Behringer UMC22 Audiophile 2x2, 48 kHz USB Audio Interface with Midas Mic Preamplifier for Recording Microphones and Instruments

Ok I was a little dubious on buying a behringer as there aren’t many great reviews out there on some of their stuff, I myself had a few iffy guitar pedals that I had to return, however after a bit of mucking around with the setup and getting it to run through my acid pro 10 suite I have to say I’m really impressed with it, does exactly what it’s supposed to and if you’ve got a reasonably decent set of headphones (over ear cans, not ear buds) you get a really nice monitoring sound, particularly with my bass guitar 🤟Ok now for the not so great: set up was a bit of a kerfuffle. Unlike most devices that require plugging into pc/laptop via usb, this one doesn’t install any drivers for it, you need to go to behringer website for them and finding the right one might be a bit of a b@ll ache if you’re not used to having to find tge right drivers for stuff. However there is a great video on YouTube, I’m not sure if it’ll allow me to provide a link here but if you simply type in behringer umc22 setup it should come straight up, just do what the man says and you should be away. He takes you through setting it up through his DAW which was different to mine but another quick YouTube video later on setting up through my acid pro I was able to begin recording ideas and whatnot.This AI was well worth the money considering that a lot of them are more expensive, a bonus for me was that I got mine a tenner cheaper due to it having most likely been returned after a user had not been able to set it up. There was nothing wrong with it, just it really can be a bit of a mess around to set up, was probably a bit too much for whoever had it first. How do I know someone else had it first? You can just tell, the usb cable wasn’t packed as you’d imagine a brand spanker, no cable ties, not particularly wound up very well and you could tell the box had been opened. But at a tenner cheaper you can’t grumbleSo yeah I would definitely recommend this, I’m sure there will be better ones out there but you’ll be paying extra for them when this one really does do the job nicely 🙂🤟

I'm not one who writes reviews lightly or on principle. In fact, it's the opposite; my principle is that items should be correctly described and that alone is not justification for a favourable review. I reserve my time and words for items that are patently not what they claimed to be, or that are of outstanding value. This is one of the latter category.It does exactly what it claims to do. In fact, it's better, because it draws enough power from the USB connection to not need additional external powering. If I had a criticism it would be that the description doesn't make that particular design feature clear.It's a simple, clean and uncluttered piece of kit that does everything a DI box should do. It's robust, well-made and is good value. What's not to admire?

REVIEW UPDATED from a 2 star to a 4 star review.--Note to the seller, please let people know upfront that they'll need to take an extra step to enable INST2 on WIN10. It will save the manufacturer unnecessarily bad reviews.---The issue was that INST 2 didn't initially work - I've now resolved this (see below)Apparently many others have had this issue. I couldn't get Instrument line 2 to work on my Zoom call on my brand new Win10 laptop. To see if it was my cable or the input jack, I tested the line by using a Direct Line to speaker output and was able to get sound to my Bose speaker, so the cable or jack wasn't the issue. I downloaded the newest Behringer drivers, but still no sound coming into the computer from L2.*****The Fix to get INST2 to work*****It looks like Microsoft is the problem. This fix worked for me.1) Right click on the loudspeaker icon in the Taskbar and select "Sounds"2) Click on the link "Sound control" (or similar)3) Close the "Sound Settings" window.4) In "Sound Control Panel" (or whatever it's named), select the "Recording" tab5) Ensure that the default device is set to any available device that is NOT the device that you want to change.6) Right click on the device that you want to change and select "Properties"7) Select the "Advanced" tab8) Select the Channels / sample rate that you require (e.g. I selected 2 channels at 16bit)9) Click "OK"With these steps I got L2 working so I could plug in an instrument.Behringer should really have provided an insert to let purchasers know about this issue, but again, once I did the above, it all worked fine.Why only 4 stars?Firstly, the gain had to be cranked nearly all the way in order to get a decent level of mic sound on the Zoom call. Apparently a Youtube review says the same.The Behringer Support section on their website has no support telephone or email listed. Instead, you have to register on their Tribe website (do I really need another online account?) and go through an extremely slow website and a tedious number of dropdowns and input boxes before your support ticket is created. You receive a "do not reply" email and hope that someone contacts you. On a positive note, I received the email from them with a recommended fix the next day, which was good.Overall, at £39, for a non-pro artist, it's a pretty good deal and a decent product with a good build quality, ideal for Zoom. Again, just be aware of the extra step in Windows required to enable the INST2 (i.e. 2nd line).I hope this helps

i have recorded everything from relaxing basslines to ultra heavy metal on a bass through this, i have also recorded guitar lead and rhythm and vocals with no issues plenty of functionality sound quality is brilliant and it has an xlr slot that can also be used for an instrument, not sure why people rated this low about issues with windows as I'm using this on windows perfectly fine its most likely a user error or a pc issue on their end as i have nothing but praise for this device.