I take a cue from an old thread on the same subject which unfortunately, as I see it, wasn’t resolved.
It’s here:
USB extension for Audio Interface
These days, particularly with increasing computing power, fan noise from chassis and SMPS are unimaginable higher than yesteryears. This means that there’s a growing need of having computers sit in another room or at a distance where noise is greatly muffled.
I’m addition, home studios are inherently small, whereas the growing lust to add devices ans to do better recordings, have all resulted into crammed spaces.
The downside to all this is a direct hit on the issue of USB connectivity of at least the following types of devices:
1. Mice and QWERTY keyboards
2. USB based MIDI controllers, faders, control surfaces
3. USB based MIDI keyboards
4. USB based audio interfaces (I think all of them are)
5. USB based MIDI Interfaces
6. USB based hardware synthesiser modules
Most of devices are supplied with barely sufficient lengths of USB cables for connecting to a computer. Most will never reach the distance involved, with the computers either moved to another room or to another location in the same room, far from the recording desk.
Those who can afford it, will clearly go the Ethernet route using Dante and what not. But the bulk majority of us can’t.
So there has to be a workaround.
In my journey to set up my studio some quite some months now, and with the same dilemma as above, I have pondered over the limited options of USB 2.0 connectivity without any signal degradation. One option is an active USB 2.0 and the other is the use of a USB Extender with two powered devices connected by a CAT 5e cable.
I have tried the latter with success while connecting a keyboard and a mouse. I haven’t yet tried any audio device, because nothing is in working condition right now. But I have to plan everything based on this aspect - distance.
I have scoured the Internet and have only read limited usage by some people including Tom Holkenborg. Tom displayed the AV Access which he was using for extending his mouse. He’s never mentioned anything about using UZB Extenders with any of the above types of devices.
Sorry for the long post but I do need serious inputs from those who have had experience in this area and what solutions they deployed.
Comments
Many thanks for the tip. So…
Many thanks for the tip.
So how do you connect your audio interface USB cables?
I did not intend to mention active USB cables as I wasn’t aware about this, instead I was referring to AV Access USB Over Ethernet U2EX50.
If I understood correctly from reading your email:
1. Audio interfaces are going to be problematic because they deal with heavy data and can cause audio dropouts.
So for Audio Interfaces, it’s best to go direct. Unfortunately, most companies don’t provide more than a meter or two length of USB cables. Would a 5 m cable work if I were to swap them, OR, add a 3 m cable to a 2 m stock cable? I’m told the USB 2.0 limit is 5 m
2. MIDI keyboards, controllers, faders and control surfaces should work nicely with active USB.
Hope I’m not missing something.
Best
Sorry I honestly thought I’d…
Sorry I honestly thought I’d replied however my story continued. I moved the max mini back to the keyboard end and left the interface in the rack in the wall and the Mac talked to it happily but then I nasty click appeared and mouse movement was coming out of the interface. It got worse and worse with the extended usb cable. I’ve now moved the interface and the noise floor has dropped considerably. Mostly hiss and a tiny bit of hum. I wont be doing long usb cables again without experimentation the background noise in the speakers had crept up without me noticing!
The snag really is that the…
The snag really is that the active usb cables allow pretty good distances, but what you stick on the far end shares bandwidth. In your list, you can slap a usb 4 or 6 port device on the far end and your mouse, keyboard, controllers and surfaces will happily share reliably. It falls down when you try to shift large amounts of data, like audio, and load samples, that kind of thing. My system has a touch screen, mouse, keyboard, stream deck and a steinberg controller all going down one active cable to the computer behind a door. Reliable and solid. If i stick in a 64gb usb stick with audio or video on it and try to copy the files to the computer, the touch screen disconnects, as does the stream deck. I guess the streamdeck software detects the panel as disconnected, and something similar for the monitor. The steinberg control seems to not have an issue. Occasionally the mouse dies too. I now have two of the same active cables, and use the second for things that need to shift lots of data. I do have a keyboard connected via usb, but it seems ok but its only midi not audio going down it.