Tascam US-144 problems with ableton live and in general
I have about given up with this audio interface. it has NEVER worked the way it's supposed to. Clicking Popping and straighth up just stopping playing audio during regular use of any software whether it be winamp, windows media player, Ableton or Reason. In Reason everything is in sync the drop outs still occur but atleast it is synced. In Ableton there's no hope this card refuses to have anything but the worst latency problems imagineable. I have read a few strings on this board of people having the same problem. If anyone knows of any fixes at all please let me know. Thank you.
Computers & Internet - Tascam - US-144 Sound Card
Answers & Comments
This interface gets bashed because the same people who buy this also have slow cheap computers. USB is THE WORST bus for recording or playing back audio - so ANY usb device has this against it. I experienced problems also with the Tascam us-144...at first. But I'm a systems analyst and so I did just that. It's hooked to a P4 3.0Ghz, 2GB ram, 7200 WD drive using Cubase SX3. I tried everything but the highest latency setting in the Tascam control panel. I had XP performance set to "background service" I disabled my wireless connection. Mostly okay but still the occasional pop and it would definitely glitch recording and playback.
If I even opened task manager or changed window sizes on task manager, glitch.
So, I installed the asio4all driver. NO MORE PROBLEMS! I could surf the net, open any windows, no glitches at all! But I suspected that what asio4all did was to up the buffers and latency a bit. It did...but just a bit. The real problem with the us-144 is its control panel is very crude and only offers a few latency settings. I didn't want an extra layer of asio4all, so I switched back to tascam-us144 driver and noticed in Cubase the input latency was set to something ultra low: sub 10ms. I used the tascam us-144 control panel to up it to highest. This translated into a 12ms input time.The output was at 73ms but I went into Cubase "device setup" and under VST Audio Bay there are some latency check boxes. I re-checked the "lower latency" and got it to 61ms output latency.
So now, with only the tascam driver - I have perfect recording and playback that I can't make pop or stutter no matter what I do. With asio4all, and the reason I switched away from it, was that I couldn't record or play Youtube while cubase was running, unless I selected "release asio driver" but this only allowed the topmost window app to play sound and shut down cubase sound, so that's worthless to me.
Now I can record youtube, play youtube, all while cubase is playing or recording, using the tascam 1.2 driver. The Tascam would be a GREAT budget interface if it gave the user more control in its control panel. If you want a far superior interface and driver - everything EMU makes is excellent. I have the 1820M which uses Patchmix software/driver - SOO MUCH CONTROL over EVERYTYHING!! It reminds me of the KXdriver project except more polished. I was just about to buy the EMU 0404 pci or USB but then I got the Tascam working. Tascam seems geared toward the musician who doesn't want to learn something like Patchmix even if it gives lots of advantages. Tascam is the dumbed down mac of interfaces - EMU is the Space Shuttle of interfaces. The tascam labeling latency settings "low, high, higher, highest" is dispicable. Give me some numbers, give me control over input/output buffers like the M-Audio 1010lt does. I'm not a child. Any of the other cards I've mentioend would be better - primarily because they give you better control panels. Calling what Tascam provides a control panel is a bit of a stretch.
Love,
Muzicul