Behringer U-Phoria UMC22

PROS: I love that its made from metal, feels very good in your hands and provides a sense of confidence. XLR mount is very stable and the knobs feel secure and rigid. Features give yout everything for small studio work. 10 points for design and overal exterior build. Thats all for the PROS.

CONS: For WIN users: what I hate, as many other people, is that Behringer doesn't provide their own dedicated WIN drivers for UMC22 and you're left with Asio4all which is outrageous! Asio4all is not even working correctly on WIN10 after certain update some time ago. If you want small buffer size, Asio4all is going to crash on you or make bad noises eventualy. Thats a shame, because I know that some time ago UMC22 worked flawlesly with Asio4all and provided very small latency. Anyways there are many recommendations to use older Behringer drivers from other users (BEHRINGER_2902_X64_2.8.40), which you can google. It works for many with less issues Asio4all (with the "rapid" option selected in the Behringer drivers settings), but Behringer themselves don't recommend it anymore for some reason.

I should point out, that I had my unit returned for money back. One of the reason is the driver issues, mentioned above, which leaves your very well built unit practicaly unusable. Another reason lies with white noise levels on MIDAS preamp. It was very audible, when I cranked the mic gain pass 70 percent, but I only got minus 20 dB (or less) on my DAW, so in the end you are left with bad noise on your recording after final mixing. I'm not sure if it was drivers' problem or a hardware fault. This may not occure on every Behringer unit, because I also tested another UMC22 unit of my friend with no issues whatsoever, but I've read a lot that the same problems as mine are very common.

That said, I think it could still be usable for beginners and you could get good results from the interface on the condition that you got a working unit (with no noise issues). Also, I should note that UMC22 is better to be used with MAC and not WIN systems, because of the serious driver issues (lack of them) with WIN10.

From the moment I received my UMC22 three months ago it produced a whistling noise at around 3.15kHz (a super visible spike can even be seen when using any simple EQ spectral analyser) which when amplified by any high gain virtual pedals/amps turned into a horrible screech. I spent a lot of time and effort troubleshooting the problem, to ensure it wasn't caused by external interference, including and not limited to the following:

- Trying a different computer
- Trying on a laptop connected to mains power and on battery power
- Using a laptop away from my house (outside and in my car)
- Using different plugs
- Guitar plugged either input
- No instrument plugged in at all
- Phantom power both on and off
- No other peripherals connected
- Connecting the UMC22 to each USB port and through a high quality powered USB hub
- Etc...

When I ran out of things to try I sent the unit back for repair, making sure it was carefully packed. Thomann's repair centre eventually found no fault, sent it back in a poorly packed box which meant it arrived with cosmetic damage, and after all that it turns out the noise is still there.

If they discovered no fault then I figure that this issue is inherent to the UMC22. Aside from this the product is physically well made, has all the features a simple USB audio interface would need, and was super simple to set up on Mac. It's just a shame that this problem renders it completely useless for me, ruining any high gain guitar tone with its constant screeching noise.

Now I have no choice but to buy another audio interface, and just accept I wasted money on this one.

I just bought this thing last week. I needed something cheap and simple to double as both an audio interface and as a sound card.
Recording wise, it does exactly what it says on the tin. Nothing more and nothing less. That works fine for me since I have no need for more high end equipment to record my bass guitar. And although driver support is absolutely worthless, I did manage to set it up, using the suggested older Behringer drivers. But using it as a sound card, is more than horrible. When I listen to stuff on Youtube and then switch to whatever mp3 player I use on my computer, the sound is slowed down to rather annoying levels. I have to troubleshoot/reinstall the device and/or drivers every time I make that switch, which is incredibly frustrating. Then I decided to completely remove all Behringer drivers and for some reason, my computer still recognised it as the primary sound device, which I found rather strange. Needless to say I will be returning this device and opt for another interface. One that DOES have it's own drivers. I have never had this kind of problem with any of the interfaces (same price range, same quality range) I used to own.