Behringer Studio 4a

[Joseph]

My current fix is to lower the volume in the OS, and also in every app I listen to audio in, e.g. Spotify or YouTube. The problem with this is that when an application plays a notification sound, all of the sudden I hear piercingly loud sound... argh!

Edit: From this review link I understood that the loudness is the result of the way a USB DAC works, and there isn't much I can do about it. But if I'd like to connect them to my computer using another way, without USB, what do I need?

This is a general problem, not limited to the Behringer Studio 50 USB monitors or the Macbook Pro. This problem can be explained by the fact that studio equipment is aimed at two different types of users and use cases, and these monitors seem to fall between two chairs.

In a low-budget home studio, you will usually find all-in-one monitors with a digital input (USB or S/PDIF), built-in digital-to-analog converter, built-in amplification, and the necessary controls for volume and often also balance and tone. You simply connect these to a computer and you have a complete monitoring solution.

In a professional or high-budget amateur setup, you will usually find separate specialized devices: a high-end digital-to-analog converter, a "monitor controller" with volume controls and selectors for different speakers, and active monitors or an amplifier and passive monitors.

An example of the type of active monitor used in such a setup is the Yamaha HS8, which has no controls on the front panel, and a level knob on the back which is used to correct level differences between monitors, but doesn't really offer full-range volume control.

As you will notice, the Behringer Studio 50 USB combines elements of a high-end studio monitor with those of a budget monitor. There are no volume controls on the front panel, but there is a digital USB input. I can only assume that the USB connection was added as an after-thought, to a speaker that was originally supposed to be used with a separate digital-to-analog converter and volume control. As it is, the USB connector isn't really useful because, as you have discovered, there's no good way to control the volume of the USB audio, and lowering the volume of the digital signal before D/A conversion reduces the bit-depth and thus the audio quality.

Recently, manufacturers of audio interfaces have realized that many customers have a mixed setup that doesn't fall neatly into either the budget or the professional use-case, and there are now several affordable interfaces that are clearly designed for people who want something akin to the Mackie Big Knob to control the monitor volume, such as the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2:

The easiest solution for someone who has monitors with no built-in volume control and a limited budget would be to buy a simple external USB audio interface like the Focusrite or the Steinberg UR22. This will also give you better D/A converters than those built into affordable Behringer monitors, and additional recording functionality.

I found a workaround for Windows using Equalizer APO. Of course it's not perfect, same as EqMac2 for Mac, as @Laurence Payne pointed out, but still. You can set the volume configuration per device, so you can set it to lower for example -12db only for the speakers.

I worked out how to fix this for the behringer 50usb - install EqMac2 (it's free) and you can turn down the volume in the eq - then you can just use the keyboard volume keys to turn it all the way up and all the way down.

Or if SoundFlower isn't for you, you can get Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack. Bit more of a faff but it does lower the input volume range. Create a System input block, point it straight to our output USB. Press the record button. You need to do this every time you boot up the Mac I believe.

Yes, another newbie here (retired). Have UMC22 that does work with win10, so the interface is good. But now want to ditch windows, and have installed ubuntu studio to Dell E4310, installs Ok.
In windows I had to download ASIO for the UMC22, but now, Ardour there is ALSA? tried to find out more about ALSA, but everyone is talking about the CLI. I am not at all good with CLI. Did use vanilla ubuntu as a work machine, as it was free and reliable.
Now, if I sudo lsusb, I can see something like;
Bus 002 DEVICE 008: ID 08bb:2902 TEXAS INSTRUMENTS PCB2902 AUDIO CODEC.
So ubuntu knows that the interface is connected.
Now, how do I get Ardour to connect to the interface?
I have many different ways (searching on the net), but I do not know why and what is going on.
Anyone else having similar issues, thanking anyone, in advance, regards, David

You would get Ardour to connect to the device by selecting it in the audio/midi dialog which likely comes up when you first start Ardour and create the session. You can also pull it up by going to Window>Audio/Midi Setup once a session is open.

Thanks for your reply.
I found the Audio/Midi setup.
Changed the input from Intel to USB AUDIOCODEC.
Started. Failed to open audio device.
This audio interface does work with windows, on another PC.
Is there any other method, thanks and regards, david

For ASIO, think ALSA - its not specifically the same but it fulfills the same role. Its the driver for your soundcard, and most class-compliant USB devices are supported out-of-the-box, so unlike Windows you might not even need any specific drivers.

Thank you. Your comments are very relevant to me (maybe others,also) that the move Linux is not as smooth as Windows has trained us to be. Yes I know windows is called bloat ware, but they do have everything inside for the programs and/or hardware to find.
Yes I do like the clean look of Linux, and it does run very well on my old hardware.
Firstly, installing Linux is mostly effortless, nothing to do, really. Now when the discussion get to talking about adding an audio interface, the wheels just fell off my cart.
With windows, I did not have to know too much about ASIO, it is directed at the Behringer support site.
With ALSA, there is a lot more I would need to know about Ardour desktop, as it is very minimal at the start.
I think I will have to take a tour of the online manual, before I can really make any more comments.
I was looking for a quick start, but, looks like I am in for a bit of a read.
I will choose a different distro, maybe the latest unbuntu (not studio), and have a go.
We are in lock down this week, in Melbourne, so I am not going anywhere, so this adventure is also my covid escape, regards, David

Again thank you for your response. I will have a go at unbuntu ( I do find that the clean look is very good, and the usability, just fine, and it does run many of my engineering function quite well, that was some time ago, though). If this is troublesome, I will have a look at Linux Mint, and then Kubuntu.
Yes unbuntu studio tools is part of ubuntu studio, and I think I can understand what goes on, but, do I have to know about ALSA in any detail, and JACK (what is that and how is part of the interface. I do not know anything about it)
Again thanks for the response, regards, David

I think the trick the developers have used in the past is have you open a command line, and paste in these commands, which will download a script from the ardour.org server which lists all the audio devices, and whether another software application is using the device which would prevent Ardour from using the audio interface.

Copy that text, paste into a command line, then copy the output and paste into a reply in the forum here.
You should see at least a couple of entries, since you have the USB device and built in sound.
On my system which has a USB interface and also HDMI audio through the video card I get something like this:
Card 0 (C720M):

I use Ubuntu Studio and I have a UMC22. Audacity works just fine with my interface but I have never tried to connect it to Ardour. Perhaps fire up Audacity and see whether the UMC22 is recognized correctly just to narrow down your problem?

I have just freshly installed Ubuntu Studio 20.10 on my desktop computer. I have connected a Behringer UMC404HD interface to my desktop via USB. When I attempt to record in the default installed version of Audacity, I get a variety of different strange behaviors. In all cases, it cannot record for more than a couple seconds.

1- You need to install jack and studio controls and use studio controls to enable jack and make sure there is a Pulse Jack Bridge. This means that all outputs and inputs will be trapped by the jack server and the only option available on the system will be Jack sink (for the output) and Jack source (for the input).

I always use the jack server when recording audio. I hope this helps you to find the problem. I can tell you that I recorded an album using that interface and had no problem at all using UbuntuStudio.

Yep, selected ASIO driver and VST connections in Cubase.
However, after reading your post I went back in to double check all connections, and the VST connections had reverted back to default (probably through my error no doubt), so I reassigned the input and output to the behringer and bang, Cubase receiving signal. Hooray!

Glad you got that sorted
Note that you can save presets in the vst connections window, so even if it resets again some time, you can simply restore the preset and all settings will be made instantly.

During the summer of 2021 I purchased a Behringer Xenyx 1204USB mixer/USB audio interface, and I have been using it in my Linux home studio ever since. This post will describe my reasons for purchasing this particular model, how easy it is to use in my Linux studio, some of its limitations and drawbacks, and other sundry observations.

The Xenyx 1204USB worked great for the gig, having just enough inputs to run our microphones and acoustic instruments through. The electric guitar and bass were played through their amps rather than through the PA, and for a gig that small this worked just fine.

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