UTRACK 24’s handling of simultaneous I/O

I’m one of the members but I do have a couple of U-tracks. I’m being very careful what I say here, because the last thing I’d want to do is influence you in the wrong way, and have it be a problem for you, so this is just something to consider, but it might work.

It sounds pretty complex what your doing, but if I’m not mistaken a big part of this is you being able to play back 9 channels at the same time, which would be doable on the U-track. Of course you could mix the 9 channels on the Utrack and run them out stereo, but you could also, with the right snake, run them individually out of the corresponding DB25 output on the back. I’m not sure where or how your running them to, but the signals could be sent out. Now, since your wanting to run microphones and a stereo player and whatever else along with it, the big question seems to be: Can you run these units as a “pass thru” into the Utrack and play them simultaneously with the 9 playback channels. I’m not sure, if you can or not. I’d look at the manual and check it out, or your probably gong to have to wait till Cymatic replies to you. However, I’m thinking of another possibility. It’s my understanding that you can only run U-track as an interface or straight recorder or player, but not both at the same time. If that’s the case, what you might have to do is have a multi-channel mixer and run the 9 outputs from the U-track playback into the mixer as well as running all your mikes, stereo recorder, etc. into the mixer and then output those signals wherever you need to. That way you could control each signal or track and send them however you wanted to. I hope this helps, and good luck, because you said your on a time frame. Marc Trainor.

Ok, again, I’m doing my best to not give you any wrong information on any of this. I’m only going on what I know or what I think I know on how mixers work, etc. As far as I know, I don’t think you can route or mix channels to different output channels within the U-track. In my understanding, you either send each channel out through the 3 D-sub outs with the appropriate snakes with the appropriate ends on the snakes for whatever input your using, as in a mixer or whatever, or you can mix everything in the U-track to a stereo out. It sounds to me like your really needing or wanting to mix multiple outs from the U-track as well as other microphones, cd players, or whatever. Now, I know you can send individual channels from the U-track into your DAW and mix things there, but if your wanting to also plug in other mikes to the U-track inputs and send the playback as well as run the mikes through at the same time, I honestly don’t know. I don’t think you can, but I’d definitely get a solid answer from Cymatic on that. If you could do that, you wouldn’t need a mixer, except then you need to send everything from your DAW live out to those 8 speakers, if I’m not mistaken. Whewwww.. this is getting tricky, because I just don’t know if this would all work like I’m talking about, but I’m thinking it probably wouldn’t. Now, depending on what’s on those 9 or more channels your talking about, especially if it’s 9 different tracks with a mixture of things, the U-track would be great for that. You could look at some of the other recorders out there like the Zoom 8 track, but you’d probably only have 8 channels on that unless you bought 2 zoom R24’s and hooked them together, but then that would cost more than the U-track, so, so far the U-track looks pretty good to me for what your trying to do. If you need to run outputs to each active speaker, I think you’ll need 8 auxiliary outs or sub-mix outs, or possibly a combination of the two. You can pick up used analogue mixers at a pretty good price now on Ebay. I would think about going that route, so remember of course, you’ll need a mixer with enough outputs for all your speakers, and enough inputs to run your U-track outputs, plus your mikes, and any other stuff into. I hope that helps, but I would definitely get a second or 3rd opinion on all of this, so you can make an informed decision about it. Marc.

Hi Brane,

You are correct about the fact that in USB interface mode all the 24 ins and outs are available at the same time. As you mentioned, the computer doing the looping would work with uTrack24.

The other limitations which will help you decide:
1. At any given time, the uTrack24 can either be used as a USB interface, or as a player or as a recorder.
2. Direct pass through from inputs to outputs is not possible.
3. There is only one mixer in the uTrack24.
a. When playing back, the mixer gives you a stereo mix of the various tracks within a song.
b. When recording, the mixer gives you a stereo mix of the inputs.

Hope this clarifies some of the doubts.