RME Fireface UFX Reviews 4.7/5.0 based on 20 customer reviews
Sweetwater Advice
Nick Church
The RME Fireface UFX has 30 inputs and 30 outputs, some seriously powerful on-board DSP signal processing and routing, and a very usable monitoring section. This 1U unit really is all you need to set up your high-end project studio. Four very clean low distortion mic or Hi-Z instrument pres on the front panel, and another eight line level inputs on the rear panel, all feeding RME's legendary A/D convertors, (192kHz capable, 24 bit, of course). Eight line outputs plus two independant stereo headphone outputs, and all at very high quality, together with an array of digital and computer I/O makes this unit the heart of a VERY well appointed studio set-up. Keyboard players are not forgotten, with separate MIDI I/O's on the front and rear panels for true 32x32 capability. The well-known stability of RME's drivers will make installing and running this interface on either MAC or PC a piece of cake!
Beg, borrow, (but please don't steal), and do whatever you can to get one of these Fireface UFX's into your studio. You will not be disappointed! 
Carson McClain
This is possibly the best pro/consumer audio interface ever built in my opinion. Plenty of analog output for analog summing with a DBOX as well as AES input to the DBOX if you see fit. 16 channels of ADAT input and output. Firewire and USB as well as stand-alone USB recording! You get the lowest latency compared to any other interface in its category, you get the best drivers, the best convertors, and the best pres! Welcome to the the Mercedes Benz of audio interfaces.
Customer Reviews
TJfrom USA September 11, 2012 Simply awesome!For those of you who is considering anything else stop and think again. Great sound, converters, effects, lots of IO, very powerful total mix software. This should be a standard for any interface. I almost got UAD Apollo, but after talking with UAD and Sweetwater it was clear to me that it won't be enough for me. With UFX I can mix anything into anything and do it fast. Other interfaces are pretty limited. It's not the same as working with a real mixer board but very close to the feeling of it and the speed you can do things without the size and weight. It is actually more then 30 in and 30 out add to that 30 in from your daw and 30 loopback sends you can have- it would be the equivalent of 120ch mixer! Pair it up with something like a couple of octopre dynamics (focusright or whatever fits your budget) and you will actually have a ton of physical i/o . A few more things the drivers ARE rock solid both USB and FW. Works great with Mnt Lion and Win7 x64 laptop. Also unplugging computer/ turning computer on/off does not create interruptions in the sound output unlike various Presonus interfaces(to includeSL16.4.2) I used to have. If you need something smaller but with the same great capabilities get UCX or Babyface
from August 21, 2012 Amazing!!!This is brilliant, have worked with a lot of different audio interfaces over the years and this is definitely one of the best ones. You can NOT go wrong with Fireface UFX. Keep it RME!
Hedae Emorejfrom Las Vegas, NV August 18, 2012Music Background: Audio Engineer, Musician Amazing interfaceI know coming up with two grand for an audio interface is a bit to swollow, but the RME UFX has some serious bang for the buck. Low latency, 30 ins/outs plus two headphone outs, internal DSP, no computer needed to record and playback, and 4 amazing sounding preamps that compare with some of the best on the market. If you were to get all of these features with even the cheapest interfaces, you would be paying twice as much. I would have considered lowering my rating a half star because the setup is difficult, and updating the OS is a pain using the firewire, but mine is running smoothly, and I'm not the brightest engineer, so 5 stars it is.
from Detroit June 10, 2012 THE card to ownI feel bad for anyone who can afford this card but buys something else. If you've invested in UAD already then your exempt with a purchase of the Apollo. People always forget that RELIABILITY and STABILITY are the #1 thing to look for! And features/specs aside no one comes close to RME. Absolutely ROCK solid on both USB/Firewire, TotalMix is a godsend, and the I/O is incredible. DURec is a life savor, I really don't know what else to say. Sleep on this one and you'll be regretting it!
from chicago March 10, 2012Music Background: artist, engineer, producer,12 tears Rme Ufx BIg Soundedi have been in pro studios with pt hd converters and 30000 dollar sound system. the conversion is clean. m audio and,anything else emu echo apogee ensemble, focusrite 56, steinberg mr16 blah blah. the sound is huge ,clear, clean, and, transparent. dont be fooled by the forums. I almost believed the fan boys on that site. it easily competes with orpheus. its the right step to take on your first try. if,you,can afford it get and dont skimp.
The Dueling Fiddlersfrom USA December 29, 2011Music Background: Pro Musicians, producers, recording engineers. Truly Fantastic!We really expect a LOT from the gear we purchase and we're really difficult to please when it comes to audio quality. Simply put, the RME Fireface UFX has surpassed our expectations in every way. We tour with this piece of gear and can't say enough good things about LIVE and IN STUDIO.
dschwaigfrom CA October 25, 2011Music Background: Home Studio Hobbyist FANTASTIC!!I made a huge jump coming from the Mbox 2 Mini to the UFX and spent years researching the right product to buy to become the center of my studio for a long time... I still have yet to find a bad review about the UFX except for people who own insanely expensive gear. This thing does everything you could ever ask for and it does it very well. I'm still getting to know it since it takes awhile to understand all the features - there are lots - but overall it's very easy to use and sounds fantastic - like you will read elsewhere it has a super clean sound. It will keep me happy for many years to come and I have no doubt that in ten years and more it will still be a top notch product. If you are looking for a high quality interface that offers great pres, AD/DA, monitoring, etc I personally don't believe that you could find something of more value for the price...
Paulfrom Seattle, WA July 21, 2011Music Background: Semi-pro musician and song writer. Ex-rock band member. Amazing headroom and clarityI don't often write reviews, but this piece of equipment is the heart of my home studio and it has made a huge difference for me.I have a few decent condenser mics for recording acoustic guitar, mandolin and vocals and I was using an M-Audio 610. Other than the frequent lock-ups I had with the M-Audio drivers, I thought it sound really good. I purchased the UFX more for the idea of not having lockups anymore, but the first time I heard the purity of the signal and how good my mics sound after getting it, the investment was worth it just to have the ability to create professional sounding recordings. All of the musicians that have heard my recordings before and after the UFX have been blown away like me. I highly recommend the unit.
Kylefrom Nashville, TN June 9, 2011Music Background: Audio Professional It does what it's supposed toI've owned a Fireface 800 for about five years and it took a surprising dump on me right before a big recording date (seems I had an early one that had a power supply issue - which I did get repaired for a reasonable fee) .ANYWAY... I bought this and had it up and running and recording 10 tracks within an hour, using two of the built in pres with the rest using outboard pres. I recorded about 24 hours of material over three days without a hitch. I can say that the pres on the UFX vs the FF800 seemed to be lower noise, which was great. I've since been using it for simple DAW editing - so I haven't been putting it through its paces in a major way, but it seems to agree with my PC, sharing drivers between a variety of audio programs (all open at once) which is a big deal for me. I've owned and tried other interfaces that only like to play with one program at a time, which is a hinderance. This unit is on the pricey side, but when you compare it to anything else, its feature set is somewhat unrivaled. And as an audio professional, if I can use this for five years with no audio/sound card issues (like I did the FF800) then it will definitely be worth it.
Miltonfrom Jersey City, NJ USA February 22, 2011Music Background: Aspiring Recording Engineer, Hobbyist, Musician Fantastic, Versatile and Stable Unit!A lot of people feel the need to write raving reviews for expensive gear that they purchase to justify the amount of money spent to themselves. This is not one of those cases. I can guarantee that if you've done any amount of recording with interfaces that add "pops" or "cracks" to your recordings, drop out in the middle of a good take, have poor latency, or have unstable drivers that crash your machine, or drivers that simply don't work because they are not updated by the manufacturer when the OS is refreshed... then you need to purchase this unit.At the time of this writing, I recently tracked a band that had the following requirements: - They were tracking everything live - We were working in a small space with drums and amps, and the musicians needed to be able to hear themselves well. - I had about 16 inputs running at once Since every track was live, even the smallest pop or drop out would ruin an entire take. This was not a problem. The unit performed flawlessly. The TotalMix software that comes with the unit lets you essentially configure whatever mix you can conceive and route it to anybody's headphones. Two headphone outputs on the front plus 8 channels of output in the back gave me more than enough for everybody to have their own mix, in addition to me monitoring everything. Even with 16 inputs running, I still had another 14 left to track an entire other band if they wanted to jump into the room and tag along. Bottom line.. whatever headaches that were induced during the recording process because of my audio interface have been eliminated by this unit. Well worth the cash.
Alan Gonzalezfrom NY December 6, 2010Music Background: Recording ,Live sound,Hobbyest RME is GREATI was probably one of the first purchasers' of the new RME fireface ufx from sweetwater as soon as I heard of it I put my name on the list. I upgraded from the RME fireface UC , and all I can say is WOW!!! As soon as I hook it up I noticed a big difference. The new total mix software is fantastic and very flexible also . Im one very happy RME fireface ufx owner. My sales engineer Luke Herian always steers me in the right direction when ever I have questions on a purchase .Thanks Sweetwater Alan Gonzalez 
Anthonyfrom Atlanta, GA USA July 9, 2012Music Background: Recording Enginner, Producer, Pro Musician UFX = workhorseI have worked with several different interfaces and converter systems and this one is great. Its overall functionality and expandability is boss. I think the converters in this unit are great, they are on par with the Lynx Aurora at my last commercial studio. That said, they are different in sound; If I had to describe it, the Lynx sounds prettier in the highs and the RME is darker and more bulbous in the mid-lows (not hyped though). Darker is what I was looking for anyways, so a score for me. If you are doing the stupid Google RME vs Lynx vs Apogee vs the competition, take it from someone with experience in higher end converters and interfaces, when you cross the $1,800 mark it doesn't matter much anymore. If you cant make good records of any genre on any of them you're doing something else wrong. You need to ask yourself, what can help me work better at this point? It's being future-proof and knowing you can throw any piece of hardware you invest in later at it and know its going to play nice. RME driver reputation holds true and TotalMix with DSP is definitely work a few hundred dollars alone. All of the UFX claims seem to also hold truth. I am running an 8-core system with lots of RAM and have absolutely no lag or latency issues, no hiccups or glitches and it performs well. A WORKHORSE. Bottom line, if you know you're in the market for one of the best firewire/usb interfaces: PULL THE TRIGGER!!! you won't be disappointed.
Brianfrom Hampton , VA February 8, 2012Music Background: Studio Owner / Hobbyist Good unit - not a simple one to useGreat sounding piece of gear with lots of features. I upgraded to this from an MBox-2pro using Protools 9. There are a lot of changes that must be done to your I/O channels to start using your Fireface UFX. I am not that familiar with big changes since I have only used my MBox2pro in the past. Sweetwater Tech Support helped me get past that problem.The software installed without difficulty, and works great with my MacPro 8core. Solid interface and very stable.
Rich Maysfrom Savannah GA December 6, 2011Music Background: Classical producer & engineer- many years in major orchestras also. Flexibilty + Dependability= UFXRock-solid drivers and a great RME forum (and tech support) combine to make this a great addition and outstanding "bang-for-buck." Having 12 mic channels (8 external) takes care of most location assignments, The DURec (Direct USB recording) is brilliant-- a complete backup of all WAV files makes this fairly idiot-proof. The DIGIcheck utility offers excellent metering-- and absolutely accurate RMS values. Unfortunately it is not fully functional in Mac OS.This is an extremely flexible and capable unit, and as such requires some homework before critical use. Once it is understood, however, it is approached by only a few interfaces for the its sound. If desired it can operate fully stand-alone and thanks to 2 onboard DSP chips DURec will carry on.
Chris DeVitofrom NJ, USA November 7, 2011Music Background: Jazz piano, Pro Tools RME UFXExcellent audio interface! Works very well with Pro Tools 9.0.
from Los Angeles, CA October 25, 2011Music Background: Producer, Engineer Just buy it and thank yourself later!I will not get all technical and ramble on about this product with things you can read about from the description here on sweetwater. My opinion, this interface is the only firewire interface I can say is truly high end in quality, performance, capability and craftsmanship. It has more than worthy conversion and the pres get the job done. I use it for my B room and track sessions while the A room is in use, then send the session to the A room for mixing. I produce many genres of music and design sound/produce music for video games. This interface is the last I will buy until the next gen.
Garrett johnsonfrom Springfield, Oregon November 23, 2010Music Background: Drummer / recording engineer. Great interfaceRME made a winner with the ufx. Converters are awsome in and out. Great features and solid build quality. Preamps are very clean and transparent, giving a very natural, precise sound and image. Basically want you here in the room is what you get. Total mix is very nice and the effects are really good. Everything they explain in the overview is correct and I haven't found anything I don't like about it. I've tried a lot of other gear and interfaces but nothing compared to this, and in one package. I am getting rid of all my other gear it took to do the same thing and making my studio very mobile. If your looking for a clean powerful interface than look no further than this.
Brianfrom Hampton, VA February 21, 2012Music Background: Studio Owner / Hobbyist Not Plug And PlayThe RME Fireface UFX is not a simple audio interface. It is much more than that. It has a very sophisticated and rather complicated software audio mixing/routing feature that must be installed. This must be used to operate the interface.This software will run parallel to Protools or whatever DAW you are using. This will put a load on your processor, I am not sure if it is a heavy load or not. I got this to go with my Mac Pro (8-core) so that has not been an issue, but if you have a smaller core count or low RAM you might experience issues, and should carefully look into that before purchase. I am sure your Sweetwater rep will look into that when you ask him/her if you are considering purchasing one. This is the first time I switched computers with Protools. I was using a Mac Mini with the M-box 2 Pro and Protools 9 before. After loading up all the software on to my new computer it was time to fire up the audio interface and get things talking. The Fireface UFX software icon plants itself on my Apple Dock whenever the device is turned on, very nice! Clicking on the icon opens the mixing window, pretty cool. Now getting Protools and the Fireface to talk is not hard but I was not familiar with new audio interfaces and Protools. With the M-Box, Protools had a preconfigured audio interface template for IO. To use the Fireface you have to reconfigure the IO. Fortunately Sweetwater tech support was able to guide me through this process. If there is a guide or manual somewhere to help a user make the necessary changes to get different devices talking I am unaware of it. The RME Fireface UFX manual is not very helpful (that is why I give this 4 stars), but the interface is rock solid and sounds awesome. I have only had the Fireface a couple of months now. I am still getting familiar with how to use it. I would recommend it to anyone wanting a deep and versatile interface that is willing to dig in and learn how to use this beast. It does not give up its secrets easily! I am still learning the mixing software RME uses. It is not intuitive, at least not for me. I wish RME wrote a better manual. I think everyone agrees that manufacturer manuals are written for people that already know the gear! Where do they Beta test the manuals, at NASA, or MIT? They certainly do not at the Home Project Studio level. Anyway - Great gear! Good Sound! If it was not for Sweetwater Tech support I probably would have returned it because the learning curve is pretty steep. I still am probably only using about 15% percent of this things capability. Good luck to you all with your studios!
Jasonfrom Seattle, WA USA January 25, 2012Music Background: Musician, Producer, Composer, Mixing, Mastering, Sound Design. RME Fireface UFXThe product seems amazing. I had a DIGI 002 and I upgraded to this because PT10 works on any hardware. I did a lot of research. I wanted something that would last for a long time and have a big upgrade in the A/D D/A conversion and I/O features. I haven't used it long enough to give a 5 star review. But when I first plugged into it I could hear a big difference in audio quality from the 002. Everything seemed wider and clearer, more depth and resolution. A very tangible sound through the pres. Just what I'd hoped. Again, I haven't used it for long or A/B'd anything just a first impression.I do wish RME had a better "set up" tutorial available. Even with the manual in hand, I struggled a bit getting all the software set up and communicating with Pro Tools and Ableton, but I got there and its working perfectly. TotalMix FX can be daunting at first. Once it's set up I'm realizing what a powerful mixer it is. I really expect this to be a great expandable interface for my growing studio. Sweetwater has great customer service too, thanks. 
Tfrom Nashville November 4, 2012Music Background: Professional Recording Engineer Solid function, weak sonicsFunctionally this box was rock solid. No complaints.Sonically, it was pretty weak. I use all outboard pres including a 1073, so i spent little time with the onboard pres The converters were very abrasive with a very clear spike in the upper mids and the D/A stereo imaging was collapsed significantly and difficult to listen to next to the D/A on my Dbox. I had changed over from an Ensemble which functionally was okay, but sonically was a much better unit overall. In the end, I sold this and went to a Symphony I/O. You can't beat the I/O, features and function of the RME, but expect home studio quality sound. Overall it's a solid box, but I would have rather paid more for it to sound as good as it performs. inSync Review
Mitch Gallagher
2-24-2012
interfaces have long been known for their feature-heavy design, rock-solid drivers, low latency, and pristine sound quality. With the , RME has brought all of these qualities together into a compact, portable Mac-/PC-compatible interface that can connect via FireWire or either USB 2.0 or 3. And check this out: the Fireface UCX is class-compliant, so you can hook it up to your iPad using the Apple Camera Kit. How cool is that?
The half-rack Fireface UCX has eighteen inputs and outputs (eight analog, eight ADAT optical, and stereo S/PDIF). There are two mic preamps with phantom power, as well as word clock I/O. They even found a way to squeeze in MIDI input and outputs plus a connection for a remote control -- the Babyface-style remote is included, or you can upgrade to the RME Advanced Remote Control, which adds even more features. The Fireface UCX comes with RME's TotalMix FX software for latency-free monitoring. In fact, there are two DSP chips built into the unit -- one for eliminating monitor latency and one for providing DSP-driven effects. TotalMix also includes a complete control room monitor-control section for handling your speakers. In use, the Fireface UCX is a joy, getting out of the way so that you can make music. The array of I/O covers all needs, and TotalMix FX drives the whole thing transparently with a user-friendly interface. With its compact size, the Fireface UCX is the ideal laptop companion for location recording. The mic preamps deliver the goods, and the overall sound quality is clean and clear. And the iPad connectivity (via the optional Camera Kit) is a bonus that shouldn't be overlooked. I was able to get eight analog ins with my iPad 2, at resolution up to 96kHz/24 bits! I predict this will become increasingly important as the iPad comes into its own as a DAW host. RME's reputation for building quality audio interfaces and drivers is well deserved. That reputation is enhanced even further by the Fireface UCX -- another great interface from a company that clearly "gets it" when it comes to understanding what recording musicians want and need. |
|
Sweetwater Sound Inc.
Toll Free (800) 222-4700 Phone & Retail Store Hours: © 2013 Sweetwater Sound Inc. All rights reserved. Please read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Links | Press Releases |
