Hi guys,
you can tell that doesn’t matter where the knobs are pointing ( it’s a wrong statement ), you can even use a mic pre-amp to overcome the UR44 low input gain issue but the true story is that in fact the UR44 has a lower input gain!!
I’m a Steinberg fan! But being a fan doesn’t mean to be blind or deaf. So that’s my opinion ( please consider that I’m an experienced guy with computers, audio interfaces and recording ) :
I used to work with an UR22 audio interface and Cubase Elements 7. This setup it’s like a Panzer tank. Everything was perfet! But, as long as my audio work was growing I needed more audio inputs and I sold my UR22 and I bought an UR44. By this way, my nightmare began.
(1) To install the UR44 drivers I needed to completely format my computer. I contacted Steinberg but no efficient support. I believe that in some way the drivers setup software was not able to properly uninstall UR22 and install UR44 drivers
(2) I can hear glitches even with a 2048 samples buffer when using Cubase Elements 7 for playback. Note that in this cases my Cubase Elements 7 projects are only audio and all tracks are freezed ( just to avoid the glitches ). I have a Cubase Elements 7 project with a sound track made by me for a piece of theater. At this moment I can not playback the project from Cubase in the shows because it starts glitching. To overcome this issue I export the audio to mp3 files and I’m running the audio with an audio player
( this is really bad )
(3) The UR44 has a lower input gain. I use an Audio Technica AT-2020 and a Sontronics STC-80. To ear the signal the input knob must be between 80% and 100%. At this point I can hear a lot of noise floor. Nothing of this happened with my old UR22
With my old UR22 I need no mic/guitar pre-amps.
I’ll go to Steinberg support and report this important issue because it seems a lot of people has the same problem. I’ll make pressure to solve this. Than I’ll feedback the solution ( if there exits a solution )