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The Tascam US-144, their follow-up to the mega popular US-122, delivers everything you'd want in a portable audio-MIDI interface and more. Record two tracks at a time with zero latency; whether you have a PC or a Mac, your song ideas go down in real time, real easy. Its size means you can take it anywhere you take your laptop, yet it's packed with features that make buying it an audio no-brainer. MIDI input and output, high quality mic inputs, 96kHz/24-bit recording (better than CD quality)-all the stuff you'd want without the fluff you wouldn't. The US-144: the answer to your recording needs.
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Technical Details
- 2 XLR mic inputs with phantom power ^S/PDIF Digital Input & Output^2 analog line inputs (1 switchable to high impedance for use with guitars, basses, etc.)^1 MIDI input, 1 MIDI output^USB 2.0 equipped (also supports USB 1.1)- 2 XLR mic inputs with phantom power. S/PDIF Digital Input & Output. 2 analog line inputs .1 MIDI input, 1 MIDI output. USB 2.0 equipped.
- 2 XLR mic inputs with phantom power S/PDIF Digital Input & Output.2 analog line inputs .1 MIDI input, 1 MIDI output.USB 2.0 equipped
- 2 XLR mic inputs with phantom power S/PDIF Digital Input & Output2 analog line inputs (1 switchable to high impedance for use with guitars, basses.)
- 1 MIDI input, 1 MIDI output USB 2.0 equipped (also supports USB 1.1)
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By J. Nichols
The sound quality is very good. However, the interface crashes at random intervals throughout the day. On a fresh install of Windows XP SP3, I frequently got the Blue-Screen-of-Death blaming tascusb2.sys. There was no warning. Computer could be on for hours before doing it, or not. I haven't been able to discern a pattern as to when it happens -- it happens most often when I listen to music, but sometimes it will crash when I'm doing nothing at all with it.
Installing the newest drivers from the Tascam Website actually made my system crash more often than the old drivers. The interface also takes 20% of CPU power to run on a Core 2 Quad Laptop, even when I'm doing nothing with it. The Interface actually crashed my PC once while I was writing this review.
Google it; there are dozens of reports online of people having the same issues as me, and hundreds of reports regarding Tascam's worthless customer support, even here on Amazon. The instruction manual is also littered with typos.
Even when it does output sound, you can't use it in a production environment due to very high latency. If you set the latency to anything other than the highest setting, you will get all kinds of crackling and skipping, even when just listening to music in Winamp or Windows Media Player. It often doesn't get properly recognized in Cubase 5. Recording is nearly impossible.
Support is unhelpful, telling me to disable my anti virus and firewall(not an option due to security concerns, but even when I did do it for an hour, my system crashed again), and outright lying to me, saying that Mac users don't have issues with the Tascam Audio Interface, when even the reviewer above me has problems getting it to work on his Mac.
Bottom line: When the thing works, it outputs some nice, clear sound for the price. Unfortunately it's nearly unusable due to constant crashing, latency issues and worthless support. Stay away until they put out some new drivers, which they have been promising for nearly two years.
By J. Beck (Seattle, WA USA)
As far as home studio recording, this little device is really nice: 24 bit stereo audio with MIDI, and USB 2.0 speed. The phantom power works great on condenser mics, and runs off CPU/USB power. Tascam has made great products all the way back to my 4-track cassette dubbing days, and this device is great in all those same ways.
The problem comes with drivers. I've verified that the stock (v2.0) drivers work fine in Snow Leopard on the Mac, they DO NOT work on Win7 64-bit. They only claim to offer 64-bit Vista drivers (and 32-bit Win7), however if you look around the web you'll find that nobody running a 64-bit windows Vista/7 setup can get the driver to work. Sound comes through, but it's noisy and attenuated. This is a real shame, as I just built a Win7/64bit box that would be much better for digital music than my MacBook. From what I can tell, XP drivers are rock solid.
Anyway, something you should know. Otherwise, this is a great way to start recording/podcasting.
By Brian Carton
My son has been using Sony ACID Home Studio 7 for months, mainly playing around with the built in loops to create his own music. He also plays a little bass guitar, and wanted to create some of his own tracks to integrate with the loops that he downloads. So, I went off on a quest for a USB interface, as our built-in soundcard on our desktop is very low-end.
Let me say, I'm a very technical guy, but I found the search for the right USB interface to be a little challenging. I had read that one needed to be careful about software and hardware compatibility issues. That is indeed a true statement.
I purchased the USB-144 locally, after returning a different product that had just too many little challenges. I spent half the day yesterday toying with the US-144, making sure that I understood it before turning a less-technical kid loose on it. I immediately downloaded the latest drivers and firware from TASCAM's website to install on my laptop, and finally managed to get it all working late New Year's eve. My major stumbling block was not knowing how to drive the included CuBase LE software.
Today, I installed it on my kid's system, but installed an earlier version of the drivers. Reading the release notes, I was dismayed to discover that my kid's system had an incompatible USB chipset (!!! - there's that hardware compatibility issue!# Tried using it anyways, but the sound was crackly throughout. So, once again to [...], downloaded the latest driver #2.0#, without much hope. Loe and behold, the latest drivers do seem to have overcome the compatibility issue with nVidia USB chipsets. Mic'ed vocals sounded fine, and when I plugged in his bass guitar it sounded great!!
Sony ACID was much easier to configure properly to work with this device. Just select it as your input device, create a new track, and select which input to record from. CuBase is much more powerful software, I'm sure - but with that power comes a steeper learning curve. I'll probably use it on my laptop, but for now I think I'll let my kid keep using the software that he already understands.
So, make sure you have the latest drivers and firmware, and prepare to spend some time learning how to set up your inputs and outputs #more complicated than I anticipated).
No matter which device you purchase, make sure that it supports the hardware and operating system that you're running. Go to the manufacturer's website and read the release notes, look for hardware compatibility lists, and search the net for reviews and message boards. Bottom line is that many if not all of these audio interfaces have compatibility issues with certain types of hardware, and a little research ahead of time can save a lot of frustration.
One last thing: I set the US-144 as the default playback and record device under Control Panel, Sounds. It has a much richer sound than the built-in motherboard soundcard, so I'm planning to leave it attached and in use as the sound device on a permanent basis.
By BenzoV
I have two PCs that are less than a year old, both with 7200rpm hard drives and max of 4GB RAM. One is a laptop running Windows Vista, the other is a desktop running Windows XP, both running 32-bit OS with dual core 2ghz intel core 2 duo processors.
I was unable to setup the device on Vista without constant playback lag and popping within windows when monitoring sound via headphone jack on the device.
However, this worked without as much trouble when using the same hardware on Windows XP. However, on Windows XP I still had a slight recording lag which is apparent when multi-track recording. I wasn't looking for a challenge, I wanted an audio interface that just works. This has been a challenge.
By Paul A. Roberts (Kansas City, MO)
I picked up one of these at GC about a week ago and I love it. I was looking for a good ASIO audio interface to use with my laptop for performing software synths live on gigs and rehearsals.
I have a duo-core HP running @ 2.0Ghz with 4 G ram and a 7200 rpm drive running XP pro.
I can run synths at the "low" latency setting which is about 5-7 ms and can record audio (without playing synths) on the "lowest latency" setting with 1 ms delay! I can actually have SONAR fold back a reverb plugin to the performer with no noticable lag!
Here's my Pros & Cons...
PROS: Small (about the size of an external hard drive), USB powered, 48v Phantom Power, recessed ports, clean A/D signal and tone, low latency, no knobs to break off or loose, (flat rubber knobs built into casing), 1/4" phone jack, (I am so tired of those crappy little 1/8" jacks. I have some AKG 240 headphones and hate using a stepdown adapter!)
CONS: Only analoge out is L/R RCA & phones, (L/R balanced 1/4" would have been nice), outputs easily create a ground loop if you run them into a PA without using a ground lift DI box then taking the XLR to the board.
One odd propblem on my desktop is that I can't get my Creative Audigy ASIO drivers to let the Tascam take control in SONAR, but that's just a combination of that audio card and software, (I bet if I disabled the Audigy in the Hardware settings it would work, but the Audigy ASIO is fast enough for what I do with it).
I am very happy with this unit so far. I simply put in in my notebook bag with a USB cable, grab my 10 pound Yamaha KX61 controller, and I'm off to rehearsal without a ton of heavy gear.
This is my second Tascam product I've own, (the other is a FW1804 18 channel firewire audio interface I use for multi track remote recording), and I am very happy with them both.
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