Behringer UCG102 3-stars Reviews

Good enough

It's a lot tinier than I thought it would be. The software it comes with is outdated, so you might want to look up those drivers online before using it. I use it with the free version of Guitar Rig 6. When I play, it produces some clicking noises, regardless of how loud I play. I tried it with two different guitars. But overall, I think it's worth the price and it does what it promises well enough.

Good, not great, but not bad.

Used it with Ubuntu 18.04, for which you don't need drivers. Plug and play with JACK and ToneLib.

It's good enough for occasional playing through an amp simulator. ToneLib in this case worked very nicely.

Sometimes (not very often) the sound would cut out and interface would start buzzing loudly, JACK would freeze.

Usually, it was just noisy. Loud hum with static is heard. However that's because of bad quality cable, single coils, and un-shielded strat. Combined with a cheap interface, it has to be noisy! Software noise gate helped a lot with that.

To try and address the problem, I returned it and will try something better, like UMC202HD. Also, I will order a better cable.

Outdated drivers, needs some tweaking to let it work properly

I was looking for a way to record directly on my computer and after evaluating some of the solutions I decided to try this one. The UCG102 is almost an external cheap sound card. Def. I'm not quite impressed about it, It's ok if you need a cheap way to record, but I'm disappointed with latency and some weird stuff it happens sometimes.

I will write a sort of how-to-do based on my experience (1 Win 8.1 64bit machine and 1 OSX El Capitan machine).

First of all, wait before installing any of the software inside the cd. Download ASIO4ALL drivers (google will do the job). Then, if you already have a software like GuitarRig you can go with that. and skip this part. If not. You can install (there's a Zip file) the AC BOX Combo (the only one provided with a serial number). After installing AC BOX Combo do not install the Service Center software (go to native instruments website and download an updated version of it, install the Service Center. Now launch AC Box Combo, you will be prompted to register it, use it for 30 minutes in demo version or purchase it. Register it, the service center will let you create an username and you can registered the copy of AC Box with the code provided with the CD. If you want also Audacity software, go and install it from the audacity website. Don't touch the drivers files... they are made when win98 was still used... so...

Now you can connect the USB cable to the PC. It will be probably recognized as "USB device" or similar. Depending on the software you have you'll need to select the drivers to use. Select ASIO. I won't describe the full operation but, in ASIO configuration, you should look at the input and the output. The input should be the USB Behringer you've connected previously select it carefully, connect the guitar and slowly raise the volume. BEFORE playing with amp and volume, gain, distorsion virtual knobs and so on, try to obtain a clean and decent volume sound from the guitar. Try also to record it to see if both the recording part is ok. I suggest this because you can really blow your ears off if something is wrong and you raise the volume.

Good comprimise

I bought this to be able to record to computer and to be able to listen directly to the electric guitar with headphones. It came with a code for free software from native instruments (AC box software guitar amp simulator), but I couldn't get the license to work, even after contacting Native Instruments. On the Behringer website there was a special offer to get traktion 4 (music editing software) for free when purchasing the guitar link. This worked perfectly first time and I am very happy with Traktion 4 as my main recording software.

The windows driver from behringer has a lot of annoying lag... a lot, almost a second! So, I downloaded the ASIO driver which is a much better driver with minimal latency.

All in all it's ok for the price and definitely worthwhile if you can still get the free traktion 4 through Behringer.

UCG102

I couldn't get it to work with windows 8 very well. I think for windows 7 it works as it should work. But yea this would be really useful for you if you want to plug your guitar to your computer.

Software is worth it

I would like to add that the Behringer comes along with the Native Instruments Guitar Combo, which is a very nice virtual amp. The review from "Computer Music" is wrong. You can use the amp as a plugin for other applications, as i tried it on Reaper.

Additionally you save 100€ (half the price) if you buy Guitar Rig 5 Pro.