UR824 - 5.1 surround in Windows 10

Hi,

I am wondering if you can set the playback device to 5.1 in Windows 10 (latest update) for UR824.
As of now, in Windows Audio Devices I have one Line Output that offers only 2ch of playback.

I am talking about playing surround materials and applications in Windows, not in a DAW (as Nuendo is working as it should).

I have read on this forum and have found a workaround using JRiver Media Center.
But still, I miss having the option to use 5.1 surround applications (such as VLC, games, VR-media) over Windows 10 as I could over OSX.

Is there a solution to this problem or should I get used to the aforementioned workaround?

Thanks in advance!

I would like to know this as well.

You can try VB-Audio VoiceMeeter. It can use your sound card and make surround materials play in surround in VLC and other softwares.

Did you ever get this figured out? I’m surprised that the UR driver doesn’t offer more channels for the WDM driver in Win…

Roy

Update:

The UR series does not have a WDM driver that supports multi-channel use, which was disappointing to not have. The RME interfaces do.

Perhaps I need to put this in a ‘problem’ somewhere, but why doesn’t Steinberg update their UR824 Windows 10 WDM driver allow you to select something like 5.1 or 7.1? :unamused:

Pro Tools can control all 8 outputs through ASIO so ASIO is not the issue.
Neflix, Spotify, etc. have 5.1 content but you can’t play it through UR824 WDM.

I’m looking at solutions like JRiver and VB Audio VB-Cable to bypass the Steinberg WDM driver to allow this. But I shouldn’t have to. Why can’t this be done?

So I talked to Yamaha/Steinberg support - 6/2020. They confirmed the UR824 WASAPI interface is stereo only. I requested that the person I was talking to put in a request to development to enhance the driver for multi-channel. He said he would send me an email as to whether the request was accepted or rejected. I have not seen anything after a number of days, but perhaps I’ll still get a response (expecting a reject).

Interestingly, in my experience, the UR824 WASAPI does support any Windows Audio stream through WASAPI concurrently with Protools owning the ASIO interface (this is unusual, I think). The stereo WASAPI stream comes into the UR824 dspMixFx on the Mix 1 DAW Channel and shows up on outputs 1/2. This seems to be sum’ed with whatever protools is sending to output 1/2.

I have downloaded JRiver Media Center 26.0.80 (MC) and have confirmed that it will provide a WMD interface that can be directed to the UR824 ASIO interface. If you make that you’re windows default audio interface, you can configure MC and Windows to play 2.0, 5.1 or 7.1 audio (assuming you’ve got speakers hooked up). Have tried Neflix 5.1 video/audio, Spotify 5.1 audio, iTunes 2.0. The MC implementation at the the version indicated only creates the audio connection for WMD audio when there is a stream present - it takes a few seconds and generally that makes it miss any ‘beeps’ that an application might generate. If you have a stream running (e.g. Spotify), any beeps do get through because the running stream keeps the connection open. FWIW - I like JRiver so far a lot better than iTunes or Windows Media Player. It costs $50 (I think) - still on the 30 day evaluation period.

I’m thinking I can use the UR824 WASAPI for general computer work where I want to hear my apps ‘beeps’ and/or listen to 2.0 media. This could include using MC as a media player driving to the UR824 WASAPI. For 5.1 or 7.1 media, I could switch to the MC WDM as the default audio device. This is all done in Windows Control Panel>Sound and MC>Player>Playback Options: Audio Device - just select the interface you want as the default in Windows and the output you want in MC. Minor pain, but not too bad.

I have determined that MC and Protools do both try to reserve the ASIO interface. I have not worked through any resolution of that, but I assume that you can run one or the other and it should work (possibly needs a reboot - but haven’t check that out yet). If you need more details, see:

This may (or may not) help, The ULTIMATE Free plugin for DAW Content Creators & OBS Streamers 🤩 - YouTube

Thanks Iftekharul. That’s interesting, but I don’t think it solves the problem I’m after.

It looks like VB Audio’s ASIO Bridge does what I need.

It provides a WDM with up to 8 input channels (e.g. up to 7.1 to speakers) that it sends to the ASIO driver (Yamaha Steinberg USB ASIO). It also provides up to 2 output channels (e.g. stereo to recording program) from ASIO driver. You can set it to sample rates from 8K to 384K and bit depths from 8 to 24. It does not do rate conversion - you set it to match your audio interface and I believe Windows does conversion of any WASAPI inputs to the configured sample rate and bit depth.

ASIO Bridge is donationware - free if you want - $15 if you choose to donate (I have no relationship with VB audio other than using this product).

In my test, the UR824 and ASIO bridge were set to 96 kHz/24 bit and it worked fine with iTunes (44.1K/16 CD stereo), Spotify streaming (stereo), Youtube streaming (stereo), Sound cloud (streaming), Netflix app (5.1, streaming), and the Windows Speaker Test in Windows Control Program>Sound>“WDM Name”> Configure (set to 5.1 in my case).

For more info, see:

If you try to have ASIO Bridge and Pro Tools both use the ASIO interface at the same time, the first one gets in and the other does not. And if you happen to cause that conflict, you can back out of the conflict on either product without a reboot or without even having to restart either Pro Tools or the ASIO Bridge app. That is a really important thing and makes recovery mostly painless. The simplest rule is use VB Audio’s GUI to set ASIO OFF before starting Protools and then turn ASIO ON after closing Pro Tools.

,