I just purchased a Steinberg UR44C audio inferface but there’s two issues I can’t seem to figure out.
I’ve attached screenshots of these in the thread.
The first one is that I can’t seem to select 24(or 16-bit) recording in Cubase 10.5.
I can only select 32 or 64-bit float.
The second one is that the option for changing the bit/samplerate in Windows is grayed out.
I can change the Hz rate but not the bit-rate, which is stuck to 24-bit. I cannot seem to find a way
to switch it to 32-bit when I use the interface for general audio playback (i.e. not through a DAW).
What can I do to solve these issues?
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first > Please learn more about Cubase(Manual) and its settings. You are in the wrong menu for setting the bitrate, that is the AudioEngine of Cubase, not your Audiointerface. The interface setting is done in the URC driver.
second is a Windows issue which I believe handles no more than 24bit.
When I used the Realtek audio chip on the motherboard I could set it to 32 bit. Strange.
Call me a bit of a newbie here, but is the Yamaha control panel and the URC driver two diferent things to tweak?
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When you work in cubase, then there you make your settings in the project setup. So The bitrate is set in the software you use, not on the urc itself. The control panel are the settings for the driver.
How things are in windows is something else it does not use the Asiodriver but a wdm driver. I am not using windows audio that much, therefore no exprience with it.
On the website you can read that the urc has 32 bit converters, So that is the hardware, you cannot make that adjustment in the controlpanel, only the samplerate.
Windows (since vista) up-samples EVERYTHING to separate 32 bit streams to mix (when using windows casually, and not for audio work specifically), then will send the mixed stream to the soundcard in the highest bit depth the card can handle, inc. 32bit. Realtek works fine at 32 bit. UR44C is marketed as a 32 bit soundcard, yet does not let you select 32 bit when using it for anything other than audio production. Is it that it is only a 32bit device when using asio, and cannot run at more than 24 bit for anything else? It doesn’t say this anywhere in the literature!
On a side note. In Cubase, processing precision pretty much needs to be processing in 32bit and above, or you will get horrific clipping on the master when mixing multiple tracks and you’ll loose a ton of resolution by turning faders down. This is why there is no option for 24bit processing precision (the same as any modern DAW, and this is irreverent to what soundcard you have as it’s referring to the internal processing done inside the computer before it goes anywhere near your soundcard).
You can set your project to a working bit depth of 24 bit audio and under in the project setup menu (press shift+s when a project is loaded or on a blank project - it’s the same place you set your project’s sample rate). I think this is what you are looking for maybe? This will make it so any audio you record will be 24bit or what ever bit depth you select and this is your working project bit rate (different to processing precision bit rate), however the processing (mixing, plug ins etc.) will ALWAYS run in 32bit or 64bit precision only (depending on which you select, and if your OS can handle 64bit word lengths).
