Record 4 tracks simultaneously using Cubase+Behringer UCA202+PC soundcard

[irajames]

This is a tutorial on how to record 4 tracks simultaneously using Cubase, Asio4All v2, Behringer UCA202, and your PC's internal sound card.

What you will need:
Your Behringer UCA202
Your PC with an internal sound card
ASIO4ALL
Cubase (i'm using cubase 5)

1.) Open Cubase. Go to Devices > Device Setup


2.) In Device Setup, select ASIO4ALL as your ASIO driver. Then in the ASIO4ALL window, turn on the Behringer UCA202 (USB AUDIO DEVICE in the picture) and your PC's Internal Soundcard (Realtek High Definition Audio in the picture).


3.) After that, close the Device Setup and ASIO4ALL windows. Then go to Devices > VST Connections


4.) In the VST Connections window, go to the Inputs tab. There should be 1 stereo bus in there (or something else). Remove it.. Then replace it by adding 4 mono buses.


5.) Then set the device ports to the inputs of your UCA202 and sound card (see picture). It says Input 1 and Input 2 on the devices because they have stereo inputs: LEFT and RIGHT, but they're set to MONO so yeah...


6.) Close the VST Connections tab. Then go and add 4 tracks.


7.) Then set each track to any mono inputs you want to use (e.g. Track 1 - Mono1, Track 2 - Mono 2)

[acidtest]

i did something like this around a year ago. i used a maudio 2496 and the onboard sound during my attempt. same concept, asio4all and several buses. it works but its not synchronized. the 2496 inputs are ok with each other but not with the realtek. i forgot which one has latency or even 'reverse' latency. (if there's such a thing) if i remember it correctly, the (wave forms) 2496 registers a bit early on the count and the realtek si delayed by ratio of 3 to 5. (this is from the downbeat itself) thats a hell of a discrepancy if you're recording drums. theres also a slight delay before the waveforms show up.

let me elaborate, it the 2496 registers at 0.01 secs ahead of the downbeat, the realtek shows up 0.03 to 0.05 late from the dowbeat. (im not sure of the exact terms so i just created my own.) i hope you dont get the same results i got.

O.T.
this is info more of a by-product of my attemp to make my audiophile 2496 work back then. i had trouble with inconsistent signal and noise plus unexplained peaks. i tried it on cubase sx3 , cubase studio 4 and nuendo 3. i was getting desperate back then and the fix --- is a simple driver downgrade. 

[irajames]

i did something like this around a year ago. i used a maudio 2496 and the onboard sound during my attempt. same concept, asio4all and several buses. it works but its not synchronized. the 2496 inputs are ok with each other but not with the realtek. i forgot which one has latency or even 'reverse' latency. (if there's such a thing) if i remember it correctly, the (wave forms) 2496 registers a bit early on the count and the realtek si delayed by ratio of 3 to 5. (this is from the downbeat itself) thats a hell of a discrepancy if you're recording drums. theres also a slight delay before the waveforms show up.

let me elaborate, it the 2496 registers at 0.01 secs ahead of the downbeat, the realtek shows up 0.03 to 0.05 late from the dowbeat. (im not sure of the exact terms so i just created my own.) i hope you dont get the same results i got.

O.T.
this is info more of a by-product of my attemp to make my audiophile 2496 work back then. i had trouble with inconsistent signal and noise plus unexplained peaks. i tried it on cubase sx3 , cubase studio 4 and nuendo 3. i was getting desperate back then and the fix --- is a simple driver downgrade. 

Thanks for the info! In my case, i don't experience any latency lags. Maybe it has something to UCA202 running on USB. I think the UCA202  doesn't "stress out" the pc like the 2496 does. Or maybe it has something to do with my PC running on Quad core. 

[acidtest]

im running a quad myself. im planning to pair it up with a fastrack pro in the future. (for additional inputs) i hope i dont encounter something like this when the time comes. 
one more thing, the difference in sound capture is marginally different. as in!

O.T.
by any chance do you know of a dual input preamp that can do digital output in 24/96? just cheap ones and locally available so i can use the digital input of the 2496.... 

[irajames]

one more thing, the difference in sound capture is marginally different. as in!

lol true. but i don't really mind because i use the realtek when recording the snare and kick drum then use drumagog later. but yesterday i recorded 2 acoustic guitars at the same time using the realtek and it sounds pretty decent for me.  http://www.myspace.com/brainfartstudio1  

O.T.
by any chance do you know of a dual input preamp that can do digital output in 24/96? just cheap ones and locally available so i can use the digital input of the 2496....  

i don't eh. sorry.

[Peter North]

I've done this before, but instead of using the realtek.. i've used 4 UCA200 simultaneously giving me 8 independent mono tracks in my DAW. Ok naman ang resulta. Luckily my laptop had 5 usb inputs. sakto lang sa paggagamitan ko.

[irajames]

I've done this before, but instead of using the realtek.. i've used 4 UCA200 simultaneously giving me 8 independent mono tracks in my DAW. Ok naman ang resulta. Luckily my laptop had 5 usb inputs. sakto lang sa paggagamitan ko.

awesome! i was planning to use 4 UCAs din pero di ako sure kung gagana. thanks for sharing. 

[bellhaus]

pwede!

[BAMF]

Set the buffers to a latency that exceeds the latency caused by using asio4all on the realtek. This in theory should synchronize all inputs.

[irajames]

Set the buffers to a latency that exceeds the latency caused by using asio4all on the realtek. This in theory should synchronize all inputs.

yup. it works perfectly. walang latency whatsoever. sound quality lang naiiba. hahaha.

[nolit]

yup. it works perfectly. walang latency whatsoever. sound quality lang naiiba. hahaha.

That is because its only 16bit.

[alvincflorentino]

Can anyone offer a step-by-step of the above using 2 UCA202s with Sonar 7 or 8? In theory it should also work but I don't know the ins and outs (literally!). Thanks in advance...

[KitC]

Can anyone offer a step-by-step of the above using 2 UCA202s with Sonar 7 or 8? In theory it should also work but I don't know the ins and outs (literally!). Thanks in advance...

Use WDM instead of asio if Sonar can only detect one of the UCA's. If behringer applied their UCA asio driver package properly, it should be able to 'unify' multiple UCA's into a single driver. Asio has a tendency to 'see' a single interface only (for stricter control of latency and timing), so if the UCA's don't appear as a unified whole, it's better to use the WDM drivers.

As for Jobet's suggestion on the buffer settings, the tradeoff is in overall latency, however, but there is a way to circumvent this especially if you pair that setup with a mixer that has the 'ALT 3/4' button. This is alternate method to 'direct hardware monitoring'.

[alien_inside]

Ive been doing this since COOL EDIT days!!! i had 4 " ordinary sound cards " installed in my PC... so i had 8 individual inputs ( 8 mono )... i used the built-in audio of the mobo for monitoring...

[KitC]

I used to have an AWE32 paired with an SBLive. For one thing, the difference in audio quality between the 2 was more than noticeable. Noise was louder on the AWE, and I couldn't get rid of the DC offset that was plaguing their inputs. Yes, I had multiple inputs, but part of my editing process was getting rid of the DC offset as well as curing noise problems, which when digital eq and noise reductionusually compounded the problem. When I went to a better soundcard in terms of the Terratex DMX 6fire, the sound quality difference was staggering!