The more flexible products and designs, the easier they can be adapted to new requirements. For RME Audio founder Matthias Carstens this lies at the heart of the company's success: "The Fireface UCX II makes us proud and enthusiastic as it represents a natural evolution of our product range.“
"The Fireface UCX II is a highly integrated pro audio solution in an ultra-compact format for studio and live recordings. It continues RME's long tradition of designing compact advanced interfaces, packing into a half-rack size unit what usually would be spread out over two or three 19 inch panels. Boasting up to 20 recording and 20 playback channels, SteadyClock FS, high-performance microphone inputs, built-in parametric EQ, USB direct recording plus full stand-alone functionality, the brand-new Fireface UCX II truly represents the essence of freedom, flexibility, and passion. At present, no existing audio interface offers more connectivity and functionality in a half-rack package," he adds.
The Fireface UCX II houses two mic/line preamps in XLR combo configuration on the front panel, along with two digitally controlled line/instrument inputs, followed by a headphone jack, various control buttons, a display, and the main volume knob. At the rear users will find a set of ten analog balanced line inputs and outputs, MIDI I/O, ADAT I/O, AES/EBU and SPDIF I/O, USB 2.0 as well as a switchable word clock I/O.
Introduced almost 10 years ago, RME unique digital DURec (Direct USB Recording) functionality, allows any input or output of the Fireface UCX II to be recorded directly to a USB storage device. DURec uses the integrated DSP which provides stand-alone operation without the need for a computer, ideal for stand-alone field recordings, live and rehearsal recordings, or playback of live recordings for virtual soundchecks.
Using also updated SteadyClock FS, the Fireface UCX II features the latest clock and jitter rejection technology from RME. Based on a femtosecond clock, SteadyClock FS reduces the intrinsic jitter when converting from and to analogue over all digital formats to a new all-time low.
The Fireface UCX II comes with the TotalMix FX DSP mixer offering comprehensive routing and monitoring options, as well as the DIGICheck analyzer allowing users to measure and analyze the digital data feed in both directions with maximum precision.
The Fireface UCX II operates in two different modes: driver-based USB2 and Class Compliant. The Class Compliant mode is a standard that is natively supported by operating systems like Windows, Mac OSX and Linux distributions. No proprietary drivers are required, the device will be directly recognized when the CC firmware is loaded. The natively available features will be limited in comparison to those provided by the RME driver for the UCX II.
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