“It is not possible to guarantee reliable and highest performance of USB 3 operation with any computer and cable just because they claim to support USB 3. PORTS AIN’T PORTSįirst, a community service announcement: Read your manual! You’ll find this all-important sentence in the UFX+’s spiral-bound hard copy.
RME THUNDERBOLT 3 MAC OS X
With the help of Park Orchards Recording’s Evan Lorden, we assembled a selection of five Windows 10 and Mac OS X (from 10.9 through to 10.12) systems, and locked ourselves in for several days of testing between RME’s two top interfaces. RME has always retorted, ‘Tosh!’ but here’s my chance to pit my needs and wants in a battle to the death. What’s a gear slut to do? Surely what everyone else says is true a Thunderbolt interface promises far lower latency than ever before. Subsequently, the privilege of celebrating RME’s birthday will cost you an additional $900 over the UFX II with current street prices widening the gap even further. The MADI optocouplers are impossible to implement for a bargain. My obsession was almost entirely driven by gear lust, coupled with a belief that USB 3 and Thunderbolt must be the only future-proof options.Īs it happens, greed costs. I don’t own any MADI converters, don’t presently have a Thunderbolt-enabled machine, and have absolutely no requirement for such a high channel count. The truth is, however, I wasn’t placed to instantly enjoy the benefits of the more elaborate system. I’ve been thinking about updating my existing RME system for a while and I couldn’t work out why anyone would want anything other than the UFX+. When I heard about the UFX II, I was shocked. All features that were refreshed for the UFX+ NEEDS/WANTS While it shares an identical front panel with the UFX+, the UFX II is quite simply a second generation UFX, with updated conversion, preamps, headphone amps and onboard direct-to-USB recording features (DURec). Hot on its heels, the Fireface UFX II followed within six months with a much smaller I/O count of 30 channels. With analogue I/O, AES, MADI, ADAT, USB 3 and Thunderbolt, it seemed like the most future proof interface one could buy. The sheer number of I/O enabled by the addition of MADI necessitated both USB 3 and Thunderbolt protocols on the UFX+. The UFX+ was a 20th anniversary celebratory release which added the features of the MADIface USB to Fireface UFX, taking its I/O count to an impressive 94 channels at 48k (54 at 96k).
Which brings me to the question: apart from the UA Arrow, what small interfaces currently exist with T3? And do any have an ADAT link so I could continue to use the 8 extra inputs on the ADA8000 ? I like the functionality of the UA Apollo but it doesn’t use T3 and I’m loathe to string adaptors together.In the last 18 months, RME launched not one but two ‘flagship’ single rack unit audio interfaces - Fireface UFX+ and Fireface UFX II. I’d like to make the new system portable, which points to a laptop and a smaller interface than the Safire, but that seems to require a move to thunderbolt 3 connectors (because that’s what new apple laptops have).
RME THUNDERBOLT 3 OFFLINE
So short of taking the whole system offline (which isn’t really practical), I think it’s time to start again.
RME THUNDERBOLT 3 UPDATE
There’s a non-Apple “patch” which will let me update the OS but it’ll disable the Wi-fi card. This means no Logic updates either and the Mac (which I also use for other things) gradually falling out of sync/compatibility, eg with my iphone, iPad etc. But, sadly, Apple have now decided that my Mac won’t be supported for OS updates.
RME THUNDERBOLT 3 PRO
For some years, I have been very happily running Logic on an early 2008 Mac Pro using a Saffire 40 interface (on one FireWire port) with an ADAT link to a Behringer ADA8000 and recording to a an external hard drive on another FireWire connection.