TASCAM US-122

Latest drivers and firmware OS x 10.4.11 as of 2008-06-16

Hard to use,. when I open Ableton Live 7.0.7 and CHANGE BUFFERSIZE!! in the prefereances, it freezez my laptop!!!!!

When it works it sounds clean and very LOW NOISE

Not reliably

When you change buffersize it crashes

Difficult website

Hard to find resources

I was new to this kind of thing when i bought this product. I had a few teething problems getting the drivers installed and setting up in a program like cubase. But thats because i was totally new to computer recording. Ive had this thiing for 2 years now and i have absolutley no problems.

It does exactly what it says on the box. The stuff i record with it sounds great. It all depends on what mics you are using and the acoustics of the room (and how good your band is). Its great for home recording and making demos. Although more inputs would be good.

Ive owned one for over 2 years ive never had any reliability problems.

Never had to deal with tascam.

For the price, I think the US 122 is great. If you want a professional recording, go to a recording studio and get it mastered professionally. I am upgrading to a firewire interface with more inputs. But the US 122 has served me well.

Very easy to use. Except it crashes your system. (See reliability)

Overall sound quality is fine. There are occasional dropouts. It looks like the drivers can't keep up with the output. Tried an EMU-1010 with no similar dropout problem.

The USB drivers are not solid. I would not recommend this system to anyone.

They have a website. Other than that, their support is non-existent. I did manage to update the drivers for this unit, but there was no improvement in performance.

If this system did work - it has a great interface, it's portable and the sound quality when it's alive is pretty good.

It's not a professional unit, but it could be fine for amateur home recording. If only Tascam had gotten their act together.

Load the driver, plug it in, start your favorite recording suite, begin recording, end of story.

Great sound quality for such a small unit. I don't understand the complaints about a "weak preamp". Newsflash, if you're hitting 0 in digital recording, you've already clipped the signal and are WAY too loud. I've never had a problem with the preamp but I have been thinking about getting an ART tube preamp just to warm up vocals.

Very reliable and dependable. I've had the same unit for 3 years now, and I've traveled with it and then some, still works. For those who have the lockup issue, there is a simple cause. YOUR POWER SUPPLY IN YOUR COMPUTER SUCKS! Everyone says "as soon as I plugged it in I got a blue screen memory dump etc." That's because you were pulling too much power via USB from your cheap little power supply that came with your Gateway or whatever. Go to newegg.com, buy a 450W or higher power supply, install it and watch your problems disappear (including clicking and sputtering)! Also, remember that you should ALWAYS record to a second hard drive, not the one your operating system resides on. Don't expect to get great performance until you take care of these two fundamental rules of digital audio recording. These two solutions will get rid of 99% of the issues I've seen.

Never needed customer support, but I do wish they had a forum hosted on their site rather than pointing to outside sources.

I'm an active musician and an audio technician. In our progressive metal band, our keyboardist uses one to record our jam sessions. I've used one for three years to record all kinds of sources from vocals to electric and acoustic instruments and then some. It is a GREAT unit for the price, IF you know what you're doing. Unfortunately some people think digital recording is just plugging in a mic, plugging in the unit, and then recording. THIS IS NEVER THE CASE. Do what I said under the reliability topic and you will have hours of enjoyment with this unit. One more thing, though I've never experienced it, ALWAYS turn off the phantom power before unplugging a mic, as there seem to have been some instances of the unit frying in cases where the phantom power was left on.

Installed super easy on my P4/2.8/1gb ram/winxp home rig.

Sound quality is fine for the price paid. You don't expect Neve or Buzz Audio mic pre's for NZ$495.00....

Running happily with Cubase SX 3.6 for 18 months no problems.

easy to use with a mac & logic

not sure - have nothing to compare it to.

I would put zero on here if I could. it worked for a while & then the left channel crapped out. there is no reason for that to happen.

After waiting on hold for 55 minutes, I was told that I had to send it in and that if it was less than 90 days, parts and labor were covered. If less than a year, parts were covered. I told the guy it wasn't even worth the effort for the piece of shit and that i would never buy a Tascam product again. He hung up on me.

Symptomatic of everything that is wrong with our quick-buck disposable product mindset that has ruined American manufacturing across all industries. Don't buy Tascam.

Easy to set up and use. Intuitive interface.

Seems fine recording into logic audio on my mac.

Worked fine for a while and then, all of a sudden, the left channel went bad. Went online & discovered it was a very common problem.

such a shoddy product.

This thing has had VERY LIGHT USAGE over the past year or so since I bought it.

haven't tried yet. doesn't seem very good based on what i've read here.

I was sold this by some guy at Guitar Center, who promised it would work with a Intel-based mac. I had to go thru all kinds of b.s. to find the driver for the thing.

In windows I was ready to go in 20 seconds, in Linux it took me 10 minutes. Very, very easy to set up.

Trying this with keyboards and mics. Sounds pretty good, better in Linux than in win, I think this is due to the fact that included drivers are crap. Honestly, for that price, I couldn't expect anything better.

Actually, I got it 4 days ago, so no opinion here. It is used stuff anyway, this means it has survived many months of use.

No need to

If you're out of budget and want to record anywhere without trouble of mixers and so on, this is perfect.I use it also in my home studio and works great. A good deal, if you find something better at that price notify me please

I use it on Macs, and it's as easy as you could ask for. Plug it in, insert their CD, install their stuff, and go. I think it might have asked for a restart, but that's it. Worked flawlessly for 3 years running now.

The knobs and switches are clearly labeled, easy to reach, and work as described. The inputs and outputs are clearly labeled. The fact that all the knobs and switches are on top, so you can see them all at once, and reach them all with out moving around to the back or side of the unit, means it's convenient and easy to use.

Sound quality is fine. It does what it promises. The mic pre-amp is weak, but they know that, and mine came bundled with an odd Russian-made tube mic pre-amp and a vocal mic that physically resembles an Electro-Voice RE-20. I've used the pre-amp [a bit hissy, but not terrible] but never needed the mic, so that stayed in the case. Oh, the bundled mic and amp came with a good, though plastic, padded case.

People, none of these bus-powered devices is going to have a strong mic pre-amp. That takes more power than your computer is going to deliver on the USB port. Fact of life.

I use this mainly to input guitar, bass, guitar synth, and voice to my computers. I also use it as a MIDI interface. It has never yet let me down. I even used it briefly on a PC. It made me glad that I had a Mac, because the PC had so many extra hassles to get it working, but it seemed to work just as well on the PC once I got the drivers installed.

I give a 7 because it's not noise-free, so if you compare it to more expensive usb audio interfaces, you will find they have higher fidelity and lower noise floor. For the money, though, I think this is a 10, or at least a 9.

Used it 3 years so far. Reliable. It's never left my house [it's not for stage use]. Don't gig with it. It has plastic knobs that feel flimsy. It's not designed for gigging and hard use, so I am not giving it a low rating just because it's not sturdy. It wasn't advertised to be sturdy. I'd be careful with the input jacks, and try not to let cables tug on them, because devices this cheap usually don't anchor those input jacks very well, and they are almost always soldered to the main PC board these days. Treat it like the home studio gear that it is, and it will not let you down.

TASCAM support was excellent when it came to supplying a Mac OSX Tiger-compatible version of their bundled audio software, Cubase LE. I asked via a form on their web page, and they sent me a new CD, FREE. Later, when Intel Macs came out, I needed another update to Cubase LE. Do you think Steinberg was one tiny bit helpful? Not on your life. I emailed TASCAM, and they sent me yet another new CD, with updated Cubase LE. They earned my loyalty there. Their willingess to get that update to me, free [not even shipping charges] got me back to recording quickly, cheaply, and fairly. I'll buy my next audio interface from them, too.

I never needed tech support with this thing yet. There's not much to go wrong, I think.

I've been playing music 25 years now, and I play almost any style except straight jazz or classical. I've used this piece for voiceover work, songs of my own [vocals, guitar, and synth audio recording as well as MIDI controlling and MIDI input]. If I were to take my guitar MIDI rig out with a laptop, I'd buy a sturdier MIDI interface [or maybe get another of these as a backup], since, like I said, it ain't made for stage use.

I love the attention TASCAM paid me in making sure I had a copy of the bundled Cubase LE that would work with my Mac and TASCAM's box. Excellent.

What do I dislike about it? The knobs. The pots feel cheap, if that makes sense, but I expect I could change a pot if I really needed to. The actual knobs, though, are flimsy and shaped with a sheer, smooth surface. A rubber knob, or a knurled knob, would be better.

I recently got a PreSonus Firebox Firewire audio/midi interface and, you know what? Latency was no better with that. I could have stuck wiht the TASCAM. I still use it because it actually does work with bus power from my MacBook Pro, whereas the Firebox fails without the power adapter plugged in. The only reason I got the Firebox was because I wanted a separate cue bus so I could experiment with Ableton Live and looping.

Thus, I wish this TASCAM had a separately addressable headphone bus, so I could route audio in the computer to the headphone separately.

I like the rubber-coated middle stripe and its rubber feet. Both make it easier to keep this thing from moving around when I'm playing instruments and recording.

VERY frustrating to use this piece of s**t. Manual needs to be updated as it refers to software which is no longer associated with the product! Continually crashes my system. Arrrrgh!!!

If I could give it a lower rating, I would. Never worked as advertised. Crashed and froze my system! I could perhaps comment on sound quality if it actually WORKED! P.O.S. They should not be able to legally market and sell this junk as an interface. Perhaps it more appropriately should be sold as a paperweight or doorstop.

Depend on it? Use it at a gig? What a joke-I could not even get it to function.

After seemingly waiting forever on the phone, they tried to blame the computer system I am using. Question for TASCAM: Are you trying to blast your corporate brains out by completely, blatently ignoring and pissing your customers(who ultimately pay your bills)off?

If you were to obtain a shoebox, punch some 1/4 inch holes in it for inputs and outputs, then draw on various switches and knobs and call it an interface, you would have a device which works equally well. If it were stolen I would laugh hysterically at the stupid SOB who put his freedom in jeopardy for such a hunk of junk. This "interface" wins the "Gilded Turd Award".