MARIAN UCON CX User manual

UCON CX
User’s Guide

© December 2004, v1.0 MARIAN.
Hardware Design by MARIAN
All rights reserved. No part of this User's Guide may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronically or mechanical, including photocopy, translation, recording, or any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing from MARIAN.
All trademarks are the property of the respective owners.
MARIAN is not liable for any damage to the software, hardware and data and costs resulting from it, which
are caused by improper handling or installation of the hardware.
Technical changes are reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Welcome 5
Features 7
Installation 8
Scope of Supply 8
System-Requirements 8
Connectors 10
Spot on the UCON CX 12
The First Contact 12
The Mixer 13
What is it all about? 13
The channels 14
The master channel 17
Adaptable – changing the view of the UCON Mixer 17
The Outputcontrol 19
What is it all about? 20
Adaptable – changing the view of the Outputcontrol 21
Saving and Loading Setups 22
The Settings 23
Operation Modes 24
Clock settings 25
USB 32
Audio Options 34
MIDI filter 35
ASIO Device Setup 38

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Hands on the UCON 40
Setting up the Latency of the UCON 40
Background 40
Setting up the “USB Audio Latency” 41
Setting up the audio driver latency 42
Sounding Good 43
Background 43
How to do it? 43
The UCON in a Project Studio 44
Situation 44
Hardware routing 44
Software routing 44
Volume settings 45
Finalizing 45
The UCON in a Live Session 46
Situation 46
Hardware routing 46
Setting up the monitors 47
Software routing 47
Setting up the monitor volumes 47
Finalizing 47
The UCON as Hard-Disk-Recording-System 48
Situation 48
What’s there to care about? 48
The UCON in the “Orchestra” of Digital Devices 52
Background 52
What is a clock? 52
The rules in the digital audio world 53
The UCON in Stand Alone Operation 56
What in the world is “stand alone”? 56
Situation 56
Solution 56
Finalizing 56

3
Glossary 58
Technical Facts 63
Service and Support 64
Warranty 64
Care and maintenance 64
Contact 65

4

5
Welcome
Congratulations and thank you very much that you decided for a product of
MARIAN. Your decision was placed on one of the most innovative and
powerful sound systems ever created. We proudly present to you: the
UCON CX.
On minimal space this high quality device combines plenty of functions,
which will give you almost unlimited possibilities of working with digital
and analog audio signals.
The UCON CX is not just simply a recording system with many
professional connections in high resolution audio quality of 24 bit and 96
kHz – once installed it will upgrade your computer to a mighty 32 channel
mixing device.
As a professional music producer but also as a hobby musician you
repeatedly encounter new challenges. It’s all about capturing musical ideas
quickly and easily, but also about letting musicians not wait too long until a
recording can start. The intuitive user interface of the UCON Mixer is to
help you mastering all thinkable recording- and playback situations. You
need latency-free headphone mixes for your musicians? You demand full
control of pan regulation, mute- and solo functions? You want to quickly
switch between different mixer setups? – The UCON Mixer offers all of
that in a so far unreached simplicity and flexibility.
But that’s not all. In order to enable a completely free and creative handling
on assigning audio signals, we have given the Mixer an Output Control to
its side. With this, all audio signals, from an input of the UCON, a playback
signal of a software or the 3 stereo sums, can be routed freely to the
different physical outputs of the UCON. This way you avoid burdensome
cable replugging and save on investing in a patch bay. Because: all
configurations can be made with a simply mouse click and of course be
saved equally fast.
While developing the UCON CX we have especially taken care on a robust
and solid construction of the unit, so you get the full delight of the mobility
of your new recording partner. Thanks to the comfortable USB port, the
UCON quickly finds connection to your computer or notebook and is
prepared perfectly for the hard demands of daily studio work and also for

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spontaneous producing “on the road”. No matter if you want to record one
single microphone or a complete band with up to 16 signals simultaneously
– all channels are available any time - in full resolution. The high-
developed driver structure supporting all commonly used interfaces
guarantees stress-free and reliable operation, also in full-time use.
Take your time to also go through the next pages of this manual. Besides
the helpful installation- and setup explanations, it offers many valuable
hints on how you can use the Mixer and the Output Control effectively and
profitably. If you run in on technical terms while reading, which are
unknown to you, the glossary at the end of this manual will helpfully serve
you for their clearance.
Now, we do wish you lots of success in your work with the UCON CX. We
hope it will bring you just as much fun, as we had during the development.
Your MARIAN Team

7
Features
Your UCON CX comes with a lot of great functions. Here you can find a
small list of properties and capabilities.
94 high-quality microphone connectors with pre-amplification;
usable as Hi-Z instrument inputs (guitar; bass);
9Connection of up to 8 analog line signals (e.g. keyboards, sound
expander and many more)
98 analog line outputs
9Stereo headphone output with separate volume control
9dedicated stereo mix output
9All analog inputs with automatic level adjustment for balanced and
unbalanced signals
9Comfortable level control of the inputs and level regulation of the
outputs remote controlled via the computer
91 stereo digital I/O S/PDIF format for digital devices (e.g. CD-
Player; DAT-Recorder)
98 channel digital I/O ADAT format
91 MIDI in; 2 MIDI out
9Fast MIDI data transmission through MIDI stream optimizing
9Free-configurable MIDI filter
932 channel DSP Mixer; hardware-based; latency-free
9Flexible and extensive mix-, monitor- and routing possibilities
9DAT-marker support
9Wordclock/Superclock input with switchable termination
9Synchronization as clock master (output of internal clock on
S/PDIF or ADAT)
9Synchronization as clock slave (using external clock on
wordclock-, superclock-, S/PDIF- or ADAT input)
9“stand alone”-mode as 8 channel I/O ADAT AD/DA converter
9highly-developed multi-client driver for Windows™ XP: MME,
ASIO 2.0, GSIF, WDM-Audio, DirectSound

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Installation
In the quickstart guide you will find all important installation steps
graphically listed. If you encounter problems while installing, please
consult our support service. In the appendix you can find different ways of
how to contact the support service.
Scope of Supply
After opening the package of the UCON CX, please check if the following
components are to be found completely and undamaged.
91 x UCON CX
91 x UCON CX power plug
91 x USB cord
94 rubber-feet
91 x CD-ROM with driver software
91 x CD-ROM with bundle software
9this manual with quick installation guide
System-Requirements
For successful and orderly operation of the UCON CX, the following basic
requirements have to be met.
9A computer with:
Intel Pentium-, or AMD CPU with at least 1 GHz
The operating system Windows™XP Home or Professional with
service pack 1a or 2 installed
A free USB 2.0 port
9An electrical outlet for the power plug of the UCON CX