Features:

  • N/A
  • Imported
  • Ultra-flexible audio interface connects your instruments, mixer, etc. with your computer for recording and playback
  • Compact music production software included with feature-rich audio/MIDI sequencer that loads almost instantaneously on all computer platforms
  • Massive software bundle includes Audacity audio editor, comprehensive podcasting software and over 150 virtual instruments and effect plug-ins
  • Works with your PC or Mac computer - no setup or drivers required
  • Stereo Headphone output with dedicated Level control lets you monitor both input and output
  • Revolutionary energyXT2.5 Compact music production software included with feature-rich audio/MIDI sequencer
  • Bundle includes Audacity audio editor, comprehensive podcasting software and over 150 virtual instruments and effect plug-ins
  • Works with your PC or Mac computerno setup or drivers required
  • Software is downloaded from manufacturer website.
Best interface

I receive this the next day, which was fast. I should have bought this last year. I been using an old windows XP interface and with my windows 7 and was getting bad feedback. So I went and order this small interface and when I receive it I plug it right away in simple connection and was working right away with no software or any issue connecting to my computer. Best interface I ever bought. Is my second but is worth buying.

Good product for live recording with Windows 7

I record live musical instruments using Audacity on the computer and needed a solution to the problem that Windows 7 has an inherent audio latency defect. When using the Line In audio jacks on a PC with Windows 7 there is about a quarter of a second delay between the time you hit a note on an instrument or sing into a microphone and when you hear the sound come out of your speakers. This makes Windows 7 useless for live recording or karaoke applications. Microsoft's tech support went so far as to suggest that the problem can be solved by using a shorter cable between the mixer and the PC. My rough calculations show that the cable would have to be 46,500 miles long to cause a quarter second delay, but that's getting off the point, which is to review this Behringer USB device and not to criticize, no matter how justly, the arrogance of Microsoft. The UCA 222 is described as an ultra low latency audio interface. Since high latency is the problem I was trying to solve, 30 bucks or so seemed like a reasonable gamble to me. When I received the UCA 222 I first tried to run the driver setup on the provided CD. It didn't work, giving an error message that the setup wasn't functional for Windows 7. I couldn't find any Windows 7 or 64 bit OS version of the setup program on the CD. So I thought, what the heck, I'll just plug it into the PC and see what happens. Voila! Windows said it detected and installed the device with no problem. I thought, hmm, fine, but let's see if it actually works. I hooked up the mixer and my headphones and picked up a guitar for a test. Bingo, no latency problem so far. The notes are coming through as fast as I can play them. The next test was to actually record a new track in Audacity playing along with a pre-recorded track and see if there is any latency. Ugh, the same old quarter of a second delay showed up in the recording. However, Audacity - and most recording software - has a latency control where you can adjust it's latency period. With a little trial and error I found that setting it to -275 resulted in perfect synchronization between recorded and live tracks. THIS SOLUTION DID NOT WORK PRIOR TO GETTING THE UCA222. No latency or buffer adjustment in Audacity was able to eliminate the delay. So.... I'm a happy consumer. This low cost UCA222 gizmo from Behringer did exactly what I hoped it would, and solved a difficult problem which was rendering my expensive new PC more or less useless. Furthermore, no setup was needed. Just plug it in and you're good to go! Speaking of plugs, the USB cable on the UCA222 is about 5 feet long (I haven't actually measured it, just an approximation) so there's plenty of length to route it around from your computer to somewhere else on a typical office-sized desk. The UCA222 is small and light, though, so you might want to use some velcro to keep it in place wherever you locate it. There are, however, a few points to consider before purchasing this product. First of all, when it's plugged into your PC, it routes all of the PC sound through itself, instead of through the Line Out and Headphone jacks of your PC. If you have a 5.1 or 7.1 sound card with analog jacks to a sound system with front, rear, side, and sub-woofer speakers you won't get any sound out of them while the UCA222 is plugged in. (The sound comes back when you unplug it, though.) So if you want to hear sound through speakers you have to hook your sound system up through RCA jacks on the UCA222 and those are only single Left and Right channels. This wasn't a problem for me since I use a different PA system for live monitoring but it could be an issue for someone else. The other thing is that the speakers don't shut off when you plug your headphones into it. Again, this isn't a deal breaker for me since my sound system has a mute button on the remote, so it's not too much effort to just mute the speakers when I want to. The UCA222 comes "massively" bundled with a bunch of audio effects software on a CD, mostly freeware stuff you can download off the net. I looked at it, but there was nothing really of use to me, personally. But I got this thing for the hardware, not the software, anyway. All in all, if you want a very simple low cost solution to the Windows 7 audio latency problem when recording live input from an external mixer, and can live with plain old stereo instead of surround sound output, or with having to unplug the UCA222 when you do want to just listen to your surround sound system, or you don't mind the headphones not automatically muting the speakers, then, like me, you will be very satisfied with the performance, and simplicity of installation, of this product.

Great Device

This little device works right out of the box. No drivers were needed and it was effortless set up! Years ago I used the model 202 when I first started digitizing an extensive LP and reel to reel tape library as built in sound cards at the time were very noisy on both the input and output. I have since moved on to higher resolution recordings, but fondly remember how well the older 202 worked for standard home CD recording and hard disk archiving. The UCA222 is being used for a flea power hobby radio station. The automation computer has Beats Audio, even though it was turned off, with every Windows 8.1 update, it got reset. Also the HP PC's internal sound card is noisy and hisses and has a low level AC buzz that I could not filter. Since I added the UCA222, I now have quiet and decent sound for the transmitter. Again it is high fidelity enough for FM radio, which has a limited dynamic range as compared to CD audio and a limited low end of 50 hertz and a roll off at 15 khz for the stereo pilot at 19 khz. One of the other nice driver features is a limiter / loudness control, virtual surround encoding, and bass extension as part of the driver. Our source music is LAME encoded MP3 files, 320 kilobits, 44.1 resolution, played from an external solid state drive and using iTunes for automation. I use the iTunes auto level function to "politely" smooth out level differences. I can highly recommend this little red box as I have been into audio since I was 4, and that's 60 years ago! Claude Rorabaugh, Washougal, WA.

Great for the beginner, long lasting quality

Never used much audio equipment before but this is definitely a great tool for me at home doing in-home recording. Amateurs will love this for the good price and high quality. Items of note: 1) You will need RCA cables if you don't have any, there are none included. You can have the other end be 1/4" jack or a 3.5mm jack or whatever suits your needs. 2) The USB cable is WAY longer than I thought. The picture doesn't do it justice. Also, it's not rolled up, it's folded up like most cables (at least mine was) I'm using this with my Behringer XENYX502 audio mixer Behringer XENYX502 5-Channel Mixer. Works great. I'm sure once I get more money and am able to invest in better quality product I will but this will suit my needs for a long while I'm sure.

Review for Techies: This Thing is Great, Here's the Scoop

The Behringer UCA222 is an excellent improvement over the usual audio hardware present on most desktop motherboards and laptops. The device is suitable for production use, and multiple devices on the same machine work well. It is identical to the UCA-202 except the UCA202 has a grey case and a green LED. Packaging and manufacture codes for the UCA-222 are more recent; otherwise there is no difference. Playback applications: Each device provides very high quality 16-bit playback. Recording applications: the 16 bit limitation limits its use to applications where input levels will be well controlled and/or pre-processed (like by a compressor and/or limiter) and/or there won't be much manipulation during the editing phase. It may help to upconvert to 24-bits for editing, and down convert the final product after processing and editing. Cons: 16 bit only. For really serious work, you may want to record at 24bits even if you mix down to 16bits for the final product (e.g. CD). Your skill may be a more important factor than this limitation. Pros: Very high quality conversion. Realtime (latency, read 'delay' - free) monitoring via built-in monitor jack with switch and level control. You can listen to what you're recording without there being a delay as is in the case with ALL analog-to-digital converters such as this. This can be a critical feature, and is missing from some of the competing devices. The headphone level provided is limited at maximum volume, but should be adequate in the majority of applications. PC Users: Note that this device, and others like it that are designed to record line levels, won't work well for recording with default Windows drivers. If you want to record with windows using this device, you MUST use the Behringer driver. You'll be glad you went to the trouble. The driver works fine and requires no attention after installation. This is a limitation of the generic Windows driver, not the Behringer device. Linux Users: Works fine by default. I tested with Debian and Ubuntu with Audacity. A note about the Windows driver: it replaces the Windows driver permanently for the USB port the device is connected to when the driver is installed. The driver can be removed later. If you're going to use multiple devices, connect them to a USB hub that connects to the port the driver was originally configured to. Multiple devices connected to the USB hub can share the driver, leaving your other USB ports in virginal condition (default Windows USB Audio driver). This is a characteristic of USB architecture.

Works with iPad 4 (iPad with Retina Display)

I bought this specifically to use with an iPad 4. The first time I plugged it in using the official Lightning Camera Connection Cable, nothing happened. I had seen the UCA222 work in video's directly with iPads so I was worried I had a dud UCA222. I plugged the UCA222 into my mac and it came right on. After doing a quick google I saw that another person had a similar problem and simply rebooting the iPad fixed it. I unplugged the UCA222 from the mac and plugged it into the iPad and it came right now without a reboot. Now that it was working I was able to connect a KP2 that had my iPhone plugged into it... The sound was loud and clear. I used the headphone monitor on the UCA222 and it worked perfect. Spent the rest of the night having a blast recording in Loopy. I was very happy with the setup... easy, no power strips, no tangle of cables... just easy fun. Build quality is what you would expect for $30... the switches and RCA Jacks feel VERY flimsy. Plugging the headphones into the headphone jack feels like you are connecting to a jack that is simply soldered to a PCB with NO other support... so I expect that to be a point of failure at some point. I am pretty easy on my gear, so hopefully I will get good use before it dies. Oh, also it needs NO drivers on mac... it just shows up as a USB interface and worked perfect. I will probably use it with laptops in the future. I have not tried the digital I/O, at all so not sure how that works.

serves it's purpose, very happy with it.

This external sound card is neat. I build a small home recording studio and used this with a mic preamp and split the sound to record to my PC with RCA cabling, while splitting the music to my home theater system with an digital optical cable on this one adapter. This leaves it less annoying than switching between recording device with headphones and playback for regular entertainment needs. It's portable too which is a nice feature. could be essential for a portable studio system.

High Quality At A Low Price

Behringer continues to produce high quality and affordable products. Keep it up! This little device gives you lots of options as a computer interface/sound card. But as a couple of reviewers here have stated, get your hands on either the Behringer drivers for this product, or the asio4all drivers, especially if you’re running on Windows 10. I can’t speak for the asio4all drivers, but the Behringer drivers perform far better than the generic Windows drivers. There’s a YouTube video by a fellow named John Cage called, How To Get The Behringer UCA222 U-Control To Work On Windows 10 that describes the driver issue and gives links in his comments where to get the drivers. There’s a 32 bit and a 64 bit version, so make sure you pick the right one. The driver issue has to do with the fact that the generic driver input is for “Mic” input, so if you try to send music or instruments through it, the resulting sound is very distorted, poor quality. A mic input sounds fine because the input driver is for mics. When you install the Behringer drivers, the input is “Line In” instead of “Mic”. Music, instruments, and mics all sound crystal clear with that driver. I had a situation where I needed to loop music thru the Behringer device, back into the computer in order to record the music. Using the generic Windows drivers, the music was distorted. It almost sounded like you were recording from a speaker through a mic that was several feet away from the speaker. When I switched to the Behringer drivers, the recording was just as sharp and clear and the same volume as the music that was being recorded. Bottom line, you’ll be very happy with this device, once you get it set up right with the proper drivers, in order to unleash its full potential.

More Features Than You'd Think!

I have two sound systems and have purchased two of these units - one for each. On the first system, I run from a computer via USB THROUGH the Berhringer unit to a 31 band equalizer, then to a Reverb amp, then to a system pre-amp (thorough aux1), through the system amp, and then to the studio monitors - this unit handles the sound conversion flawlessly, handles both low and high ranges, and somewhat to my surprise, works in BOTH directions! My second sound system runs from my computer direct to an equalizer, then through a reverb amp, TO the Behringer unit (giving me headphone capability through the Behringer AFTER applying both equalization and special effects), then out to the speakers! Again, the music conversion is high quality (beyond what I can hear) and the unit simply WORKS! This unit is a MUST HAVE for the serious sound reproduction enthusiast using a computer w/USB connection!

Great as a DAC/external sound card.

I bought this with the intention of using it as a DAC/external sound card for my laptop. I expected better sound quality overall, and got exactly what I wanted and then some. I was hoping this just plugs right into a USB port and you can plug headphones right in to the port and that was indeed the case. The I/O is as simple as it looks in the picture. As for the sound quality, don't expect $80 ASUS Xonar quality, as that is specifically a sound card, while this is a DAC. This did preform as good as I hoped it would. It pulled things out of songs I never knew were there...and indirectly revealed how crappy my headphones sounded. With a good pair of cans and a good amp, this should preform very well for the price. I bought this over the UCA202 version for the added software, but apparently it is free for anyone on Behringer's site, good thing it was the same price as the UCA202. Overall, this is worth every penny...this thing works for quite a bit of audio related stuff. I was skeptical at first because it's cheap and it looks to be just another product, but this thing is capable of quite a bit. My only gripe is the plastic is of very cheap quality, but can't expect much for it being so cheap. I haven't used any other feature, so I cannot really say if it does x and y that well, but I can vouch for the sound quality. UPDATE: I didn't realize this at first, but on the back of the unit it claims the device is a UCA202, not that it really matters as the UCA222 and 202 are similar/the same, but thought that was pretty odd. Regardless, I do have an update. I was using this as a DAC/external soundcard and had crackling when using heavy bass...so I decided to try my USB 3.0 port (had it in a 2.0 before) and what happened next simply made my jaw drop. Not only did it fix the problem...but it sounded 10x better. It was good at first, but now it is magical compared to an old ALC269 Realtek on board soundcard. If you have USB 3.0 then use it if you can, it will benefit tremendously. This turned my normally average Numark Electrowaves into a pretty good pair of cans...they sound more open than they were before. The silence was tamed, the bass was bumped up slightly and the vocals now come out so clear it's ridiculous. I am excited to see what these sound like when I get a pair of Fidelio X2s. NOTE: It also does not say that these have a built in amplifier. This only works with the headphone jack, but it's there if you need it. While I'd recommend springing for something better (i.e. A Schiit Magni 2 for desktop, or any FiiO amplifier for portable) it is nice to have when my amplifier runs out of juice. If I could give this 6 stars, I would. This is a great device for the price, don't disregard it because of how cheap it is...I certainly would have if I had not decided to look into it. As a member of Head-Fi, it has my seal of approval for a budget oriented portable DAC.

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