• Registered: 2023-01-15
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Topic: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

Hello, Everyone. I'm about to purchase my first RME interface.

The two that I'm comparing is the UCX II and the UFX II.
And I have questions regarding on-board DSPs, along with latency when monitoring.

I'm guessing that the UCX II doesn't have an on-board DSP(s) to allow the engineer to apply resident reverb or delay effects to cue mixes. In this way, giving a latency-free wet mix to the performer's headphones, when tracking.

Anyway, that's what I gathered from the information I've seen. And I've heard that the UFX II does have this functionality.

If the UCX II doesn't have this facility, it seems to me that you'd have to be very judicious in adding effect plug-ins within the DAW (Studio One on Windows 10, in my case), before creating cue mixes to be routed back to the UCX II. And I'm concerned that USB 2.0 may not have the bandwidth to allow this wet mix to make such a round trip--even though, I know the RME drivers are the best.

Can anyone tell me what I'm not understanding? (I was thinking that I could use Total Mix to route the cue mixes, taylored for each performer, to the line outs, and then wire those to a multi-channel headphone amp.)

I'd appreciate any information or direction on this. Thank you!

  • waedi
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

https://i.ibb.co/JdzvRfS/FX1.jpg

https://i.ibb.co/bF6hc5M/FX2.jpg

Both Interfaces are fully equiped with the Totalmix FX DSP Effects !

M1-Sequoia, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue

3 Reply by MC

  • MC
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

The UCX II does have a dedicated DSP, exactly like the UFX II.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2016-06-14
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

tonosity wrote:

I'm guessing that the UCX II doesn't have an on-board DSP(s) to allow the engineer to apply resident reverb or delay effects to cue mixes. In this way, giving a latency-free wet mix to the performer's headphones, when tracking.

Anyway, that's what I gathered from the information I've seen. And I've heard that the UFX II does have this functionality.

All informations you need you can easily find on the RME website. In addition to this, there are all manuals free available for download.

tonosity wrote:

?.. And I'm concerned that USB 2.0 may not have the bandwidth to allow this wet mix to make such a round trip--even though, I know the RME drivers are the best.

Highly recommended
https://youtu.be/dSIf4QGYs-c

UCX - FF 400 - Babyface pro - Digiface USB - ADI-2 (original)
Mac mini M1 - Macbook pro - iPad Air2

5 Reply by ramses (edited by ramses 2023-01-15 11:34:14)

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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

Hi tonosity.

In this blog article you can find an overview which shows, that USB delivers the same excellent performance compared to PCIe, USB3 and Thunderbolt-based solutions: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Entry/68-RME-UFX/
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/attachment/2343-ufx-ufx-raydat-latencies-v2-jpg/

More important is to choose the proper product according to the type and number of channels and features.
In your case, it appears to be also important to have a FX chip on board.
So have a look at UCX II, UFX II or maybe even wait for the successor of the UFX+.

You can use my Excel to compare different RME products with each other.
This saves you the time-consuming work to browse through several manuals.
Included are USB/FW/TB based interfaces, no PCI/PCIe cards.

See https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … B-MADIfac/
Direct link to Excel: https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/attachme … 9-19-xlsx/

The UCX II is already very flexible and has a small form factor. Even features like Autoset and DURec and has the same preamps of the UFX II regarding a wide gain range up to 75 dB.
You can expand it with a high-quality converter like ADI-2 DAC/PRO or even ADI-2/4 Pro with many useful features.
Via ADAT, you can even add an 8-port preamp or ad/da converter additionally.

But I would suggest not to buy too small.

Just in case, you might want to record in double speed (88.2/96 kHz) and want to connect external devices (preamps, ad/da converter) via ADAT. Then the UCX II is missing a 2nd ADAT port, otherwise would be limited to 4 channels @double speed.

It might be more beneficial to look at the UFX II with even 4 Mic/Instr inputs, which has besides AES 2xADAT I/O.
It also has more analog I/O ports to connect/integrate analog gear if needed. In my case, e.g. 2 Lexicon PCM effect units and still having enough analog I/O for other needed things. To buy "too small" / to the point is often not beneficial.

To have more I/O ports can also be beneficial for loopback operation.

BR Ramses - UFX III, 12Mic, XTC, ADI-2 Pro FS R BE, RayDAT, X10SRi-F, E5-1680v4, Win10Pro22H2, Cub14

6 Reply by tonosity (edited by tonosity 2023-01-15 21:51:53)

  • Registered: 2023-01-15
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

Thanks, Everyone! For your information and advice. So, I'm buying an RME UCX II, or perhaps the UFX II (to avoid the going too small problem). After the bandwidth and latency issue being put to rest, my only remaining question is about accessing cue mixes created in Presonus Studio One, and delivering them to the lineouts of the RME interface, and output to a multi-channel headphone amp. Even though, the UCX has a DSP and onboard effects, 1. I've been told that the quality of them isn't competitive with those I use with the DAW. 2. The number of effect types are limited to the basics. So, if the performer needs to monitor his guitar playing with a unusual, time-base effect available in the DAW, for example. Which is something I've run into. I need to get DAW cue mixes to his cans that includes that DAW-based effect.

I really don't mind #1, since the on-board effects may be expedient to use, if a vocalist just wants some reverb/ambience in their particular cue mix. #2 is something I'm not overly confident about, not knowing TotalMix, and how possible or practical it is to access such cue mixes from the DAW.

I'd love to hear any experience with this. And thanks again!

7 Reply by waedi (edited by waedi 2023-01-15 21:59:04)

  • waedi
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

tonosity wrote:

Thanks, Everyone! For your information and advice. So, I'm buying an RME UCX II, or perhaps the UFX II (to avoid the going too small problem). After the bandwidth and latency issue being put to rest, my only remaining question is about accessing cue mixes created in Presonus Studio One, and delivering them to the lineouts of the RME interface, and output to a multi-channel headphone amp. Even though, the UCX has a DSP and onboard effects, 1. I've been told that the quality of them isn't competitive with those I use with the DAW. 2. The number of effect types are limited to the basics. So, if the performer needs to monitor his guitar playing with a unusual, time-base effect available in the DAW, for example. Which is something I've run into. I need to get DAW cue mixes to his cans that includes that DAW-based effect.

I really don't mind #1, since the on-board effects may be expedient to use, if a vocalist just wants some reverb/ambience in their particular cue mix. #2 is something I'm not overly confident about, not knowing TotalMix, and how possible or practical it is to access such cue mixes from the DAW.

I'd love to hear any experience with this. And thanks again!

You have to watch RME Totalmix Youtube Videos !
Your DAW signals end up in Totalmix from where you have to route them to the output.

M1-Sequoia, Madiface Pro, Digiface USB, Babyface silver and blue
  • Registered: 2023-01-15
  • Posts: 3

Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

Yes, I will watch the Totalmix tutorial videos produced by RME. I have heard, however, that they are not sufficiently effective at presenting the concepts of the mixer, and lean towards being unnecessarily technical and difficult to grasp. (Just what I've heard...) But I will give them a go.

Thank you for your confirmation that Totalmix will be able to access things like cue mixes in Studio One!

9 Reply by ebmmbongo (edited by ebmmbongo 2023-01-16 00:11:29)

  • From: Sweden
  • Registered: 2013-12-25
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Re: UCX II vs. UFX II DSPs and cue mixes

tonosity wrote:

Yes, I will watch the Totalmix tutorial videos produced by RME. I have heard, however, that they are not sufficiently effective at presenting the concepts of the mixer, and lean towards being unnecessarily technical and difficult to grasp. (Just what I've heard...) But I will give them a go.

Thank you for your confirmation that Totalmix will be able to access things like cue mixes in Studio One!

Videos are great, EVERYTHING is also in the manual, and if you can just grasp the concept that row 1 is hardware in, row 2 is software playback and row 3 is hardware out you should be fine.
In S1, just add as many cue mixes as you need (up to 4, meh) and assign the proper sofftware playback channels to each mix. In the image you see one of my setups, where I have 4 cue mixes going from the ADAT (adat 1/2 is called AS1/2 in totalmix...)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TXOvzE … share_link

Edit: You can of course also use the UCX II in DAW mode, which means there are just inputs and outputs in Totalmixfx, works fine if you monitor through your daw, but then you miss a lot of what makes TM so special.

Babyface Pro FS, MSI GS66, Studio One