RME Fireface UFX III USB Audio Interface

With 12 analog inputs and outputs, two ADAT ports, AES/EBU, and 64 channels of MADI, the RME Fireface UFX III handles 188 channels over USB 3. It also records up to 80 channels straight to a USB drive.

Front and Rear Panels

The front panel holds four XLR/TRS combo inputs for microphones, instruments, and line signals, two headphone jacks that reach +19 dBu, a MIDI I/O, and a USB port for recording. The preamps offer 75 dB of gain, and AutoSet guards the four front inputs against overloads.

The rear carries eight balanced line inputs and eight balanced line outputs, including a stereo monitor pair on XLR that switches up to +24 dBu. Beside them sit a second MIDI I/O, two ADAT optical ports, and AES/EBU and word clock I/O. Multi-Mode turns the two ADAT ports into separate optical SPDIF inputs and outputs when needed. Every line output is DC-coupled, so it can also send control voltages and gate signals to modular synthesizers.

MADI

An optical MADI port carries 64 channels in and out, and the word clock BNC connectors can switch to coaxial MADI. A split mode runs both at once with 32 channels each, and several MADI devices can be connected in series to grow the system.

DURec and Stand-Alone Recording

DURec records any of the 188 input and output channels, up to 80 at a time, to a USB thumb drive or hard drive of up to 2 TB through the front USB port. It plays them back too, with no computer connected. That makes the UFX III a stand-alone field recorder and a multichannel player for virtual sound checks.

Computer Connection and Mixing

The UFX III runs on RME’s USB 3 driver, or in Class Compliant mode with full USB 3.0 support, so all channels work with no driver on Linux, Mac, and iPadOS. An iPad Pro with USB-C handles up to 94 channels. SteadyClock FS keeps clock jitter low.

TotalMix FX builds latency-free monitor mixes for any output, with EQ, dynamics, reverb, and delay, and its Room EQ adds a 9-band parametric EQ and volume calibration. TotalMix Remote controls the mixer from an iPad or another computer over Ethernet or Wi-Fi. An internal 100 to 240 V AC power supply runs the unit.

Features

• 188 channels over USB 3 at up to 192 kHz
• Four XLR/TRS combo inputs with 75 dB of gain and AutoSet
• Eight line inputs and eight line outputs, with XLR monitor outputs
• Two headphone outputs at +19 dBu
• 64-channel MADI on optical and coaxial connections
• Two ADAT ports, switchable to optical SPDIF, plus AES/EBU
• DURec recording of up to 80 channels to USB drives
• DC-coupled line outputs
• Class Compliant mode with the full USB 3 channel count
• Two MIDI I/O plus MIDI over MADI