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RME User Forum → FireWire & USB series → Connect UFX+ simultaneously with Thunderbolt and USB3
I recently bought a UFX+ I'm connecting it via Thunderbolt. I would kindly like to know if I can connect it at the same time also through the USB3 port and use both connections on the same computer. Thanks.
I did this in the past with UFX which had Firewire 400 and USB2.
I wanted to work with firewire, but needed USB for firmware upgrades (which is not the case for the UFX+, there are flash update tools available for both, USB and thunderbolt).
There was a certain order that either USB or Firewire was quicker than the other driver.
I do not remember exactly anymore. Either I could change the settings on the UFX to use the one or the other
or I simply plugged or unplugged USB depening on whether I want to work with USB or Firewire.
And if I remember right, USB won if both was plugged.
Also with the UFX+ you can set interface mode to AUTO or a dedicated setting (USB3, USB2, ...).
But you can not expect, that the recording interface will work with both, USB or thunderbolt, either one or the other.
But what is the problem that you want to solve anyway ? Thunderbolt and USB3 deliver nearly equal performance, take what works best and as I said, flash update is possible through USB and Thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt has slightly lower RTL (but only very little). From driver/feature perspective the only advantage of Thunderbolt is, to have the pitch function in the driver, which doesn't work anymore in the new madiface usb driver.
Otherwise you only have certain "disadvantages" with thunderbolt, more expensive cables and max cable length is limited to 2m compared to 3m with USB3 which can be more problematic regarding the placement of PC and devices for recording.
But what is the problem that you want to solve anyway ? Thunderbolt and USB3 deliver nearly equal performance, take what works best and as I said, flash update is possible through USB and Thunderbolt.
Hi ramses thanks a lot for the reply!
I would like both connections because sometimes the Thunderbolt card is not seen by the PC and I have to reboot. If I need to do something fast I wanted to use it via USB3 without reconnecting everything.
Yes you are right, USB3 on UFX+ I think is great but I would like to leave USB communications off the board, because I use other USB peripherals and the iCon Platform M+ controller with Cubase 12. In any case the UFX+ via USB3 is connected to the Sonnet Allegro USB3-4PM-E, specifically to avoid any kind of problem. But I prefer the TB connection in order to provide a single and preferential lane to the UFX+.
Ramses, from your signature I see that you also have UFX+. Are you using it via USB3 or TB?
My mainboard does not support thunderbolt, so I am using USB3. I started to use the USB3 from my Supermicro Server Mainboard X10SRi-F which has an Intel C612 chipset.
It ran very stable until I connected an USB hub and more USB peripheral like e.g. USB Bluetooth adaper which I need from time to time for my Bluetooth headset and other stuff.
A dedicated USB3 card from Sonnet with the supported FL1100 USB3 chipset solved the issue for me.
USB3 and thunderbolt have nearly the same RTL latency and the UFX+ through USB is exactly on par with a RayDAT (PCIe).
RayDAT (PCIe) is compareable to thunderbolt, because thunderbolt is kind of "external PCIe".
See how well UFX+/USB3 and RayDAT/PCIe perform with this artificial cubase project.
400 tracks, 2 VSTs per track, in total ~800 VSTs.
Playback with lowest ASIO buffersize at single (44.1 kHz, 32 samples) and double speed (96 kHz, 64 samples).
No audio drops during playback.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … cks-de-en/
My PC: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/ind … mponenten/
This worked even with two UFX+ and ADI-2 Pro FS connected in the past.
The USB3 driver for FL1100 is included in Win10, I take the one from Win10 Pro 21H2.
As USB3 cable I use the USB3 premium cables from Lindy with 3x shield, Cromo Line, 3m:
https://www.lindy.de/3m-USB-3-2-Typ-A-a … ;ci=800504
Rmases, thank you very much for the information and congratulations on the work and extraordinary tests conducted on UFX+ It is comforting to know that you can use USB3 without problems and with high performance.
My card Sonnet Allegro USB3-4PM-E has FL1100EX Fresco Logic chipset so i think i shouldn't have any problems. Also I'll buy the Lindy cable you recommended.
Currently Thunderbolt connection on my PC and UFX+ is doing great. I gave up the ASUS ThunderboltEX3 PCIe card and installed a PCIe card Gigabyte instead (despite having an Asus motherboard, I made it work better than the Asus one). I also replaced the Startech adapter with the Apple one and in my case it seems to work better nowadays.
Now my UFX+ is immediately attached to the TB when the PC is booted, before Windows starts while before, with the Asus card, I first had to launch Windows and then turn on the UFX+.
As soon as I have time I will write a post about how I installed Gigabyte on my Asus motherboard, in order to help other users with my same trouble.
I very recently learned that I'd been over-thinking this whole sorta stuff, with it being WAY more convenient & having no perceptible loss of performance / quality / issue etc using multiple CoreAudio devices simultaneously; I'm still not ready to trust Apple's Aggregate Interface builder in MacOS, but I only just learned that I can have Logic recording my Babyface, Audacity recording the USB-Audio stereo input from my Roland JD-XA (not class-compliant), and simultaneously my (class-compliant) MiniDSP USBStreamer 8x8 being recorded by Photobooth as the audio portion to its video recording I do to capture video from built-in webcam during recordings! Phew makes things so much easier. I'm using a 2012 iMac. They're all on USB buses, none of them are on the same USB bus as far as I can tell, and I do all monitoring via TotalMixFX which really means I'm not going through the computer to hear my inputs. This is very helpful to me because the signal of my JDxA I hear is its analog outputs coming back to digital thru an Alesis ADAT - fine for monitoring, not as good as USB-Audio for a digital synthesizer as the sound source.
RME User Forum → FireWire & USB series → Connect UFX+ simultaneously with Thunderbolt and USB3
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