I recently purchased a UR824 with Cubase 8 Pro. I already own version 8 so the intention was to sell the license on to recoup some of the money spent on the card.
Everything about this card is superb BUT i predominantly record guitar and using the hi-z the input clips. To clarify:
Test with 2 guitars (Gibson Traditional, Variax with Seymour Duncan pickups and using the Models)
Hi-Z, no gain pad off (clipping)
Hi-Z, some gain with pad on (clipping and/or random artifacts)
No Hi-Z, gain up a little with pad off (perfect but no clarity and sounds ridiculously muffled)
I have tested with both inputs at different levels, with the hi-z on with pad on and gain up the sound is nice and clear, but there is artifacts happening with NO digital clipping.
I have logged with this with Steinberg, a week and a half on I get a response from a no-reply email box and that’s it. I am about to return it but want to make sure that it cannot be repaired first as it ticks all my boxes for a soundcard.
To be honest if I wanted to use a DI box I would not have purchased a £529 soundcard.
I have long since become very annoyed at the beta tester culture we have were companies can market and advertise products that do not work as advertised and we are such passive consumers that we accept this and purchase something else to fill the gap.
If the product advertises hi-z inputs I expect them to work. I have a lot of instruments and all clip really badly.
If people returned equipment that did not function as advertised then we would have better products and superior quality control. There is to much competition for market space these days so inferior products at max profit are what it’s about or you lose momentum.
Steinberg got back to me yesterday, after testing with 2 guitars at various setting it seems with hi-z on there is a lot of clipping with both a gibson and variax, with pad on there is digital distortion and with it off it sounds awful, I expect a lot more from a £500+ soundcard when I have a komplete 6 I purchased for £150 that does a much better job.
I fear this will be returned but I am hoping not as it has everything I need but at present it had stopped me from being able to work on any tracks.
I think the Guitar Amp Classics were created to mask the distorted signal (my thoughts). The UR824 doesn’t work satisfactorily with any of my guitars, including Pedal Steel. Some folks tried the cheaper passive DI boxes; that didn’t help either. The solution for me was to buy an A-designs Tube DI, which almost cost as much as the UR824, BUT it changes the impedance from Hi-Z to line level. That’s something the UR824 fails to do for some guitar electronics. But with that Tube DI, it’s great for all of my guitars, including the steel. It’s a shame a person would need to jump through another expensive hoop, but some products aren’t a “one size fits all” type of thing, sadly.
