UMC1820 : Great interface with very unique and clever features!

My main purpose is to record several sound sources in a sophisticating quality in my home studio (2 keyboards (stereo), guitar, microphone, theremin).

I previously used a 2in/2out interface and due to the number of instruments a small mixer was necessary. The downside is more signal processing, thus affecting recording quality. Obviously a 4x4 interface wasn?t enough, so I was looking for a real capable solution (which is 8 INs).

I use this with two studio monitors. In addition I want to play music without the computer. Before this I had to unplug the interface and switch to the monitors manually every time.

My new solution is the MIX/MONITORING knob of the UMC1820. For me this is THE KEY FEATURE! It is just a knob and I didn?t really notice/understand it?s usefullness before I tried it the first time. I can switch between standalone monitor control (with a clever mode "stereo" - simple, but does the trick) or recording/playback. No mixer, one unit for all! Even more: I can monitor the real latency of the recording software. In the middle position one can hear the direct monitor and the sound with latency superpositioned and feel the latency.

I use this unit under linux (jack, ardour) and it works out of the box. With the KXStudio Kernel I get a roundtrip latency of 7,3 ms (this is independently measured folks, not a fancydandy Windows display number!), which is quite good for me.

Mic preamps were not my main focus (as I don?t own proper mics). By the way: Before Behringer acquired MIDAS: ... ohhh high quality preamps, excellent repsonse!!! After: ... sounds fairly OK, ... but obviously focusrite is superior! Really? Come on guys...

Digital signal I/O features are also not used (no suitable gear).

Other nice to have features:

- 2 MIDI ports with activity LED

- 2 loud! headphone jacks

- potential for a 7.1 surround mix setup: I will definetly run some experiments with such a setup later on!

- potential for live (software) mixing with a small band

and the bottom line: it?s sub 200 EUR!

To be honest: I would have paid more for it, if had to!

The 2,5 times more expensive Scarlett 18i20 has (in my opinion) inferior features (MIX/MONITORING knob).