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Tascam US-122
Tascam US-122
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$30.00 market value

Tascam US 122

  • 46 replies
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Topic Tascam US 122
Y'all will have to forgive me for my ignorance on this subject, but I have been looking at building a PC recording system, and was wondering what you thought of the Tascam US 122. It seems to offer the things I need to put tracks on my hard drive. Anybody have any experience with one?
2
I've never tried this soundcard, but I know that Tascam is not recognise as a good computer interface provider yet :(
I've heard a lot of people complaining about the stability of their drivers... this is always the problem when a company try to launch peripherals as they have no know how in sofware dveloppement...

So you'd better negociate a tryal periode if your are decided to buy it!

I think M-Audio or RME have better products, but I'm perahps wrong...

What are you exactly looking for? (number of I/O, definition, bus, use)
3
really all I wanna do is use the PC as a means to mix down and burn CDs. I am very happy with the audio quality that I get from the Boss BR-532 and Tascam 428( I use the two units together) but I would like to be able to dump it all to my hard-drive for final tweaking, then burn it to CD
4
I just bought the US 122 yesterday because the salesman assured me it would be the greatest way to record sound into my computer without using a soundcard. Only problem is when I try to record audio (or anything for that matter) I just hear a series of beeps. I've gone over the manual cover to cover a few times (all 4 pages of it) and still can't figure out what the problem is. I've tried it on both windows XP and windows 98SE. I hope it's something small I'm overlooking. If anyone has any idea of what the problem might be I would be much obliged because there is no way of contacting these guys about anything. Thanks.
5

Quote: I just bought the US 122 yesterday because the salesman assured me it would be the greatest way to record sound into my computer without using a soundcard. Only problem is when I try to record audio (or anything for that matter) I just hear a series of beeps. I've gone over the manual cover to cover a few times (all 4 pages of it) and still can't figure out what the problem is. I've tried it on both windows XP and windows 98SE. I hope it's something small I'm overlooking. If anyone has any idea of what the problem might be I would be much obliged because there is no way of contacting these guys about anything. Thanks.



I'm realy sorry for that! I hope you will find a solution. But don't hesitate to bring back you card if ever the hotline is not able to give you the corect advice!
Did you check if new driver are available?
6
RME or M-audio is definitely the way to go if you are a PC user. If you're on a budget and just need to record 2 channels, M-audio has some great USB interfaces at a relatively cheap price. The USB Audiophile or the USB Duo for instance are great products.
7
Scary thing is, I've seen the US-122 on several different web-sites, and they all say, "no returns on this product". I think I'll steer clear of it.
8
As a longtime Mac user I am astonished at the problems I've had with the Tascam 122. I have a Pismo PowerBook and a new G4 iBook with GarageBand on it. My problem is to get the electric guitar into the recording software. Let me say for the total novices viewing this post that Apple's GarageBand is an extraordinary piece of recording software. Not surprising: easy to use and easy to look at. It took my 13 year old kid about the 10 minutes to get the hang of it, and after getting him a keyboard he's into music from the side of participation instead of being only a passive listener. So, my problem is getting the electric guitar to record. Originally the Apple people suggested I get M Audio Mobilepre, with a preamp and USB power. Sounded like the reasonable easy answer, and I know that it would be an easy install and I'd be up and running quickly. The Apple store was out of them so I mosey over Guitar Center and was told about the Tascam. It sounded like a good alternative to Mobilepre with a few more features for the future, as it were. But, all I wanted was a way to get my guitar to the recording sw. With Tascam, it's been like a preview to purgatory or something. I haven't had this much frustration with a product since I tried to figure out MS DOS for myself (Bill Gates will never be forgiven). Cubasis is really ugly. I have no idea what Rebirth or the other software is good for, but it, like the Tascam itself, it doesn't work (Cubasis perpetually crashes). After many hours of fiddling, I haven't been able to do anything with the Tascam, on my PowerBook or my kids iBook. Like my kid, says, 'It should work right away without problems out of the box'. I bought this on Saturday 17 afternoon so I haven't been in touch with Guitar Center but I will call them this morning and I'll post here what they have to say. By the way, I get the same results as another poster: a repeating beep. For the beginner out there: do yourself a huge favor and go into an Apple store and fool around with GarageBand. Save yourself a lot of agony if you're planning to set up a simple but effective and easy to use recording device. Finally, I think I'll go to the Apple store today to get the Mobilepre. Guitar Center was right about the keyboard: M Audio Radium 49 is very nice with no installation or sw problems.
9
I am surprised at the number of complaints that have been posted about the tascam us-122. I've been using for 6 months now and I've not had a single problem. I'm running winXP and using it for audio and midi.

I don't put much through it one time (i mainly record one track at a time), but its handy as I can pop round my mates plug it into his laptop and record, burn to disk and come home. plus its good for my mike which needs phantom power.

anyways, I'm sure its not the best card out there, but I thought I would put a posting sticking up for it for once!!
10
I've had along discussion witrh the salesman about soundcards for a complete novice like me and he has thoroughly recommended this card even over the terratec DMX 6 fire (is that the correct name?), which a friend of mine who is heavily into making his own music suggested would be far better than the Tascam. supposedly the Terratec has Phono inputs but not a specific Guitar input..

I want to use Guitar and mike with reason on win XP with not a great deal of RAM (256) and he said the Tascam would be better as it has impedance balanced inputs for guitar and Mike.

My teacher also says he has another student using one of these with no trouble at all. On the other hand the other USB option one of his students has is an M-Audio card which has caused alot of problems because it keeps dropping its drivers so I dont fancy that

Its a bit worrying seeing all these concerns but having looked on the market I think I might go ahead and get it anyhow. It looks like the best for what I need at a reasonable price.

Tom M

PS my friend said he'd choose the DMX because of its EMU chip and because Reason needs aot of computing power. i dont fully understand this concept could someone explain what the EMU chip does and how you can compare various ones??
11
Hum... I just think people who had problems with the US-122 just didn't do it the right way, or really didn't try to do it. Mine worked (I recorded a few sample tracks yeaterday) just after 20 minutes playing with it a little bit. The manual has everything you need to know, and it does have more than 4 pages.

What I got was real little latency, actually, for the human ear it was imperceptible, compared with the direct out of the card itself (using ASIO driver, and Cubase SX on Athlon, very slow, machine)

Please, don't take for granted what you heard from someone else.
12
I ended up getting the Terratec DMX Fire card in the end so far very impressed and no problems at all putting it onto an XP machine.

Tom M
13
At last! Someone who got their 122 working! Please please can you tell us all how you did it? I bought one because all the reviews were very positive but had real problems. Then I discovered that there isn't a single satisfied customer... The shop I bought it from were completely unhelpful even though I was asking to return it and buy a much more expensive card. I have a number of problems:
1/ The mic preamps are not nearly powerful enough. I use a Sure beta 58a. But I can put up with this.
2/ The driver seems to mix very hot so most audio output is permantly either on the edge of or actually clipping. An example of this is some of the Windows warning sounds clip!!! I cannot put up with this.
3/ The mixer is pretty narrow - I can only select "Recording" controls to adjust but actually the only channels available are "Output". I can put up with this.

So, I can record, and the audio quality of the thing in record is fantastic, but way too quiet and I get distorted output.

Since I've had the 122 for too long to change it anyway I'd like to get it working and clearly at least one person has got theirs going successfully.

I use Windows XP on a 3GHz P4 and Cubase VST 5.
14
Hi,

I bought Tascam US-122 about 6 months ago. I use platform PC (Windows Xp,2000,98). I had not absolutely any problem to install the card on my Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz under 98 and Xp (I have both systems on one computer). Also no problems on my IBM ThinkPad notebook with 500 Mhz Celeron, WinXP Czech localization and COMPAQ Presario 700 1,2 Athlon notebook with Win2000.

I used this interface for recording with my band using mix console connected to line inputs. Also I made a record for one czech alternative duet using violins and vocals. I was using Shure PG81 mics powered from Tascam directly. In both cases I used above mentioned COMPAQ notebook to record into. Software used was CollEditPro 2.1 or Cubase SX 1.0.6.78.

I never had any problems with recording, playback, installation or card its self - I simply followed direction in the manual. The records was all about one hour in lenght - no popups or any asynchronicity occured.

The sound recorded is **GREAT**!! It is totaly clean in dynamic range of at least 90 dB on 24 bit. This may be only one disadvantige of this card - the signale to noise ratio what is not as proclamed 99dB but less....

To summary - for price 5200 Kč what is around $235 it is great sound card.

-mayhemer

PS: I hope you will solve your problems to heer what this card can do.
15
My advice would be to take your pc into the shop and try the card out there! If you have no hassles then fine, otherwise you know.

I use an Athlon 1900+ with 768Mb Ram and Windows XP sp2

Apparently the card prefers Intel chips.

I had quite a few hassles but that's settled with the latest drivers from the tascam site. I had problems installing the card, and with having it suddenly cut out, and with latency.

To improve performance, Tascam documetation recommended disabling certain windows features, not using other usb hardware, and not using a network card. I did these things, as well as bought a HD just for recording and performace improved.

The company didn't get certification for the drivers for use with MS Windows, and that's not good really for a sound card IMO.

Anyway, I'm happy now, and the audio quality is very good but it certainly wasn't a plug-and-play install, like you might expect from usb hardware.
16

Quote: My advice would be to take your pc into the shop and try the card out there! If you have no hassles then fine, otherwise you know.

I use an Athlon 1900+ with 768Mb Ram and Windows XP sp2

Apparently the card prefers Intel chips.



Yes, i got similar advice from my retailer. He recommended the TASCAM as soon as i asked for a 'decent soundcard (low cost) for simple home recording'. Apparently, it works just fine if you've got the best suitable Pc config which agrees with this soundcard. So if you've got problems, i'm guessing its cause of your PC config.
17
Hello,

I am new here and I recently bought the TASCAM US-122 for my Compaq Presario 2100 laptop (1.52 GHz, 448 MB of RAM). The TASCAM works and sounds great, however, when I try to record in Cubase SX, the recording seems to "skip" or "cut out" at various moments, as if the program is having trouble catching up with the recording. Although I have been a recording artist for a few years, I've never used laptops and am a bit unsure of the latency problems I may be having. Could I be having trouble because I don't have a USB 2.0 connection? I'm simply using whatever USB outlets the laptop came with originally.

If someone knows what could be the problem, or whether my Cubase settings/latency setting of the TASCAM are the main issues, I would greatly appreciate any feedback!

Thanks in advance!

-V.
18
The US-122 is a USB 1.1 device and the dropouts are a problem with most usb 1 devices. With desktops, the problem can usually be solved by updating the drivers, and by reconfiguring peripherals so that they don't share irq's with the usb controller.

Unfortunately, you have a laptop so reconfiguring will be quite difficult if not impossible. I suggest you update all drivers and bios for your laptop and seek out the latest drivers for the Tascam. Hopefully, that will remedy the problem.

If those still fail, your might want to try out newer firewire audio interfaces as they have bigger bandwidth and faster bus speeds.

hth,
19
Thank you for the info. That probably saved me unnecessary spending. However, I believe I now have a bigger problem on my hands.

Admittedly, the Cubase SX I have is a "Try before you buy." However, as hard as it may be to believe me, I seriously have downloaded it so that I can see the full capabilities for the program before I buy it, rather than a mini-demo that allows you to put in 8 tracks of audio at a time. As an electronic/industrial/orchestral musician, I sometimes have up to 40 tracks of audio at one time and I wanted to see how the Cubase works under such pressures. Now, the problems I may be having are probably due to the program being a rip of the original (from my friend's studio).

However, I do have a fully-functional and legit Cool Edit Pro program, and I've been trying to set up the TASCAM to record through it to no avail. Unlike Cubase, to set up the Device Settings seems to be a little more tricky and I was wondering if anyone has used the us-122 with CEPro. If so, how are your device settings configured?

If the us-122 works perfectly well in CEPro, I'll know that the us-122 CAN work with my computer and record at least in some form.

I know that some people may be frowning upon me for my software stealing, but there is no way that I can fully prove to you that I am a serious musician other than to say: I treat all aspects of the music business seriously, including the purchasing of my products. So, please don't hurt me. :shock:
20

Quote: So, please don't hurt me. :shock:



Hehe. Haven't hurt you yet have I? I trust you'll do the right thing...

But this is a forum where you ask the right questions and you will get the right answers. :D Just keep it clean, dude!
21
Re: message above. Turned out the DVD writer had been set to PIO mode, so thats why the system wasn't coping. The Tascam was a catalyst, but probably nothing wrong with it so I don't shall not blacken the Tascam name. Saying that, their support people still haven't returned any of my three emails. Everything seems a bit more stable now though my modem kept crashing then Realplayer crashed it again, but as long as I can burn and listen to CDs again, I am happy! Fingers crossed -thats it sorted. Thanks for sugestions anywya.
22
Sorry, didn't mean I had Protools- I was just told that the Protools package was better. The US 122 I have came with Cubase LE which is far less exciting, but does the job as far as I can see. I've persuaded a pal to come to have a look at it tonight so will get him to check out the IRQ issue- but saying that I now have an externally powered hub, attached to a PCI card and it still seems to happen whatever port its plugged into . Anyway, thanks for your help. I am just hoping it is something wrong with my PC setup and that TASCAM's aren't just inherently unstable with Windows XP. Will let you know how I get on.
23
I never knew the US-122 came with Protools! IMO, while it's very good, I think you would be losing out a bit using other hardware with Protools. M-Audio soundcards and, of course, Digidesign hardware are the ones recommended for Protools, btw. I'm a Cubase and Sonar user and those software are more than adequate for most.

Although I don't use the US-122, I suspect that the usb port the US-122 is plugged into is sharing an IRQ with the DVD's ide port. You can check this by right clicking on My Computer then clicking on Properties. Open the Device Manager then View > Resources by Connection. There you will see which devices are sharing which irq. It would help if you could give specs of your pc, what O/S and software you're using. Have you tried using a different usb port on your pc? Some folks resort to using a usb pci card interface so they can skirt the irq sharing issues.

Best,
24
I recently bought a US-122 and am happy enough with quality for the type of recording I am doing (acoustic demo type stuff) and certainly for the price. However, I am interested in hearing about other peoples problems and the whole stability issue etc as whenever the unit is plugged it affects my DVD writer/player so if I try to play or burn a disk the whole system crashes/powers down. This, as you can imagine is kind of annoying. The shop I bought the PC from seem unable to get to the bottom of the problem and I have heard nothing back from TASCAM. Anyone had similar issues with it or have any idea what might be causing this? PS Everyone I speak to seems to think I should have paid the extra for Protools.
25
I would suggest checking out the Harmony Central user review before buying a US-122. There are a lot of people who have had the exact same problems that I have....

I bought one a year and 3 days ago. Everything was great right out of the box, loaded the drivers, hooked up the gear, and I was recording in minutes. BTW, I use Sonar Producer Edition 5, so I never messed with the Cubase or whatever it's called...

A few months in and the left channel went bad. No response from Tascam, so I kinda bit my lip and was glad that at least the right channel worked (I tend to only use one at a time anyway).

So yesterday the right channel went bad. So I started digging online for troubleshooting, as Tascam offers squat for support, and found that many people have had the same problems. Channels go bad, and then no support from Tascam. I'm not going to even try, because like I said, I've had it a year and 3 days.... so the warranty expired 3 days ago anyway.

All possible excuses for Tascam aside, no piece of gear should die within a year of very light usage.

Additional lessons:
I bought this on the cheap because I figured with all the controls I have on the desktop that I needed a very minimal piece of gear as the interface. When I replace this POS later today I will buy something with a lot more than just two channels on the interface. Ya never know when you might want to record multiple channels at once (like drums, for example).

I would highly recommend running away from any thoughts of buying this unit.