There is an issue with my system connected to the audio interface “Yamaha URX22C”, a newer iteration of the “Steinberg UR22C” I need help with.
Relevant system information:
System:
Kernel: 7.1.8-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.1.1
clocksource: tsc avail: hpet,acpi_pm
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-7.1-x86_64
root=UUID=29e56d0c-871a-4bca-b74d-e2026405d9ee ro nmi_watchdog=0
nowatchdog acpi=force apm=power_off apparmor=1 security=apparmor
udev.log_priority=3
Audio:
Device-1: NVIDIA GA102 High Definition Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16
bus-ID: 07:00.1 chip-ID: 10de:1aef class-ID: 0403
Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio
vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s
lanes: 16 bus-ID: 09:00.4 chip-ID: 1022:1487 class-ID: 0403
Device-3: Yamaha Steinberg UR22C driver: snd-usb-audio type: USB rev: 3.1
speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-1x1 bus-ID: 2-2:2 chip-ID: 0499:172f
class-ID: 0103
API: ALSA v: k7.1.8-1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off tools: aucat,midicat,sndioctl
Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off tools: N/A
Server-3: PipeWire v: 1.6.8 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
USB:
Device-1: 2-2:2 info: Yamaha Steinberg UR22C type: audio
driver: snd-usb-audio interfaces: 4 rev: 3.1 speed: 5 Gb/s (596.0 MiB/s)
lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-1x1 power: 496mA chip-ID: 0499:172f class-ID: 0103
If I use a microphone in one of the inputs I get an extremely low signal, which is barely audible, even if I set the hardware input gain at the device around 95%. At 60% still there aren’t barely any recordings. Only above that sound seems to be recognized.
I tried to compensate with setting a higher volume for the device with wireplumber. wpctl set-volume 63 25.0 Unfortunately the sound is prone to overmodulate then and generally the sound is awful because this amplifies many cracking noises as well. It’s no solution I can work with because the signal gets too distorted like that and introduces clipping.
ALSA test-recordings with arecord -D hw:2,0 -f S32_LE -r 48000 -c 4 test.wav have bad quality with noise, are also very low volume and have dropouts.
Other microphones without using the audio interface work well.
I tested every relevant hardware multiple times and narrowed it down to the interface being the problem (on the software side). It works on another (windows) PC with every other part identical and a clean signal at 50% input gain. The microphone, cables, etc. all work. I tried different kernel versions 6.18 and 7.1 but it made no difference.
Additional problems:
If the microphone wasn’t stuck in at boot but after, the microphone sometimes switches from being recognized to not recognized and vice versa. I check with wpctl status and sometimes the microphone is recognized sometimes not.
Twice something extremely weird happened. I simply dialed up the input gain and my system froze entirely so I had to hard reset. I can’t reproduce this though.
The Profiles for the interface (Direct Steinberg UR22C, Pro Audio and Hifi) cause problems as well. Changing them in the KDE Desktop Panel stops my entire audio from working for a moment, output over HDMI included and sometimes causes the microphone to not work in any way.
What can I try to get a clean audio signal of nice volume from the microphone via the audio interface?