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Tascam US144 USB 2.0 Audio/MIDI Interface

Included with all TASCAM interfaces is a copy of Steinberg's Cubase LE recording software.

Overall User Ratings

Overall:
          7 out of 10
Features:
          7 out of 10
Quality:
          8 out of 10
Value:
          8 out of 10
I Want It:
          6 out of 10
Sound:
          7 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          7 out of 10
Support:
          5 out of 10
 
 

"Solid performance and construction. Great Sound and low latency for synths!"

Overall:
          10 out of 10
Features:
          10 out of 10
Quality:
          10 out of 10
Value:
          10 out of 10
I Want It:
          10 out of 10
Sound:
          10 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          10 out of 10
User: a customer from yahoo.com
Submitted: 10/2/2009
Style of Music: Jazz, R&B, Funk, Classic Rock, Orchestral, Film Soundtracks
Musical Experience: Professional musician & engineer
Location: Kansas City, MO

 

 
Feature:
Nice array of features. The only thing I might have added was balanced 1/4" output jacks, but the RCAs work well with a RCA to 1/4" cable. I like being able to adjust the latency level for the unit and it applies to all programs. I don't use the included "Cubase" (I use Sonar 8), but it's a nice freebie to get a newbie started!

Quality:
Nice metal case with rubberized ends. Should hold up to a little abuse and won't scratch up your keyboard if you set it on top. The knobs are flat rubber discs that have a low profile and the switched are short metal ones that would pretty much take a deliberate act to break them.

Value:
Well worth the money.

Desirability:
It's small and easy to transport. (Just about the size of an external 3.5 hard drive). Zero latency or near zero on more moderate settings (I get 17ms on the middle setting and 7 ms on "low" with my duo-core laptop PC with 2.0 Ghz and 4 gig ram. I plan on using this to use my laptop's software synths and to make stereo recordings of reheasals and gigs.

Sound:
Without having a perfect acoustic setting to test it in, I must say the sound quality from the mic pre-amps are great and the overall sound output is very clean. I used an inexpensive Nady SCM-900 and got great sound out of it as well as my Rode NT-1. No hum, hiss or static!

Ease of Use:
Very simple and straight-forward. Took less than 3 minutes to get the drivers installed and have this guy up and running!

Support:
I have never had to use Tascam's tech support. I usually can troubleshoot most gear without help, but hopefully they can answer most typical setup/troubleshooting questions for new users.

Overall:
Smart design. Ease of use. Solid construction. Tascam's good track record. Well done! Paul Roberts - Prospekt Media paulrobertsmusic.com

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"Excellent for the price."

Overall:
          9 out of 10
Features:
          8 out of 10
Quality:
          10 out of 10
Value:
          10 out of 10
Sound:
          8 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          10 out of 10
Support:
          5 out of 10
User: a customer from gmail.com
Submitted: 1/19/2009
Style of Music: Rock
Musical Experience: Hobbyist
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

 
Feature:
I did not install the LE Cubase, seeing as I have SX3 installed. Installing drivers was very easy, and it was all plug and play. I like the feature

Quality:
Very sturdy. When I bought this sound interface, I looked at some others to, and compared, they felt like cheap plastic. This is metal, and it's steelhardy.

Value:
For the prize, it is eminent.

Sound:
The sound is great on the Tascam US-144. It records the sound very nice and crisp, and frankly it feels like the real deal when I'm playing with, for instance, a guitar VST in Cubase. It is propably, with the right software on the computer, one of the best pre-amps you can get. However, the phone-output seems somewhat low.

Ease of Use:
No fiddling around with stupid drivers, no turning up and down on stupid mixers, just insert the jack cable and play.

Support:
Haven't needed it yet.

Overall:
I think I'll go with this interface for a very long time. With it's sturdyness and all, it's simply breathtaking.

15 of 16 people (93.75%) found this review helpful. Did you?    
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"Good machine for the money."

Overall:
          7 out of 10
Features:
          7 out of 10
Quality:
          7 out of 10
Value:
          7 out of 10
I Want It:
          3 out of 10
Sound:
          9 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          6 out of 10
Submitted: 1/21/2008
Style of Music: Rok, alternative, industrial
Musical Experience: Hobbyist
Location: PA

 

 
Feature:
Size is good and convenient. Everything does what it should. Only complaint is the large rubber dials, which are a bit touchy. Hard to change the volume/mix/etc "just a little bit."

Quality:
Sturdy. Not likely to break anytime soon.

Value:
I got it for about $170. Considering most comparable products I've seen are in the same price range, I suppose it was a good deal.

Desirability:
The color scheme goes with my desk and monitor. That's about it. Granted, I'm not one who generally buys interface hardware based on its "sex appeal."

Sound:
Always get the sound I want out of it. No detectable line noise on anything I've recorded so far. Gives me a good clean base sound to work with.

Ease of Use:
Fairly straightforward, simple enough setup to use. The Giga software, however, I had to uninstall as soon as I put it on. I compose alot of industrial/electronic music using Acid 6, and the Giga conflicted with it. Any time I turned on either program my computer (PC, WinXP) would crash and I'd have to reboot.

Support:
Haven't needed any yet.

Overall:
I'll probably be purchasing a new piece with 8 or more inputs in the near future, but only because my needs have changed. I'll likely be keeping this around for personal and supplementary use for some time.

27 of 29 people (93.1%) found this review helpful. Did you?    
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"You need to get low first to jump high."

Overall:
          9 out of 10
Features:
          9 out of 10
Quality:
          10 out of 10
Value:
          8 out of 10
I Want It:
          8 out of 10
Sound:
          8 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          4 out of 10
Support:
          5 out of 10
User: a customer from gmail.com
Submitted: 10/1/2009
Style of Music: Electro House, Trance Acoustic, Alternative
Musical Experience: Active Musician/Producer
Location: Philadelphia, PA, USA

 

 
zZounds has verified that this customer bought this product from us.
Feature:
I liked the simple features, a very intuitive interface.

Quality:
Although I wont do it, I think I can drop it several times and it not break. This thing is built like a tank and the buttons are solid too.

Value:
I think it is worth its price. I just had to do some serious tweaking to make it do what I want with it.

Desirability:
It's a tank and personally tanks don't turn me on. It does the job well and that is it.

Sound:
Once I got everything to work the sound was very good!

Ease of Use:
This took me several emails back and forth with Tascam to finally get the latency down to a reasonable level. I couldn't stand the 349ms delay I had when I first got the unit. Happy with it now.

Support:
I wish they had a live chat function or something where I don't have to way 4 days to hear back from them.

Overall:
I will be upgrading my DAW before I upgrade my audio interface. At the end of the day I am happy that I bought this interface.

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"Upgrade and downgraded from the US-122"

Overall:
          7 out of 10
User: a customer from yahoo.com
Submitted: 3/20/2009
Style of Music: rock, hard rock, metal, rap
Musical Experience: engineer, producer, writer, player
Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

 

 
Feature:
BIGGEST FLAW: The US-144 eliminated the chromatic tuner that the US-122 came equipped with in the control panel. Very bad oversight and an even worse move by the Tascam team. Shame on you!!!

Quality:
The shell is solid, as are the jacks, but I prefer the knobs on the US-122.

Desirability:
It looks sleek, if that sort of thing matters to you. This unit needs a driver update to bring back the chromatic tuner to the control panel. I know that a tuner is not hard to line in, but in the heat of a recording session the less pedals distracting the signal, the better, and to have to stop the session, turn down the monitors, unplug, then tune - instead of just clicking the control panel like the US-122 option - is an time and energy consumer that is not conducive to capturing recording magic. Time is money and the Muse waits for no one!

Sound:
The unit is a minimal upgrade from the original US-122. Even the Cubase 4 LE that comes with the package is not necessarily more user friendly nor more feature laden that the original Cubase LE (although it looks nicer). The only reason I bought the US-144 is because my US-122 wouldn't record 2 simultaneous tracks anymore and I need that. Having said that, like the US-122, the sound is true and crisp. One complaint I have is it is more difficult to plug in and play along with your hard drive mp3s, etc. because of volume (and lack thereof) issues. It takes a lot of fandangling with the Input/Computer knob to reach a balance that's acceptable and even then you have to crank your line input coming from your instrument if you want any juice - and I'm running KRK 5s for monitors, so it's not them!!! After all of this Frankensteination it is still quieter than the US-122. I purchased the Track Pack 2 which also came with a condenser mic, while mid-grade quality at best is still a nice addition.

Ease of Use:
The interface is intuitive and the sound reproduction is about as good as you can get for the price.

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"TASCAM US-144. Does EXACTLY what it say's it can do... and more!"

Overall:
          9 out of 10
Features:
          9 out of 10
Quality:
          9 out of 10
Value:
          9 out of 10
I Want It:
          9 out of 10
Sound:
          9 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          9 out of 10
Support:
          5 out of 10
User: a customer from gmail.com
Submitted: 3/9/2007
Style of Music: ALL
Musical Experience: Professional guitarist.
Location: Madrid, Spain

 

 
Feature:
The accessories included: a USB cable, Cubase LE 3.0, GigaStudio LE 3.0 and the drivers (also Various PDF files giving instructions for the software). Also a very brief 'instruction booklet'.

Quality:
Very sturdy and well assembled. I don't particularly like the 'rubber' dials, but evrything works - atleast it does what it claims to be able to do!

Value:
Compared to a couple of other units I had a look at, at around the same price level, this is excellent value for money (It cost me approx US$180. It actually has more than I really need.

Desirability:
The colors go with my laptop! Compared to a lot of others, the design is top notch!

Sound:
The US-144 has no "sound" - it's an Audio/MIDI interface (external/portable soundcard if you like). It's very 'transparent' and does exactly what I expected it to do. (I feel the headphone volume is a little under-powered - I use AKG K141's)

Ease of Use:
To install/use: Very easy, use the CD installer and follow the instructions. (I use mine with a Laptop PC. OS:WinXP) It wasn't my intention, but I've ended up using the Cubase and GigaStudio software that came with the 'package'.

Support:
I've put a '5' - (half-way-house).. as yet I've not had the need to call or contact them, so I can't really express an opinion.

Overall:
I will probably need to update my laptop way before I need to update this. There are many reviews/criticisms about USB, telling ppl to go 'firwire'... I really do get "zero latency" (actually it's about 0.2ms) to my ears so it does exactly what I want/need, and that's what counts!

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"Unmet Expectations"

Overall:
          6 out of 10
Features:
          7 out of 10
Quality:
          8 out of 10
Value:
          6 out of 10
I Want It:
          7 out of 10
Sound:
          7 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          6 out of 10
Support:
          1 out of 10
Submitted: 11/26/2006
Style of Music: Songwriting
Musical Experience: Hobbyist
Location: San Diego, CA

 

 
Feature:
Usual features. Separate headphone volume, but could never get it high enough.

Quality:
Seems sturdy enough

Value:
It's an unknown commodity for the most part. I bought it and returned it. Don't want to be a paying beta tester. I think they've got a ways to go to perfect this one.

Desirability:
I thought it looked cool online, and it does, but it was much bigger than I imagined it.

Sound:
Weird clicks on one of the inputs.

Ease of Use:
Tough to get the drivers working.

Support:
Next to zero support from Tascam or Teac. You're on your own.

Overall:
Like I said, I returned this item. I had a bad feeling about it after a few weeks, and decided to look further. A pity, cause I waited excitedly for this product to hit the street. Too bad.

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"Not bad if you can deal with sound quality quirks"

Overall:
          5 out of 10
Features:
          8 out of 10
Quality:
          8 out of 10
Value:
          10 out of 10
I Want It:
          7 out of 10
Sound:
          5 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          8 out of 10
Support:
          5 out of 10
Submitted: 2/17/2008
Musical Experience: Hobbyist

 

 
Feature:
It had all the features I needed, aside from the ability to properly record with a High-Z input. I liked the fact that all controls could be done with the hardware. Didn't have to do anything in a software control panel.

Quality:
The hardware itself seemed pretty high quality, aside from the knobs, which seemed a little cheap. But they didn't seem like they'd break really.

Value:
Cheaper than most other products

Desirability:
It's a pretty attractive, rugged design

Sound:
Produced some clicking noises when using the right line-in with the guitar setting. You can switch it back to mic/line and it will record guitar without clicking, but it doesn't sound as good (because you're not using the High-Z input). The headphone output is a little too low. Also, it seemed like everytime you launched a new application that used sound, it would click for a few seconds before being ready.

Ease of Use:
Easy to use

Support:
Never had to deal with support. But I returned the product.

Overall:
Too many problems with sound quality to keep this product. I returned it.

5 of 8 people (62.5%) found this review helpful. Did you?    
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"Don't buy it. Tascam has lousy support and is slow to update drivers."

Overall:
          1 out of 10
Features:
          1 out of 10
Quality:
          1 out of 10
Value:
          1 out of 10
I Want It:
          1 out of 10
Sound:
          1 out of 10
Ease of Use:
          1 out of 10
Support:
          1 out of 10
User: a customer from tx.rr.com
Submitted: 7/26/2009
Style of Music: Folk, celtic, blues, etc...
Musical Experience: Active Amateur
Location: Irving, Texas, USA

 

 
Feature:
Couldn't get it to wrok. Two different store techs couldn't make it work on my systems either.

Quality:
Doesn't work.

Value:
Don't buy it.

Desirability:
Looks great, has a good sound, so long as you don't plug it into a computer.

Sound:
Couldn't get this product to work on systems that have service pack updates from the last year. Tascam's drivers are incredibly buggy with recnt service packs. Tried it on five different computers and the only one that worked, hadn't been updated since early 2008. Tascam insists that there are no problems with their drivers and the do not intend to provide any additional updates. At least that's what they told me. I can't even get a refund or store credit because Tascam does not take returns.

Ease of Use:
Doesn't work.

Support:
Staff doesn't return calls. Insists the product is flawless.

Overall:
Don't buy it.

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