The leading German audio interface manufacturer RME has always been known for its excellent sound quality, good stability and superior performance in the professional field. Its Fireface 800 launched in 2004 and Fireface 400 interface launched in 2006 have been widely recognized in the industry. And always occupies an unshakable position in the recording studio and live recording applications. After about four years of brewing, RME has made frequent efforts in the past three years. It successively launched the Fireface 400 USB version Fireface UC in 2009 and the mobile portable interface Babyface in 2010.（Including later Ladyface and special silver and white Babyface） And several interfaces such as Fireface UFX, the successor of Fireface 800. In 2012, RME once again brought us a surprise. It will release a new generation of audio interface called Fireface UCX at the NAMM exhibition held on the 19th, US time. Recently, we obtained an engineering prototype of this interface in advance and conducted a hands-on evaluation to provide you with more information about the product.

First sightUCX（Packaging and appearance）

Figure 1. The box of Fireface UCX is the same size as the box of Fireface 800 and UFX

Figure 2. Consistently concise and intuitive

Figure 3. There is a transparent window on the box, you can see the accessories inside

Figure 4. Large inventory

The RME Fireface UCX box contains the Fireface UCX interface, power supply, Remote Control remote controller, user manual, driver CD, warranty and registration card, a 1.8-meter USB cable, a 4-meter 400 Firewire, and a 9-pin DIN MIDI Two pairs of standard MIDI port braid cables and a 2m ADAT Toslink optical fiber cable are very user-friendly.

Figure 5. The user manual is designed with front and back faces open, one side is in English, and the other is in German

Figure 6. Front view of Fireface UCX（Handle on both sides can be removed）

At first glance, UCX seems to be not much different from UC and 400, but its simple panel and black knob design seem to be closer to UFX, and from our subsequent evaluations, we can also see that UCX is not so much an upgrade of UC and 400. Rather, it is a half-U simplified version of UFX.

Figure 7. Fireface UCX back photo

From the back, it can be clearly seen that it has two major changes compared with UC and 400: 1. It inherits the dual transmission interface characteristics of UFX, and integrates USB2.0 and Firewire 400 connection methods. Users can choose according to their own situation. UCX interface, which can be regarded as a combination of UC and 400; 2. With 9-pin DIN REMOTE interface, UFX optional Remote Control remote controller has become a standard accessory of UCX. After the UCX driver and firmware are installed, you only need Connect the 5-meter cable on the controller to the UCX REMOTE interface, and remote control can be achieved without other settings.

About the interface（And talk）

Figure 8. UCX microphone and line input section

Neutrik Combo jacks are still used for the input channels of UCX 1 and 2 which can be connected to microphone or line input, and are digitally controlled and switched by the Total Mix software terminal. More importantly, it uses the same mic preamp unit as UFX, which uses the core technology of RME Micstasy（Parallel conversion technology——Each speech amplifier unit uses two analog-to-digital converters for parallel analog-to-digital conversion, which can obtain a better signal-to-noise ratio and wide dynamics）, Capable of 65dB digital gain control（1dB is the minimum adjustment unit, and the maximum adjustment range is 55dB）. We compared Neumann TLM103 condenser microphones with UCX and UC respectively. From the author’s subjective sense of hearing, the noise floor of the UCX microphone amplifier unit is smaller, the definition of the mid-low frequency is improved, and the high frequency part has better ductility. Both the amplification level and the sound quality are significantly better than UC. The 3-way and 4-way jacks on the front panel can be used to connect the large three-core input or the input of instruments such as guitar and bass.

Figure 9. Display part

The black digital knob can be infinitely rotated for level adjustment（LEV）Or channel selection（CH）, And the level value will be displayed on the display（-∞~+6）Or corresponding to the number of channels, press this button to switch between the two control functions. You can know whether the current control is level information or channel information from the content displayed on the screen and the lighting of the corresponding CH or LEV indicator. . In addition, when the selected channel is the input channel, LEV adjusts the gain level; and when the selected channel is the output channel, press the black knob for more than 3 seconds, it will enter the pan adjustment mode, you can change the output signal Sound image（LL~RR）.
The left side of the LED indicator area shows the digital connection status. From top to bottom, it is the word clock lock, SPDIF connection, ADAT connection and setting of the UCX master device. The right side shows the status of two MIDI input and output, and the earphone on the right side. The jack outputs 7, 8 stereo signals.

Figure 10. Left side of back panel

UCX has both USB2.0（Support 3.0 upwards）And FireWire 400（Can be transferred to 800 FireWire）The interface provides users with flexible options, but unfortunately, we cannot use USB for independent power supply. No matter which transmission method is used, it needs to be connected to the power supply. The 9-pin DIN REMOTE interface can be connected to a Remote Control remote controller for remote control, and the MIDI interface can be connected to two MIDI devices at the same time using the attached pigtail cable. 6 balanced analog line outputs can meet the production needs of 5.1 surround sound.

Figure 11. Backplane

The BNC word clock input and output interface canceled the 75 ohm switch button.

Figure 12. The right side of the back panel

The right area of ??the back panel has four balanced analog line input interfaces, a pair of ADAT input and output（Or a pair of SPDIF optical fiber input and output）Interface, and a pair of SPDIF coaxial input and output interfaces. Therefore, if there is support from other external devices, we can use UCX to record 2 analog microphone inputs, 6 analog line inputs, and 8 ADAT（Can transmit 8 digital signals at the same time）Digital input, plus 2 SPDIF（Can transmit 2 digital signals at the same time）A total of 18 channels of digital input audio signals are enough for a small and medium-sized live recording event（See Figure 13 for physical input and output of all 36 channels of UCX）.

Figure 13. Cubase shows all the physical input and output ports of UCX

About the setting interface andTotalMix FX

Figure 15. Setting interface under Fireface UCX Mac system

The setting interface of UCX maintains the simplicity of the RME audio interface, which forms a huge contrast with its TotalMix FX control interface…… The interface is divided into four parts, namely the output format（number）, Clock mode（Set sampling rate and clock source）, Options and input status（number）, And there is an additional clock frequency fine-tuning module in the setting interface under Win system.

Figure 16. TotalMix Fx control interface

Next, we will introduce the control core of the RME audio interface—— TotalMix Fx control interface, because its control function is very powerful and flexible, this evaluation is only a brief description.
As can be seen from the figure above, the TotalMix Fx interface is roughly divided into six parts:

Left side—— The upper part is the hardware input part, from here we can control all the relevant information of the analog and digital input channels; the middle part is the software playback part, which is used to control the sound output by the software; the lower part is the hardware output part, where analog and digital The content of the output channel is set. The current RMS or Peak readings can be displayed above the level meter of each channel（Need to be selected from the Level Meter menu on the right side of the interface）, The lower part shows the position of the fader. The small fader on the right side of the large fader can quickly adjust the sending or returning volume of the DSP reverb or echo effect. It can be fine-tuned by Shift+mouse wheel. Press downThe button can switch the channel to compact mode. At this time, the channel only displays the level meter. Press again to restore. Click on,andThe icon can be expanded to display more settings,Including stereo link, pan position, gain, send or return effect amount, inversion, MS processing and other operations,Is a combination of a low-cut filter and a 3-band parametric equalizer, andExpand is a dynamic processing module that can perform compression, expansion, and automatic level processing.

Right—— The upper part is the output effect part, including DSP reverb and echo unit; the lower part is the control room monitoring part, here you can set some output channels as control room monitoring channels, and add EQ and dynamic processing, and at the same time Dim volume attenuation, Talkback intercom, stereo/monaural monitoring switching, shielding return effect wet sound and other operations. The area on the far right of the interface is the setting part, which can realize the functions of monitoring DSP resource occupancy, Undo and Redo operations, selecting the relevant display content of the interface, storing interface snapshots and grouping.

aboutDSPEffect

Each input and output channel in the UCX TotalMix FX control interface is equipped with a DSP effect processing module, including a 3-band parametric equalizer, adjustable low-cut, automatic level, compressor, expander, etc. In addition, all hardware Both the input channel and the software playback channel can send the signal to the DSP reverb and echo effect unit and return to any hardware output channel. These hardware effects help to save the CPU resources of the workstation computer, and users can also understand the current resource occupancy from the DSP resource occupancy indicator on the upper right of the interface.

Figure 17. DSP reverb preset parameters

DSP reverb preset parameters are not very common, but generally you can find suitable settings for adding reverb effects to vocals or instrumental music.

Figure 18. DSP echo preset parameters

There are three preset parameters of DSP echo effect.

Figure 19. The input channel and resource occupation with DSP EQ and compression enabled

In order to estimate UCX’s DSP resource occupancy, we will input all channels（Except the two mic preamps are mono, the other channels are connected to stereo, a total of 8 pairs）Both the EQ and compressor are turned on. At this time, the DSP resource occupancy indicator on the upper right has just reached about one-half, which should be enough for normal use.

aboutASIOperformance

Like UFX, UCX’s USB and FireWire drivers need to be installed separately. RME has specially developed optimized USB and FireWire transmission technologies for UCX’s own data transmission requirements, thus achieving ultra-low system delays, which is more effective for commercially available FireWire. The chip has better compatibility. Of course, if you only use either USB or FireWire, then you only need to install the corresponding driver.

Figure 20. UCX optional buffer size settings

In this evaluation, we used the USB connection to test the ASIO performance of UCX. As can be seen from the above figure, the selectable buffer range is from 32 Samples to 1024 Samples. The following are the measured results of ASIO delay corresponding to each buffer at a sampling rate of 48Khz.

Figure 21.32 Samples ASIO delay

Figure 22.128 Samples ASIO delay

Figure 23.256 Samples ASIO delay

Figure 24.512 Samples ASIO delay

Figure 25. 1024 Samples ASIO delay

Summarize

I have mentioned before that as an upgrade of Fireface UC and 400, UCX is in line with UFX in many aspects, such as multi-transmission interface, Micstasy mic preamp, a full set of DSP effect modules, remote control functions, and even the style of the panel and knobs. Both are more like a half-U simplified version of UFX. Therefore, if the price increase is not large compared to UC and 400, UCX is likely to get more support in the mid-to-high-end level.

advantage

1. Optional use of USB 2.0 or Firewire 400 interface
2. Built-in DSP effects, including 3-band EQ, compression, limit, expansion, auto level, low cut, echo and reverb
3. 2-channel microphone amplifier with RME advanced microphone amplifier Micstasy technology
4. Continuing the excellent sound quality and stability of RME, TotalMix FX is rich and powerful
5. Clean sound, good dynamics, bright high frequency

   Pad flagship interface! Launch of Fireface UCX

   Submitter:Feifeisource:RME2012-01-28read:653
    

   I thought Apogee would be the first, and it turned out to be RME.（Apogee, Avid and MOTU should support iPad one after another during the year）

   Everyone is familiar with their UC and UFX last year. Now when the two interfaces are combined, it becomes UCX（I am looking forward to“UFO” It didn''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''t show up~）. The hardware is still unquestionably awesome. There are two differences from their previous interface, which is a remote control that looks basically the same as the Babyface.（wired）, And support for iPad, let’s take a look at the features:

   • Half-U body, analog 8 inputs and 8 outputs, plus digital ports for a total of 18 inputs and 18 outputs
   • Ultra-low latency mastering grade ADDA（114dBA, 111dB unweighted, it’s not easy for anyone who dares to publish unweighted data）
   • Audio amplifier technology from its own advanced interfaces Micstasy and UFX, and also includes AutoSet overload protection
   • The newly developed Hammerfall audio core brings ultra-low latency operation to USB and FireWire
   • With TotalMix FX plus UFX’s DSP engine, all effects can be run to 192 kHz in real time
   • With RME Remote Control monitor controller（Looks a lot like Babyface）
   • DIGICheck level meter and analysis tool
   • Support WIN and MAC, you can also run Standalone mode without connecting to the computer（As ADDA or verbal release）
   • Fireface UCX is the first professional audio interface to support iPad through Class Compliant mode, bringing professional 8 pairs of recording and playback channels to iPad

   RME UCX is available immediately（SOS has been reviewed）, But the price is a bit more expensive than UC, the Street Price of 1649 USD is basically close to the Fireface 800 of 1699 USD.（I suggest that since it is the iPad platform, you can change the appearance, such as the ALESIS interfaces on the namm this time, don’t always use the XP appearance of the PC platform~）

   PS: Please refer to the official instructions for supporting the Class Compliant mode of iPad:http://www.rme-audio.de/en_support_te ... _support_techinfo_cc_mode