UR44 - outboard effects routing

That works and I’ve tried that, but that only brings another problem… those tracks are apparently going through the internal fx and reverb, and I can’t find a way to turn that off. All I get is a wet only reverb signal.

If that’s possible, then it’s solved. But as far as I can tell, and I’ve clicked every button and symbol in the “hardware” tab in the mixer, you can’t. You can only change the reverb time and overall reverb level. That’s it. No wet/dry controls whatsoever.

I wonder, does anyone from Steinberg read these threads? Would be nice to hear their thoughts on why I can’t choose to use those four outputs the way I want? And can you PLEASE make a fix so we can send clean audio out and back in? That’s probably the most important reason to have several outputs for most people. The hardware works, just let me disable that reverb. If I wanted that, I wouldn’t send things out in the first place.

And why can’t you state clearly that you CAN’T use this for recording outboard FX? That was the sole reason for buying this in the first place, and if you knew how ridiculously bad my economy is, you’d be extremely p i s s e d off too.

Warning to everyone: YOU CAN’T USE THIS FOR EXTERNAL PROCESSING! IT’S IMPOSSIBLE! You can’t do proper routing on this.

Oh well, thanks for your help anyway. I’m going shopping, this is pretty useless to me.

Edit: No, you won’t bleep my words. I said what I said.

Ok HalfPastEternity thanks for asking this too, and posting your conclusion. I asked a similar question in this thread: UR44-Can I address the four outputs separately? - Steinberg Hardware - Steinberg Forums and got a whopping amount of, brace yourself, zero responses. I’m also wondering regarding the effects routing as you can see in my post. I thought this was the easiest question for any UR44 owner to check and answer but it seems to be very difficult to give us an answer on this. It’s a pity since the UR44 seems really cool otherwise. Guess I’ll need to give up my plans on buying the UR44 and buy a Focusrite interface instead. I think it’s quite lousy to not be able to get this simple question answered on the official forum.

If I assign the track output to output 3-4 in Logic Pro X, I get a nice line level out of output 3-4 [Edit from me, Clas; I think he actually here mean the ports that on the back of the hardware UR44 are labeled 1-2] from the Steinberg UR44 which is sweet for isolating lets say a drummer track.

The UR44 is a 4 in and 4 out interface. He already is using out 1/2 for his monitoring and he has routed 3/4 successfully as a separate out. So that’s both stereo pairs routed independently…you could also route 3&4 as 2 mono signals rather than stereo.
That’s independent routing…there is no way you can route 6 channels independently on a 4 channel interface. The Additional outs are there because 1/2 and the main Stereo out both have Mix1 always going through them (Not sure what use the extra set are to the majority of people tbh)

I doubt that the guy has the numbering wrong …probably logic is interpreting 1/2 as Line outs 1/2, 3/4 as 3/4 and 5/6 as the main stereo out.

To be technical it is a 6 in 6 out interface, that’s physical ins and outs.

In reality though, it’s really a 4 out, since you can’t choose what to route to the different outs. The last two are only for reverb. (Why in the sweet name of sanity was that choice made??)

The last two are only for reverb. (Why in the sweet name of sanity was that choice made??)

This just isn’t true…you are stating something as fact presumably based either on your own inability to operate this thing or on a faulty unit…the guy posting about logic has done exactly what you claimed before is not possible.

EDIT: Sorry to be clear…what he has done is route to another out (as you originally wanted to do). He may not have used what you refer to as “the last two” but only you can know that…and regardless, none of the outs are only for reverb…the main outs and outs 1, 2 are a clone of each other and the others are configurable as a separate pair or mono outs.

The unit is called UR44 pretty obviously because it is a 4 channel i/o interface…the extra 2 are admittedly adding more confusion than usefulness but you can still achieve what you were originally trying to do with the 3rd or 4th output and inputs.

Well, then how about sharing how to turn the reverb off for output 3-4?
Those two outs only give a wet reverb signal, I can’t find anything in the manual or online on how to turn it off. 10 years of Cubase experience doesn’t help me with that either.

Bottom line, I can’t route a SINGLE (1, one) track, to another line output and be able to hear the actual audio going out, through a device and back in. I can record, but not monitor it in real time (unless I use the outputs that only provide a reverb signal, which destroys the original sound). The main out always go through those outs, and that’s the problem.

I want to:
Hear the whole mix as usual
Route a single track through an external device (NOT the whole mix)
Record that to a new track while hearing the result in real time (feedback makes that impossible)


If anyone knows if it’s possible, please do share the actual method for doing so.

You can’t turn off reverb for outputs because there is no reverb on outputs…you have to turn down the sends on the input channels you are returning to.

For god’s sake… THERE IS REVERB! I can prove it by the science of audio, stop saying it isn’t so, because I and other sane people are hearing it, and the waveforms obviously prove it. At least there is on my unit. If I turn down the sends under the hardware tab there is no reverb… or anything else. Because that’s the only thing it’s sending through those outputs.

I’m prepared to post massive amounts of audio files, screenshots and session files to prove it once and for all. I’ll even livestream the bloody thing. Name a time and a place.

Are we done?


Anyone else have thoughts, or does nobody read this forum? Does anyone own this thing?

:unamused: Please try to comprehend what I have actually written. It wasn’t a long post or a complex sentence yet you have misinterpreted it completely. You’re rudely telling me to stop saying something I haven’t said even once.

So to be very clear…I did not say that you do not hear/there is no reverb.
I said the reverb is not on the outputs but it is on the inputs.

I fully realise you can hear reverb and I also told you correctly how to turn it off which you did…you turned down the send and the reverb went.(I know, I know, you said everything went so your problem persists, but it’s important to note the issue is nothing to do with the reverb)

So while you are asking how to turn off the reverb on outputs 3/4 you in fact already have that answer.
The question that you really need answering is why you can’t hear any of the original signal for example being sent from output 3 and coming back in on input 3.

I would suggest that you check that/those input (3/4) with something other than a looped back signal in the DAW…plug in a mp3 player or keyboard or anything with some sort of line level.
Assuming you get full signal with the reverb send turned down then you know that the input is fine and the issue is with the output.
Then to test the 3/4 outputs…if you have some monitors with a level control turn them down plug them to outs 3/4, route a signal from DAW and turn up slowly…do you hear the signal as expected?

■■■■ this interface, not worth the headache.

Anyone wants a cheap one, PM me.

Probably a wise move. The audio interface is a critical piece of gear in the setup and having one you don’t comprehend is only going to keep getting in your way. Best go for a simpler one next time.

I wonder… could anyone confirm if my unit is broken? Steinberg support does not reply… I guess that’s a safe conclusion after waiting 2 weeks. Has anyone successfully managed to get a dry signal in and out?

All my physical ins and outs are working, except in this one critical case, so it is somewhere in the software.

Hi all, I’m struggling with this issue as well. I’m trying to connect outboard gear, but when I route the outputs to the inputs of the UR44, there is a terrible feedback. I understand that this is only to be expected, but I don’t understand how to solve it. Grim advised to “Turn Direct Monitoring off”, but where can I find this option? I can’t find it in dspMixFx. Thanks.

I just found out that I should mute ANLG 5 and 6 (or whichever inputs are used) of Mix 2 in dspMixFx. Confusing, but at least it works. I can now send a signal out and back in without feedback.

I’m using Pro Tools 12.2 with the UR44 on a windows box (8.1)

Been playing around with this problem for hours. The only thing I seem to think that will work as a work-around is to utililze the fadars etc in dspMixFx app while recording.

After hours & hours of different setups, i/o’s, etc… I found that when using any kind of low latency monitoring, or the settings used within “playback engine” area in pro tools, to reduce latency between the ur44 and the software; you lose fader and sound within the software.

Using any output channels, its the same. I currently use the headphones 2 jack as my main monitors, but it doesn’t matter which you use. The latency for track recording is too substantial to record, so in my setup I must use latency tools, which disables output thru the mix & renders faders within software useless, and therefore during isolated recordings (record 1 track, against/while listening to playback of other tracks or click track , YOU MUST use the dspMixFx app to adjust your recording track volume, while using your software (in my case Pro Tools) to adjust what you are recording against/with.

I hope this helps some people

I’ve been using Pro Tools (6.4) since the digi001 came out 13-14 years ago, and I recently upgraded for several advantages ofc. (get rid of my WINXP box #1 reason! j/k sorta)

The UR44 is new to me, but I’m happy thus far (30 hrs pretty much non-stop since I brought it home…very little sleep!!), and can work around this limitation/latency, which I would guess is less prevalent in Cubase.

Problem solved

This forum should be marked as “solved” since it have already a solution.
All you have to do to route external effects is to MUTE or lower the fader level from MIX 2 in the dspMixFx console software. That way you don’t have the feedback. For the reverb thing just lower the reverb button.
You just have to read the manual before complaining.

On other forums like Gearslut, the UR44 is labeled as “incapable of handling external effects” which is false.

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I figured out how to do this on UR22 which only has 2 inputs and 2 outputs so it should be possible for UR44 owners…

This is assuming monitoring what’s going on with headphones, and using pro tools (although the principles will apply to any DAW).

To test this I simply patched a lead from output 1 at the rear of the interface into input 1 at the front of the interface. I sent a recorded vocal WAV out/in.

1/ On the mono audio track with the waveform you want to send out: set no input, no output, and create a send to line output 1(the rear jack)
2/ For the return track: set input to interface input 1, and output to a bus you are not using so you will never hear it (for now)
3/ You can play around with the monitor knob and gain knob levels on the interface to minimise recorded hiss - see what gets you the best results.
(For example if you have the gain knob on the interface set to 0 on the input channel, have the monitor level on the interface set to max, you will have to increase the gain significantly on the clip after recording which will reveal significant levels of hiss. Although this can easily be removed in my vocal example, hiss may affect distortion pedals etc weirdly in the guitar example)
4/Latency level doesn’t matter although obviously the lower the better for alignment.

If you do not follow the instructions to the letter you may get it to work but with the ‘reverb-sounding’ issue which I had too (initially thinking it was a latency thing but re-testing with the above settings and a higher latency and realising it was not).

I would suggest setting up a new/separate session for the purposes of getting this task done to keep it simple and then importing your affected recording back into your main session.

Once you have recorded you can carefully revise your inputs and outputs to your liking to hear what you have recorded. In Pro Tools I can use clip gain to increase the amplitube of the looped back recording, or the trim plugin or whatever.

AT ALL TIMES BE CAREFUL OF FEEDBACK!

There is a bug, still in the current version of DspMixFX or the firmware.
Often DspMixFX will recognise the UR44 is connected and show the faders etc,
and your DAW will function,
but DspMixFX will not properly follow/control what is happening in hardware.

I was having the same problem - DI track set to line out 3, other tracks set to main outs.
Everything in DspMixFX muted and faders down, except DAW and Master in Mix1 and Mix2.
DAW Main mix set to output to UR44 Mix1L+R only.
DI track set to UR44 Mix2L (and thus Lineout 3)
Try to reamp - squeal.

Listening to Lineout 3 with headphones - it was not silent with nothing playing, all inputs dead/muted and DAW closed.
I could hear the hiss of an unmuted channel of some sort.
(Lineout 1/2 are dead silent through headphones when nothing playing).
Something was still making it through to Mix2.
insert confused face :confused: - this doesn’t correspond to what I’ve set up.
Playing around with other tracks in the daw while listening to lineout3 with headphones, I determined I could still hear the main mix (set to Mix1 L+R in my DAW) coming through.

I noticed the the phantom power indicator in DspMixFX was off, despite it being on in hardware (switch on the UR44).

After unplugging the UR44 a few times and closing/reopening DspMixFX it regained control/sync with the hardware and suddenly feedback was gone and reamping worked as expected.
And at this time the Phantom power indicators in DspMixFX also came on, matching the hardware.

The guy above is not confused. On at least some systems some of the time, the UR44/software is not behaving. There is a bug here.
But, once you get it set up and kick it a few times it works and you don’t have to touch DspMixFX.

Over to you steinberg to acknowledge.

For anyone who wants to know exactly what to set in DspMixFX:
All Inputs muted in Mix1 and Mix2 (this is “No direct monitoring”)
DAW and Master UNmuted in Mix1 and Mix2
All Faders at 0dB

Rev-X send on in Mix1 so it is off in Mix2 (doesnt matter too much, just being complete)
Rev-X reverb TIME and RTN all the way down.

Set headphone 2 on in Mix2. You should be able to hear the DI track nicely by itself thru Phones2 output, while the rest of the mix plays through your monitors (Main Outs).
When you stop playback, you should hear silence, not tape hiss. If you hear tape hiss - yank the usb cable and restart DspMixFX repeatedly until it does what its told and then leave it alone.

just mute the input in ‘MIX 2’

For me this worked after giving up months ago and finally working it out tonight. I am so happy I worked it out.

  1. Create external FX bus
    sends: Mix 2 L, Mix 2 R (for stereo pedal)
    returns: Input 3. 4 or 5,6
    from my personal experience inputs 3,4 have a more powerful preamp, but I am not 100% sure about this

  2. Create Fx Channel track of your FX pedal

  3. In audio track mute channel (only works for audio NOT midi), change output to extrernal fx, finally add external fx in sends of track

  4. Experiment with pre/post fader of FX sends in channel, the external FX gain settings in the FX track inserts and also with levels of input channels in UR44. Try out what sounds best.

  5. make sure the FX channel track is not muted or

You are welcome!