How to get the best out of the Behringer UCA 222

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How to get the best out of the Behringer UCA 222

Postby Brian007 » 05 Dec 2017 08:04

Hi ALL,

I have just bought a Behringer UCA 222 for use with my Korg PA700 keyboard, so why did I buy a device like the Behringer UCA 222 as the Korg like most other keyboards can record your performance with its own built in audio recorder ? well with Korg it only records in MP3 and for some of my projects I need a WAVE recording for better quality .

I bought mine from Amazon £25.00 inc delivery if you go for the longest delivery which in my case was 6 days ? but it was free.

Here are a couple of videos that will show you how to get the very best out of the device using windows and in this case Audacity



How to make sure you recording is in true stereo and of the right format



For all the UCA222 claims it does not need a driver, there is a driver to enhance its performance for windows 7 onwards



Any questions post them here,

Brian007
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Re: How to get the best out of the Behringer UCA 222

Postby Hugh-AR » 06 Dec 2017 22:59

Brian,

Thanks for posting these. Referring to the third video, the Behringer UCA222 really doesn't need a DRIVER, and I certainly wouldn't download one from John Gage's DROPBOX.

As I have said in my explanation of using the UCA202 for Recording:

viewtopic.php?f=200&t=5435#p36260

.. it's important to plug your UCA202 (or UCA222) into the USB Port of the Laptop before running Audacity. This provides the power to turn the device ON.

When your UCA202 (or UCA222) is plugged in and you have launched Audacity, what you may have to do on your Windows 10 Laptop is to do a right-click on the 'Speaker Icon' (bottom right) and choose Audio Devices. You can then see what has been selected for Playback:

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.. and Recording:

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If you double-click on the green icon for Microphone you can disable this device. When I 'clapped my hands' the Microphone level went right up to the top. I wouldn't want any extraneous sounds from the Laptop to get onto my recordings (but don't think they would as Line In has been selected for Audacity, not Microphone).

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The Microphone Input now shows as Disabled. Having done this, what I have noticed is that the option of Microphone no longer appears in the Audacity Line In drop-down box. So obviously it was not necessary to do this as Audacity was wanting me to choose either one or the other.

In other words, check that all the parameters are correctly setup before recording, including those showing in the Audacity screen. Both Line In and Speakers should be showing BEHRINGER. And 2 (Stereo) Recording should be selected. Don't want to get caught by the 2-Channel MONO trap! Oh yes, and make sure the Volume Level for Line In is on the Maximum of 1. Seems to me you have to have a certain amount of computer know-how to manage all of this!

I also found another YouTube video about the UCA202.



Hugh
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Re: How to get the best out of the Behringer UCA 222

Postby Hugh-AR » 07 Dec 2017 09:52

A few things that were mentioned in the videos above that I have picked up on.

1. There doesn't seem to be any difference between between the UCA202 and UCA222 apart from the UCA222 being red. Wonder why they did that? Status symbol?

2. They mentioned about maybe having a pre-amp between the 'source' and the Behringer interface. As I have said, I find that the LINE OUT signal from my AR is fairly low, so I have to Normalize the recording after I have done it. I do that either to -1 (as standard), or to -2 (or even -3) if the waveform is very heavy across the whole piece. I like to get an 'average' overall volume for the pieces I record, and there are waveforms that are fairly 'light' but 'peak' in just one or two places. These would get the -1 treatment; and the ones that look pretty heavy right across would get the -3 treatment.

When recording from a headphone socket I find that if I have the volume of the source up to where I would normally listen with headphones, the waveform comes out about right (but I would still Normalize it to bring it up to optimal level).

3. They did say that you could use any recording software and the Behringer interface would be picked up OK. Of course, I have been stuck on Audacity as this is the one I have. I was interested to see that there was an adapter for USB to i-device (eg. iPad).

4. Have had this from Brian(007):
As regards the drivers, they are genuine AISO drivers that were on Behringer's website and then pulled, as they bought a new interface and are trying to push that.


Hugh
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Re: How to get the best out of the Behringer UCA 222

Postby Hugh-AR » 12 Dec 2017 14:44

Yesterday I did a recording from my AR to Audacity via my Behringer UCA202. I had it all set up as described above and it worked just fine. Then I was informed by a pop-up message that Microsoft had another big Windows 10 'update'. Do it now; remind me tonight; remind me tomorrow; or remind me next week. No option for me to choose when I wanted to do it. So I just thought, may as well do it now as I can just leave it doing it. There were continuous messages telling me it was protecting me; it started and re-started my Laptop several times .. then it was done.

My email was OK; Movie Maker was still there; and Audacity too. So I took the laptop back to the organ to record something else. Set it all up as before (and as I have always done it), but then when I started the recording it said it couldn't find the Source. I checked what it was saying on the Audacity screen and Behringer was clearly showing as the device selected. I also checked the Audio Devices in the Realtek HD Audio Manager, and that was showing Behringer too. Tried it again. No luck. So turned the Laptop OFF; and then started it up again. It still couldn't find the Source for the recording. Tried this several times, spending about an hour all told trying to resolve the issue.

Must be that Windows 'update' that has caused the problem. I thought I would go down to my local computer shop and see if he could sort it for me. But then thought I would try doing a recording from a 'headphone out' socket on my CD player. To my surprise, it worked! So I took the whole lot back to the organ and connected it up again (exactly as before), and guess what? It worked!

So it is all functioning as it should now, and I have no idea what had caused the problem in the first place. Lack of a Driver, maybe? Brian?

Hugh
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