TASCAM US-2X2

[GreyBeard]

The 1st interface I ever bought was a Presonus 26io Firestudio. My initial experience with this product was just awful. The drivers didn't like my Firewire card and when I got the correct card, my computer didn't have enough memory or speed to record with it. Fast forward to today and the Firestudio is working happily with my newer i5 desktop. However, since it is firewire it was impossible to use with my i7 laptop so I bought the Tascam us-2x2. Unlike my 1st experience, this install went much smoother. I downloaded and installed the drivers and it works without a hitch. The box is all metal USB interface with 2 combination mike/instrument inputs with phantom power, a headphone jack, direct monitoring and midi io. What I am most impressed with is its' low latency with Reaper. It works flawlessly at a 64 block size.

[inertia]

Nice, I was looking at another Tascam model for USB 2 recording and they are very cheap units compared to the competition.

I didn't buy it in the end but good to hear someone had a positive experience with it.

[zeekat]

I was looking into it too, as it really has all the cool features and a good price, but there's not many practical reports on the net so far (at least regarding windows operation). What are the latency figures for lower buffer sizes? And does it work stable as a daily windows (WDM) device?

[zeekat]

Okay, bought this one, got attacked by my Mackie Blackjack drivers again so something had to be done.

So, some observations about Tascam 2x2 for posterity (and future google searches): so far it seems good indeed. Installed (W7/x64) and updated the firmware with no problems. Latency's okay - reported 1.4/8.7ms at 64 samples buffer, 2.9/10ms at 128, 5.8/15ms at 256. Values seem about right (if oddly asymmetrical), as loopback test shows automatic latency correction being off by mere ~26 samples(0,5ms) at 64 buffer, which is decent I guess. Latencies are a bit worse than with Blackjack (it was below 8ms rtl at 64 samples and below 13ms at 128, pretty nice actually).

So far it works nicely, plays windows sounds, did a bit of guitar noodling over a relatively(for me) complex project with Slate drums, couple of POD farms, waves GTR, guitar freebies and a bunch of synths and effects - looks like it's doable to track stuff at 64 there. Guitar input has some spare headroom, altough gain knob past 9 o'clock makes it clip with my, according to pickup manufacturer, "mid-to-high" output guitar.

Things I don't like - driver is not multiclient (ASIO mutes any other sound in the system) and headphone out is pretty quiet. But I can accept that if that thing is safer for my ears than Mackie blackjack.

Will update if turns out I hate this thing.

[GreyBeard]

I've been doing some recording at 88.2 with Easydrummer, Oxygen 25 kb with a free organ vsti and my bass guitar. At 88.2 I have to use 128 samples buffer but there still is little if any noticeable latency. Very solid little piece.