# RME Babyface PRO announced.



## vrocko (Apr 15, 2015)

They have removed the breakout cable, looks like a nice update.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCZ_bdbPdlA

http://babyface.rme-audio.de/


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## Reegs (Apr 15, 2015)

Machined from a block of aluminum! Sounds like they took a page from Apple's book. 

Beautiful little box.


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## mc_deli (Apr 15, 2015)

Proper headphone amp is a big plus.

Is the "completely new XLR socket" still the same XLR that we know and love?

I am a Babyface user. I would have a second set of outs over the second set of ins any day. 

Instead of in3 and in4 there should be HiZ input and then a stereo jack socket that could be either a second stereo out for a B set of monitors or an FX send/return.

I presume they will recommend using the big headphone jack for additional outs as with the current Babyface and I find that annoying. Maybe the second headphone out means you can keep your phones plugged in to one and then use the other to route external FX (reamping etc.)... so maybe that helps. Keep thinking that they have missed a trick by leaving out monitor B though...

DIM button very good.

Overall, yes, I would buy this. And wish I hadn't bought a BF 2 months ago


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## Øivind (Apr 15, 2015)

Oh, that looks really nice!

I would upgrade in a heartbeat if i could swap with my old one and just pay 
the/a difference of sorts :D Might have to check how much i can get for my old one.

And putting it on a stand like that looks pretty sweet.

@mc_deli: you probably know this, but just in case, the wheel on the regular Babyface,
if you push it down, acts as a dim button. Tho only affects the main output source selected i think.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 15, 2015)

Looks a thing of beauty. In one sense I prefer my olde Babyface though - with just a couple of cables out the back it sits neatly on the desk, it will be less tidy with cables pouring out of every side.


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## vrocko (Apr 16, 2015)

I was hoping for a breakout box with all of the connections. I will be getting this since I was on the phone with my Sweetwater sales guy just about to buy the original till he informed me of the Pro.


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## EwigWanderer (Apr 16, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ 16th April 2015 said:


> Looks a thing of beauty. In one sense I prefer my olde Babyface though - with just a couple of cables out the back it sits neatly on the desk, it will be less tidy with cables pouring out of every side.



Yes me too. I try to keep my desk as clean and tidy as possible. With this different cables coming out from each side it looks like and octopus and a dust collector :lol: 

But it is a RME so all is forgiven


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Apr 16, 2015)

Guy Rowland @ Wed Apr 15 said:


> Looks a thing of beauty. In one sense I prefer my olde Babyface though - with just a couple of cables out the back it sits neatly on the desk, it will be less tidy with cables pouring out of every side.



+1 

I've been wanting to get a Babyface since its fairly inexpensive compared to other RME interfaces once I get a new computer it probably won't have PCI for my 9652 but I need both spdif and adat since my pre's are adat and my monitors are connected to the RME adi-2 which I think are better converters than on the Babyface.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 16, 2015)

Uh-oh, serious gear lust. I may have to sell my HDSPe-AIO.


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## José Herring (Apr 16, 2015)

Disappointing though that it's still only USB2.0. Can't figure out why audio interfaces aren't offering up USB3 yet.


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## Guy Rowland (Apr 16, 2015)

josejherring @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> Disappointing though that it's still only USB2.0. Can't figure out why audio interfaces aren't offering up USB3 yet.



Some do, such as RME's MadiFsce. I can only assume USB3 offers no appreciable performance increase on simpler units.


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## wst3 (Apr 16, 2015)

Guy is quite correct - USB data rates are sufficient for quite a few audio channels (math left as an exercise for the student<G>)

However, USB3 does offer potentially better throughput.

In a rush will add more later...


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 16, 2015)

It's all about the driver.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 16, 2015)

Jay, would you say RME has the best drivers in the business?




Re: USB 2, think about how many voices you can stream off a FireWire 400 or USB 2 hard drive. 175 stereo voices maybe?

Now think about an audio interface.

I forget how many channels this has, but let's say it's 24 total (ADAT + analog). 12 stereo voices?

This is why I'm always so cynical about new protocols The Man trots out to try and sell you new toys when your old ones are perfectly good. USB 2 is just fine.


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## NYC Composer (Apr 17, 2015)

I take it no one has a price on these sweet babies yet?


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## vrocko (Apr 17, 2015)

NYC Composer @ Thu Apr 16 said:


> I take it no one has a price on these sweet babies yet?



In one of the videos from Musikmesse the RME rep mentions the price is going to be 749 Euros and shipping in June.


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## NYC Composer (Apr 17, 2015)

vrocko @ Fri Apr 17 said:


> NYC Composer @ Thu Apr 16 said:
> 
> 
> > I take it no one has a price on these sweet babies yet?
> ...



Interesting. Those two extra inputs probably make this my next interface.
I don't have a mixer, so I use MOTU's software mixer as a front end for Cubase. Can anyone comment on TotalMix?


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## dcoscina (Apr 17, 2015)

This looks cool but I'm still interested in MOTU's AVB line as well.


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## brojd (Apr 18, 2015)

Interesting, the weak headphone output made me sell my old babyface.
Wanna get my hands on one of those and see how loud they can get :D


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## José Herring (Apr 20, 2015)

Got this response from RME Support.... the lines marked by ">" are my inquiry:

Hello,

> Noticed that your new Babyface Pro is still only USB 2.0. I was wondering why you don't adopt the USB3 standard as it would perform better.

Contrary to what some competitors' marketing would like to have you
believe, an audio interface like the BF Pro will in no way "perform
better" with USB 3 or, for that matter, Thunderbolt.

> Also are there plans for a USB 3.0 interface in the near future?
>
>

We introduced the world's first USB 3 audio interface two years ago, the
Madiface XT (http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/madiface_xt.php). This
device uses USB 3 because of the high channel count of over 190... Other
devices simply do not need the bandwidth, e.g. our smaller Madiface USB,
which will give you 70 channels over USB 2. "Speed" is not a criterion here.


Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 20, 2015)

That's what I'm saying!

We've been completely conditioned to think new = better, and it's just crazy. USB 2, sure, but USB 3 doesn't matter for this application.

And by the way, many if not most computers have separate USB busses, so it's not even cumulative.


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## chimuelo (Apr 20, 2015)

Total Mix is a decent way to route audio.

I opted for Scope DSP Sound Cards 12 years ago mostly because of the ZMan's interview, the GSIF Drivers, and I hate buying a soundcard that doesn't allow routing of external hardware, or not even include some decent dynamics plug ins.

Total Mix 2 is suppose to address those shortcomings, but I can't verify this as I only had an RME PCI 32 bit Card to route into Scope XITE-1 via ADAT.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Apr 20, 2015)

The guy from Creamware (a German company) gave me a back room demo of the system at one of the trade shows when it was new, probably around 1996.

He said it was the final solution.

I had an extremely hard time keeping a straight face.


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## chimuelo (Apr 21, 2015)

Day-amn... :lol: 

That's as a bad as a couple making out in the front row during the movie "Schindlers List."

You probably were seeing their first product the Triple DAT.
FWIW I still have 3 x Scope Pro Type II Cards and a Triple DAT that have worked flawlessly after all of these years.
Next week it will be 6 years with the XITE-1 and never a single crash through endless 6 nighters, week after week.

No other soundcards were so well suited for mission critical live work.
The XITE-1 and my new Spacestation vrs.3 sound so incredible, I could never go
back to stereo cabinets, ROMPLERs or another soundcard again

Latest pre production job had ample acoustical treatments, and the rig just floored the FOH sitting 65 feet away.
CPS by Aspen Pittman is some amazing new tech.
Doubtful cats here know much about it, but these little Mid/Side Stereo single cabinet amps are the talk of the town in Nashville.




forum image hosting

Meanwhile Back AT The Ranch...........

RME is just dope for any recording work, drivers make a lot of difference.


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## vrocko (Sep 9, 2015)

I received the BF-PRO today, the build quality is what you would expect from RME, the casing looks and feels very solid, the wheel is very smooth and responsive along with the LED meters, all the jacks on the whole unit are extremely sturdy. The unit comes in a hardshell case, they include a right angle USB chord, a midi Breakout cable and a user manual thats thick as a small book. Both the headphone outs had plenty of power to drive my Audeze LCD-X(which are easy to drive) and my Beyerdynamic DT880's. I did a direct comparison of drivers to the UR22 which I was temporarily using, I will detail it below. Even though sound quality can be somewhat subjective... I can say that the BF-PRO is cleaner than the UR22, I use a Drawmer monitor controller and set the outputs of both at unity and listened at 85db with properly calibrated monitors, the clarity in the bass was so apparent compared to the UR22, and plugging my Audezes to the headphone jacks of the Drawmer it was even more apparent.

(Performance comparison)
Project running at 48k/24bit/256 Buffer
Master PC 4790k/32Gb RAM/W8.1/VE-Pro
Slave PC 5820k/64Gb RAM/W8.1/VE Pro

UR22
Input Latency=8.833
Output Latency=10.833

BF-PRO
Input Latency=5.813
Output Latency=6.167

I tried them both with ASIO guard off and the CPU hit was almost identical between the two, when I turned ASIO guard on, the BF-PRO performed considerably better than the UR22. The Project I tested with is in a mix stage meaning I have a lot of plugins and can not run a buffer size less than 1024 on the UR22, with the BF-PRO I was able to reduce to 256 with ASIO guard at medium and it played fine, I could not achieve that with the UR22, even with ASIO guard on the CPU just craps out. So far I am very pleased with the unit, I know some people have issues with the jacks on the sides of the unit and I kind of feel the same. I am only using the USB cable as of now but even with the right angle USB cable, I wish it was in the back or even the bottom somehow, the XLR's in the back do not bother me at all since they are hiding under one of my screens.

(UPDATE) 
When I was initially testing the UR22 I forgot to bypass six instances of a Klanghelm compressor(HQ mode on), this really really eats up the CPU and they were not activated while i was testing the BF-Pro. Once it was bypassed the UR22 performed much better though the BF-Pro still outperforms it.


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## Przemek K. (Sep 10, 2015)

Thanks for the test Vrocko. What version of Cubase did you use, 7.5 or 8 pro? I ask because C 8 pro has a worse performance than 7.5 when asioguard(2) is off.


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## vrocko (Sep 11, 2015)

Przemek K. said:


> Thanks for the test Vrocko. What version of Cubase did you use, 7.5 or 8 pro? I ask because C 8 pro has a worse performance than 7.5 when asioguard(2) is off.


I am on Cubase 8.0.10. I think that the 8.0.20 update addressed an issue with RME drivers, I am going to update when I am done with my current project, maybe I will get better performance.


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## kitekrazy (Sep 11, 2015)

BTW it is also a testament on how decent the UR22 works for a budget interface.


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## vrocko (Sep 11, 2015)

kitekrazy said:


> BTW it is also a testament on how decent the UR22 works for a budget interface.


Absolutely! That is why I updated the results once I realized it wasn't an accurate test. I think the UR22 is a great interface.


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## vicontrolu (Sep 12, 2015)

Yep ur22 is still good!


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 12, 2015)

I doubt that with large templates the UR22 will be as low latency as the Babyface Pro. Whether that alone is enough to justify switching is a personal choice.


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## kitekrazy (Sep 12, 2015)

Of course not. We are comparing a $149 interface to a $700+ unit.


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 12, 2015)

kitekrazy said:


> Of course not. We are comparing a $149 interface to a $700+ unit.



Well it is all about the driver, right? So in theory a $149 interface _could_ have as low a latency as a $700+ unit, but the reality is that it doesn't seem to happen.

My guess is however that the babyface also has better AD/DA, mic pres, etc. so then it is a matter of how much the ol' bank account can stand.


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## muk (Sep 12, 2015)

There seem to be some few exceptions according to this extensive according to this database:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...erface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html

The Esi [email protected] Xte beats the Babyface in terms of latency, for instance. Of course the featuresets are a whole different matter...


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 12, 2015)

muk said:


> There seem to be some few exceptions according to this extensive according to this database:
> 
> https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mus...erface-low-latency-performance-data-base.html
> 
> The Esi [email protected] Xte beats the Babyface in terms of latency, for instance. Of course the featuresets are a whole different matter...




Which page are you seeing that on? I see some ESi ones, but not that one.

Oh., and that is PCI-e like my RME HDSPe-AIO. PCI-e should usually be lower latency than USB, even with good drivers I would assume.


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## muk (Sep 12, 2015)

Actually I've seen it here:

http://dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm

But I think it is the same test, and you could find this chart buried somewhere in the twenty-something pages of the linked thread.
True about Pcie. Still, if latency is the main concern that's an important consideration, and the Esi looks to be a better choice than the Babyface in that case.


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 12, 2015)

muk said:


> Actually I've seen it here:
> 
> http://dawbench.com/audio-int-lowlatency3.htm
> 
> ...


Well in that case my RME HDSP-e AIO rules the roost.


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