What We Like

What We Don't Like

The rugged-looking and durable TASCAM US-2×2 offers reliability and simplicity — two things every DIY recording artists needs. But let’s take a look at its features and performance to see if it’s worth your hard-earned money.

Design

The black design of the TASCAM US-2×2 fits the all-caps name it has — bold and confident. It’s made out of aluminum and its body is angled to allow you to better see its face.

Speaking of the face, it’s not as easy to read as other interfaces in this price range, but once you take a closer look at it, the setup becomes clear. Above each of the input’s gain knobs is a light indicating both signal and peak. There’s an ON/OFF switch for phantom power, and also volume knobs for the line out, headphones, and the master volume.

Buying this interface means you’ll also get Cakewalk’s SONAR X3 LE (for PC users) and Ableton Live Lite 9 (for Mac users). But if you have another DAW that you prefer to use, you may be out of luck (for example, Reaper users have reported compatibility issues).

Features

Having the option to use either an XLR or a quarter-inch input is very convenient, but it’s also a given with interfaces like this one — interfaces without that option are not worth a purchase. And this one does have preamps, which will allow you to record at professional audio levels.

It claims zero latency through the headphones, and it has two TRS line outputs which you can feed to your studio monitors for editing and mixing. It has a built-in DSP mixer, which is a monitor mixer within the DAW that allows you to mix your inputs with your existing tracks for monitoring during tracking.

Overall, the TASCAM’s features don’t provide anything too unique, but the features it does have are all pretty much needed in today’s recording age, like phantom power, XLR/quarter-inch inputs, and preamps.

But let’s talk about one of the most important aspects of a good interface — its performance.

Performance

When it works, the TASCAM gives you good quality audio and stays reliable for you throughout recording.

However, some people have said the settings for the interface are confusing, saying it needs to be set up exactly right or it will not work. Also, multiple users have reported issues with installing the necessary drivers, which sometimes crash the computer being used.

Despite boasting “zero latency,” some users still experience delay when playing virtual instruments, making it difficult to hit the right notes on time.

For the most part, however, users have found this to be a great little device for simple recordings.

The Rumble:

For the price point of the TASCAM US-2×2, you get a decent deal. It’s an audio interface that gets the job done, stands up to bumps and bruises, and gives you top-notch audio quality compared to its competitors.