USB - Justin Foell

I set out to create a setup similar to MBI Winds’ first season at home in miniature. I knew I needed at last a 4-channel USB-audio interface. I needed at least 3 powered speakers, which can oddly be difficult as many studio monitors are only sold in pairs.

Another quick call to my sales rep at Sweetwater got me to the answer. The JBL 308s are a very popular and highly recommended 8″ powered monitor. They’re sold individually and my rep even let me know when they were going to go on sale.

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All that was left was some cabling to hook it all together. Here’s my current parts list:

Layout

Solid State Logic SSL 2+ USB Audio Interface
JBL 308 MarkII 8″ powered monitors
1Mii B06S Bluetooth 5.2 Receiver
RCA to 1/4″ TS cable
1/4″ stereo TRS to dual 1/4″ mono TS cable
1/4″ balanced TRS to XLR
XLR cables
Cable wrap
Extension cords
Power strip

I wanted to mimic our MBI Winds setup:

I put the two mains in front of my work desk. Then behind me, I put the 3rd auxiliary channel.

I mounted the audio interface to the same wall as the 3rd channel, above my digital piano. I modeled a wall mount for the SSL2+ USB Audio Interface and 3D printed it.

Then wrapped the cables with some white cable wrap so it doesn’t look terrible in the background when I’m on zoom calls for work.

For Work

It works well because I can use the mains for listening to music while working. How I get the signal from my work computer is via bluetooth to a new bluetooth receiver. That receiver has two RCA to 1/4″ TS cables going to analog input channels 1 & 2 on my audio interface.

For Winds

When I’m doing music stuff it’s sort of backwards as I’m facing the 3rd aux channel, but it’s the same experience the members would have on the floor, facing the audience. I plug my macbook into the USB audio interface for a multi-channel digital audio connection.

Setup

The JBL speakers’ 1/4″ input supports both TRS (balanced) signals and TS (unbalanced) signals. Because I’m coming off the “Phones B” output for channels 3 & 4, I use the stereo TRS to mono TS cable and connect to the 1/4″ input on my 3rd speaker. It’s not a balanced connection but it’s only traveling 3 feet, so induced noise & signal loss should be minimal.

For the mains I use regular XLR cables which connect to the SSL audio interface with a short XLR to TRS adapter cable. I got enough extension cord to run them along with the XLR cables so everything plugs in around the same area, and I use a power strip to turn it all on/off in tandem.

Future

For version 1.1 I’ll probably upgrade my power strip to something that has USB-A ports and USB-C power delivery for the macbook.

← Summary Only

I wanted to buy a USB audio interface to use at home when working on the backing track for MBI Winds. Our winds group uses a multi-speaker setup (currently 3 channels) that I wanted to be able to easily replicate at home without pulling out 2x 100-pound speakers and a 32 channel mixer 😅

So many choices!

I started by looking at interfaces on Amazon, starting with the hugely popular Scarlett and the Behringer 4-channel units. I asked around at work because lots of folks like to use USB audio interfaces for podcast mics, or simply to get rid of headphone noise induced by their computer’s main board. After asking my list went from 2 to 6 units.

Then I found myself on Sweetwater looking at their expansive list of USB audio interfaces (over 200 😲).

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Pitfalls of channels 3 & 4

I started combing over the instruction manuals and found an issue. Most of the 4-channel USB audio interfaces simply passed the channels 3-4 along at line level without an option to adjust volume. This included the Scarlett and Behringer models I was looking at.

Homework or help?

I had my work cut out for me, but rather than digging in, I reached out for help. Cristian Good is our sales rep for the drum corps, and he really knows his stuff. This was a personal purchase, but I reached out to him anyway. At around 4pm on a Friday I sent him a message asking about units that could also adjust the volume on channels 3 & 4. I figured he’d get back to me on Monday as the homework seemed daunting. Nope, he got back to me within an hour recommending the Solid State Logic SSL2+

There it is, right on the front – the “Phones B” output can be changed to send channels 3 & 4 and be adjusted with that knob.

Channel 3 & 4 outputs

The SSL2+ has a few options for channels 3 & 4 – there are RCA jacks on the back, but these (like the other brands) pass the signal on at line-level. But press the “3 & 4” button and it will switch the Phones B output to channels 3 & 4. You can see the Phones A & B outputs and their corresponding knobs below:

So I have a couple options on how to hook things up at home. I can use the balanced outputs (to the right of the RCA jacks above) for the main left and right channels (1 & 2). Hook it up to a pair of studio monitors and use the big blue knob for the main level.

Or I can use the unbalanced Phones A jack for main left and right channels (1 & 2) and use the Phones A knob for main level.

Channels 3 & 4 will have to use Phones B which is also unbalanced, but that’s not really a big deal to me. I’m not running long cables and the line-level RCA outputs aren’t balanced either.

Speakers

My next move will be to get some speakers to complete my mini home audio studio. Cristian has already recommended to me this JBL 8″ model, so that’s likely my next purchase 😎

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Before we get into Mixer Hell I want to talk about what is currently consuming my life: MBI Winds. It’s a brand new WGI Winds ensemble put on by Minnesota Brass – sort of like an indoor marching band, but just the horn line. Our first contest is in one month and we still have open positions for flute, clarinet, saxophone, baritone & tuba. Here’s more about our 2023 program and how to join: https://mnbrass.org/2022/11/2023-winds-show-announcement/

For this new ensemble we have audio equipment (computer, mixer, powered speakers) that are used for our backing track – non-winds sounds and percussion. Since this is a new ensemble with a limited budget, I took the approach to beg & borrow as much equipment as possible.

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Mixer 1

I started with a Behringer X-32 console mixer from my old high school care of the Irondale Marching Knights. Put frankly, this mixer is huge. It was going to require a cart, and with only a 5’x9′ trailer I quickly realized that we wouldn’t be able to fit a huge sound cart and the floor tarp and the speakers.

While I like the X-32, it will likely be for sale in the near future…

Mixer 2

I had another cart option, a portable injection-molded SKB rack – free of charge from the Blaine HS Marching Band. This one would definitely be a better fit in the trailer, and MBI Indoor Percussion had an old rack-mount mixer they were trying to sell earlier in the year.

It was a Presonus StudioLive RML32AI and at first glance, it could do everything we needed: rack mount, computer audio interface, network control, and at least 8 channels.

My only complaint to start was I couldn’t install the mixer control app on my 3rd generation iPad with iOS 10. The mixer we used at River Valley Sound was a SoundCraft Ui16 which has a built-in web interface instead of an app. You could control that mixer with literally any device that had a web browser, old or new. On my old iPad it worked like a charm.

We were able to use the Presonus mixer for the month of December at rehearsals. But I had to borrow my wife’s (and sometimes kid’s) iPad which could run the control app.

Problem 1

While using it, we encountered one avoidable, but annoying problem. At one rehearsal it wouldn’t send anything on the main left/right outputs. I could plug a speaker into the mono/center out and it would work. So for one Friday evening we just used one speaker. I went home, searched and came upon this thread: https://forums.presonus.com/viewtopic.php?f=222&t=31779&sid=18e60e7bc8de7f7d56493cd5677e5e3d

TL;DR? There’s a bug where the main out is muted but not indicated anywhere in the app.

This problem happens when you save the scene with the “mute all” button pressed.

I don’t remember saving a scene, but I for sure used the “mute all” button frequently during equipment setup and teardown.

I found a solution for this, doing this:

Mute the Mono Out, then, in the mute groups screen, save this mute scene in any of the spaces. Press the Mute group button that you just saved the mute scene to. It will toggle the Mute for the Mono Out and the Main Out together.

Please Presonus, fix this bug !!!!

This was for-sure my problem because I tried the fix Saturday morning and was back in business.

Problem 2

The second problem was unavoidable in our circumstance. The computer audio interface on the Presonus StudioLive RML32AI uses firewire. That’s fine, I’m familiar with FireWire. It’s a little old school, but should work. Our sound system computer is an “Apple Silicone” (M1) Macintosh. At first I thought all I needed was a USB-C to Thunderbolt-2 adapter and a Thunderbolt-2 to FireWire adapter. $100 in adapters later, I still couldn’t get the mixer to be recognized as an audio interface on the computer. The Presonus FireWire drivers were consistently listed under Disabled Software in the mac’s System Report.

Presonus support confirmed that they have no plans to support FireWire drivers on M1 and newer Macintosh computers. Maybe performance was lacking? Because it’s certainly still possible to connect other firewire devices to Apple Silicon macs:

The only way to use Presonus hardware with a firewire audio interface is with an Intel-based Mac, or a Windows computer 😖

Mixer 3

It was clear we needed another option. There was something about the X-32 that I really liked: cross-platform support. They have mixer control programs for just about everything: Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. The fact that I could use my Ubuntu system to potentially run the mixer makes my heart sing! 😍

So we landed on a Behringer X-32 Rack. All of the features of the console mixer, but in a rack-mount package. Double-bonus that some of our staff have previously used Behringer equipment and are familiar with the mixing software.

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Here are the other miscellaneous settings I’ve done with my new XPS13 Developer Edition. It doesn’t cover all the settings I like, just the ones that seem to be particular to this laptop.

My favorite feature by far is the built-in firmware update functionality:

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The light at the bottom/front of the case isn’t well explained. It turns solid white during charging. It blinks white occasionally and what that means still remains a mystery ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It for sure goes amber when there’s 10% or less battery life remaining.

Settings Reference

Here are other settings in detail that I did in other posts:

HiDPI with Wayland and a non-HiDPI external monitor.
Using the ~~Windows~~ Linux-X/C/V key combinations for Cut/Copy/Paste.
Chaining Dnsmasq and resolveconf for the best DNS setup.
USB-C adapters – go big or go home.

Boot time

The boot time on this laptop is strangely long – consistently 2 mins 20 seconds before I would see the login screen. I changed the grub configuration so I could see what the hold-up was by pressing escape on the splash screen. I also used systemd-analyze blame to confirm what I saw: the network.service was taking too damn long. Turns out it was my fault. Ubuntu 18.04 introduces a service called netplan to handle network adapter configuration. I had added a loopback alias like I normally do the old way. Netplan didn’t like that, so I removed my lo:0 entries from /etc/network/interfaces and added the following netplan configuration file:

sudo vi /etc/netplan/02-loopback-alias.yaml

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    lo:
      addresses: [ 127.0.0.1/8, "::1/128", 10.254.254.254/32 ]

Update: I had to add the “normal” localhost addresses for lo as well. Without them in Ubuntu 20.04 when I would resume after suspend/sleep lo would come back online with only 10.254.254.254. Then DNS wouldn’t work because connections to 127.0.x.x for resolved & dnsmasq would not work.

Then I applied the change with sudo netplan apply. Boot time went from over two minutes to under 20 seconds.

It’s not immediately apparent that the loopback alias is available from looking at ifconfig. Instead use ip address to confirm it’s there:

1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet 10.254.254.254/32 scope global lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

X Applications that Require Root (sudo)

Because I’m running Wayland, apps that you can normally start with sudo (like synaptic) will give this response on the command line:

Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused (synaptic:29383): Gtk-WARNING **: 13:31:07.736: cannot open display: :0

Here’s one solution, but I instead put the file in ~/.config/autostart/xhost.desktop.

Bluetooth Mouse

My Microsoft Mouse 3600 seemed slow at first, so I turned the mousepoll up to maximum velocity. I’m not sure if it’s 100%, but I do think it feels better.

Deep Sleep

I’ve always been envious of MacBook owners being able to close the lid of their laptop and come back to it days later without losing any charge. I made these changes to better the battery savings, but I still manage about 8% charge loss per day that it’s not fully off.

Are there any configuration changes I missed? This thing is still pretty new, so I’m also still getting used to it. Let me know in the comments if you have any other tip/tricks.

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I’ve seen the future of mobile computing and it (unfortunately) is dongles

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Dongles in Theory

I purchased a Lenovo C109 6-in-1 USB-C hub from Amazon, and here’s its normal state of connection. Clockwise from the top it’s complete with HDMI (adapted to DVI), USB, USB-C Power-in from the Dell power adapter, and Ethernet.

The more I thought about my dislike of dongles, I thought about the alternatives. Laptops are getting so small and that they can no longer fit a standard size Ethernet port on them. So do we get docking stations instead? That sounds decidedly worse. I do like the fact that I can plug the USB-C power input on either side of the laptop (although Dell recommends the upper left port). So, dongles it is.

Remember what the laughing guy said about bringing a bag of dongles everywhere you go? Lenovo must have watched the video as well because they included a nice felt bag 😂

A nice thing is about most USB-C multi-function dongles is they have a USB-C port for power delivery, sometimes labeled “PD”. So you plug your power adapter into that, and the multi-function adapter relays power to your laptop. That way there’s only one thing plugged into the laptop – everything else plugs into the dongle.

Dongles in Practice

Here’s where it goes south…. the multiple functions of the adapters don’t always work. I thought it was just my adapter, but after combing through at least 20 different multi-function USB-C adapters on Amazon, I realized all of them suffer from a collection of these issues:

Overheating
Unable to deliver full power from charger
External monitor doesn’t re-initialize when awoken from sleep
Wired Ethernet doesn’t work reliably
Wired Ethernet floods network if dongle has power but it not plugged into computer

My issues are with power delivery, wired ethernet, and the external screen coming back after sleep. 😞

I first noticed the issue when I encountered was this BIOS message after rebooting with the dongle plugged in.

The Lenovo 6-in-1 (and/or the accessories I’ve elected to use) are using enough power to get the BIOS to complain at boot that the power supply is down 10 watts. Thankfully they let you know that this warning can be disabled in the BIOS.

Here’s where you can find the setting in this abomination of a graphical BIOS:

SRSLY – what ever happened to a good old text interface where I could navigate without using the trackpad?!?

Another power issue I had with the Lenovo dongle is it apparently cannot deliver enough power for my particular USB DVD drive. I have a LG Slim Portable DVD Writer and when it’s plugged into the dongle with a disc inserted it keeps spinning up and then acting like it was disconnected. Then it reconnects and spins up again and disconnects ad nauseum. But if I plug it “directly” into the laptop using the included Dell USB to USB-C adapter, it works fine.

After talking with some co-workers, one solution is to get a monster USB-C adapter like the CalDigit T3 Plus:

So I guess a docking station-esque adapter it is… at least this one is universal and should connect to any laptop with USB-C.

Have you had any luck with multi-function USB-C adapters? Let us know in the comments what you like and what you don’t.

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Justin Foell

Technology, Bicycling, Hobbies, Kids, Life.

Tag Archives: USB

Music Studio 1.0

Layout

For Work

For Winds

Setup

Future

USB Audio Interfaces

So many choices!

Pitfalls of channels 3 & 4

Homework or help?

Channel 3 & 4 outputs

Speakers

Mixer Hell

Mixer 1

Mixer 2

Problem 1

Problem 2

Mixer 3

XPS 13 Developer Edition Settings

Settings Reference

Boot time

X Applications that Require Root (sudo)

Bluetooth Mouse

Deep Sleep

XPS Developer Edition – USB-C Dongles

Dongles in Theory

Dongles in Practice