A Reviewer's Guide to the ULN-2

Unpack the ULN-2; make sure all the parts are there. Connect the power supply, and connect your monitors to Monitor Out L/R.
Connect the ULN-2 to your computerGo to your computer and install the MIO Console and driver from the included disc (this will require a restart). Connect the ULN-2’s Firewire cable to your computer, then go to the System Preferences and select it as the system’s sound input and output.
Take a listenTurn the Monitor level on the front panel down, open iTunes and play some music. Bring the Monitor level up to a comfortable level and listen.
The MIO ConsoleOnce you’ve listened for a while, quit iTunes and let’s get ready to do some work. Launch the MIO Console. You’ll be asked to select a template; select “ULN-2 Basic Setup” which will give us a simple starting point. Take a look at the panel on the right- it outlines what the templates do. Next open the application’s preferences. Turn off “Legacy Support” (this is for older boxes), and turn on “Use Open GL for rendering” if your computer supports it. Hit OK, then quit and relaunch MIO Console.
You’re now presented with the Mixer window. We’ll come back to this in a bit; for now go to the “Window” menu and select “MIO Console: ULN-2 Basic Setup”. There are a few important things to look at here. To the right, the “System” column lets you set the clock source, sample rate and whether the wordclock output is 1x or 256x rate. In the “Lock” column you can see if the ULN-2 is receiving a valid clock on the selected source.
Toward the top of the window you will see the text “ULN-2/xxx” where “xxx” is the serial number of the box. By clicking on this you will get a menu of options for removal of offline boxes (you shouldn’t have any at this point).
The I/O Control tab has metering for the analog and digital I/O. If you click on the +DSP tab, you have access to a “Virtual” dsp area. Next is the “Recording” tab. Any channel that is assigned to a “FW” channel via a direct out or bus output is available for recording via MIO Console’s record engine. Since the template you loaded has these assignments made, they are shown here. More detailed instructions on the Record Panel are available in the documentation.
The Mixer windowThe Mixer window presents you with a familiar interface to the ULN-2. At the top of every channelstrip is a pulldown list of available sources. Below that is the Character menu. This lets you select any of our dsp based circuit emulations for your inputs, busses and outputs. Some are very subtle, so you may want to try different Characters on different signals. Next is a pre-insert direct out. This lets you route the channelstrip to any unused analog or digital output, as well as to “FW” channels. The FireWire channels allow you to return audio from the ULN-2 to your computer.
Below Character are the insert slots. Here you can insert plugins, route to sends (additional busses), call up macros (pre-made dsp processors) and instantiate graphs. A graph is a “dsp playground” where you can build your own signal processing chains and save them for later recall. You’ll notice that there is another direct out under the inserts- this one is post-insert. Any signal routed from this direct out has all of your inserted processing applied, whereas the pre-insert direct out doesn’t.
The pan control reconfigures depending on the type of channel and the bus that it is assigned to:- There are no pan controls on a channel assigned to a mono bus.
- Mono input channels will have a pan knob when assigned to stereo or LCR busses.
- Mono input channels assigned to LCRS through 7.1 busses will have joysticks. Right clicking on the joystick will allow you to hard assign the input channel to a specific output channel, i.e. Center.
- Multichannel inputs (stereo and above) have no pan control.
Keep in mind that the while ULN-2 is primarily a stereo device in the analog domain, it is possible to work in multichannel by using the optical I/O.
Every input channel has a phase reverse button, as well as solo, mute and record enable (active if assigned to FW). The names of the faders can be changed in the “Configure Mixer” pane available from the Mixer menu. Finally, the pulldown menu at the bottom of the strip lets you assign the input to any available bus.
If you go to the Window menu and select “Show Monitor Control Window” you will be presented with our software Monitor Controller. It is highly flexible, and controls the analog level control in the ULN-2. There is a wealth of knowledge in the MIO Console documentation (available from the Help menu) on how to set up and use the Monitor Controller.
You should now be in a good position to fire up a native DAW and put the ULN-2 through its paces. Select the ULN-2 as your audio interface; the analog inputs will be inputs 1-2, AES/Spdif digital inputs will be 3-4 and ADAT will be 5-12 (as determined by the FW channel assignments). Send your DAW’s signal to outputs 1/2 and it will come into the ULN-2 on DAW 1/2. By using the FW channels to send audio to your DAW and the DAW input returns from your computer you have a virtual patchbay to route audio between your DAW and the ULN-2.
The ULN-2 and surroundIf you’re working in surround it’s easy to configure the ULN-2 for processing and monitoring via an ADAT based D/A . Go to the Mixer menu and select “Configure Mixer”. At the top of the pane you’ll see the “Main” bus, which is stereo and a Master. Master busses are routed to outputs, while Aux busses are routed back into Master busses (for returns, subgroups, etc. ). If you click on the bus type you can change it from “Stereo” to whatever width you need ; let’s say you’re working in 5.1. Select “5.1” and hit configure. Voila! All the mono channels now have joysticks instead of pan knobs, and the Main bus is automatically routed to Analog 1-6. Your DAW is still coming in on two channels, but that’s easy to change. Go to the top of the DAW 1/2 channelstrip and click on the assignment pulldown. You have the choice of a mono channel, or a 6 channel strip. By selecting DAW 1-6, your audio will come into the ULN-2 as positioned by your host. Your other choice would be to make this channel mono, and add five more channelstrips via the Mixer menu. This way you can position your audio with the MIO Mixer.
To make it easier to monitor in surround, let’s use the Monitor Controller. Click on the assignment pulldown at the bottom of the Main bus and select “N/C” to remove the assignment to the analog outs. Now hold down the shift key and click the pulldown again; the Main bus was “multed” to the Monitor bus in the template which means it was routed to Analog 1/2 and the Monitor at the same time. Now that we’re working in surround, we need to send to the ADAT outs. By holding down shift and clicking on the Monitor L-n/c line, we clear the mult. Now click on the pulldown one more time and select “Add to Monitor Controller”. Go to the Window menu and select “Show Monitor Controller”.
The Monitor Controller shows the Main bus is the Monitor Source, but we need to define an output. Click the “Configure” button to open the MC pane. Click the “+” under Monitor Paths and you’ll have the option to add a Monitor Output. Give the path a name (like “Surround”) and select 5.1 as the bus type. Now you can assign your output channels. If you want to select your outputs sequentially, a shortcut is to hold down the Option key when selecting the first channel. For example, hold down Option and click the assignment for the Left channel and select ADAT 1. The rest of the channels will fill in automatically. Hit OK and you now have a surround monitor controller!
Unleash the dspEvery ULN-2 is based on our 2d processing card and may be purchased with an optional +DSP license (the +DSP can be added by the user at any time). Your review unit is pre-loaded with the +DSP license to give you access to all of the available +DSP processing plugins. This gives you powerful processing in the box, and the ability to work with processing and monitoring who’s latency is the convertor overhead.
There are two ways to access the dsp:- You can insert processes directly in the channelstrip inserts; this works well for standalone processes like eq, compressors, etc.
- Insert a graph. This lets you chain plugins together, use them in parallel, and create configurations that would be difficult (or impossible) with other platforms.
- MIOStrip: Our gating, EQ and compression powerhouse.
- TransientController: Get complete control of the transient and sustain of your tracks. Try this on drums and bass, or even to add a little life to a full mix.
- MIOLimit: Put this on your main bus- who needs outboard?
- Plugin Macros: These are factory configured graphs. There are effects, amp and cabinet simulations and mastering processors. The Macros are a great way to start using more complicated processes in your workflow, as well as learning how to build your own custom graphs.
- Graphs: This is one of the most powerful aspects of the Metric Halo dsp system. Here you can chain dsp blocks together in series or parallel to create whatever processors you desire, with no latency or phase issues (other than those created by the processes themselves, like delays). Your graphs can be saved and recalled for subsequent projects.
This should give you the info to test the ULN-2 in a practical manner. Full documentation can be found in the Help menu, which can be opened in your web browser and printed if you desire.
Additional ResourcesThe ULN-2 is an exceptionally deep product, and there are many features, applications and workflows to discover. We have published a series of technical notes and tutorial movies that go in depth about the Mobile I/O platform. Please take a look at them to learn more about the ULN-2:
If you have an issue that you can't resolve using the documentation or have other questions, feel free to contact Allen Rowand- he can be reached via allen@mhsecure.com, or 845-223-6112, extension 253 from 9AM-6PM EST.