your Mac’s USB 3 port and that’s it.

Thanks. I get my UR44 today, so I will check it out. Honestly I am a little gun shy at this point having spent $1500 on a machine that isn’t compatible with my hardware!

I’m sure the Mac Mini supports USB 2. Normally the ports are backwards compatible.

Unfortunately Mac’s new T2 chip doesn’t support all USB 2 connections.

However I can now confirm (after a lot of fiddling with security permissions, reinstalling drivers, and rebooting many times) that the UR44C connects well via USBC directly to the TB I put in the Mac mini as well as USB 3

Thanks for the help everyone

Surely, it will not need considerable resources to take the code and recompile it with 64 bit, for a start. Other, better, companies did it with firewire.

I believe that you are making up a firewire case to camouflage bad marketing tactics. I am sorry for my earlier decisions to buy several Steinberg hardware. Now you are effectively making my MR useless even for selling it.

It would be very very handy if you could re-name the inputs at the bottom of the DSP mixer.
Hope this is fixed in the next update.

I am also considering buying the ur22c and have a question about connecting it through thunderbolt 3 (usb-c connector). I have a Dell XPS 13 9360, which has one thunderbolt 3 (usb-c connector) which I would use to connect the ur22c. However the xps 13 9360 thunderbolt 3 is of the first ‘wave’ so it only supports two PCIe channels (max 16Gb/s I think) and not the four PCIe channels that more recent thunderbolt 3 ports support. Would this be a problem? I would think not, since the 16Gb/s is still more than the USB-A connector can support, but I would like to be sure :slight_smile: The main thing I am interested in is low latency on midi connectors.

Many thanks,
Niels