RME UFX III + ARC USB - best purchase in 2024

Capitalist world hooray - I am now writing a short article about beeing happy having spent money on something.

Disclaimer:

This is not sponsored, I paid the full price of the product, I am currently not wearing hand-cuffs, I am not in RME custody or were hijacked by them.

History:

Coming from a Babyface FS I am used to solid drivers, no bluescreens, zero latency monitoring and all the good stuff RME provides, I will not go into details.

Problem:

I record mostly vocals, bass (DI and FX), guitars (DI).

The babyface has only 2 micpres and 2 line ins. So recording all the mentioned stuff above requires 4 micrpres.

Problem 2:

I work in clubs, mixing bands live. I want to record them via Dante. I plan to add an RME Mic12d to my setup later. the UFX III can directly record all DANTE streams to a USB Stick.

https://rme-audio.de/fireface-ufx-3....Mac%20computer.

Path to exile:

I looked into adding stuff by buying an ADAT powered preamp like SSL quad mic or similar stuff. Looking at both problems, this would A: not solve the channel count problem. B: not adding Dante C: Adat as of my knowledge adds Jitter, clock issues etc. I could be wrong but I did not want to go into that rabbit hole.

What I did:

- bough a UFX III with 4 preamps and connected

1. DI bass (Avenson DI) into UFX channel1 pre, going with the tru to my amp (darkglass)

2. Post DI out of Amp into UFX III channel 2 pre

3. Mic for voices recordings (vlogs, singers) into channel 3 pre

4. Guitar DI with IR (KMA endgame) into channel 4 pre

5. Guitar pure DI (KMA endgame) into channel 4 line-in

if I need more pres + Dante, I will purchase a 12d in the future. Rocksolid, everything you can do with zero latency monitoring in RME Totalmix and a happy user. I also have a heritage audio britstrip which I use to record vocals, and I will use it on channel 6 from time to time (I just have to replugi the mic then).

2 phones out for myself and the singer

2 main outs for my speakers to mix

I can extend it with additonal 64 channel of DA conversion for analog summing or using a board with an RME DA16 etc..

I also purchased an RME ARC USB which gives me full control of the unit on my desktop.

Happy RME user.

this video explains in detail if you need to add more channels.