TASCAM US-366 4-In/6-Out or 6-In/4-Out USB Audio Interface

UPDATE: This device is now compatible with OS-X Mavericks.This interface uses a combination of Apple's core audio drivers with it's own "Mixer Panel" app that lets you control the internal DSP mixer & effects controls. There is a handy button on the US-366 that instantly pops open the Mixer App so you can control the interface mixer & effects. While the core audio support ensures compatibility with most audio recording software... The US-366 will be dependent on Tascam to supply updates to the Mixer Panel app for compatibility with future operating systems. If for some reason in the future... the current version of the mixer app becomes unstable on a new OS version... You will be dependent on Tascam to supply an updated app to operate this interface. (This was a concern for over 6 months while Tascam was not able to provide a compatible update for OS-X Mavericks.) I should also say that you could set up the DSP mixer to pass a signal and just never change it. This would eliminate the dependence on the Mixer Panel app. You would still be able to control the basic functions like sample rate & bit depth using core audio controls.This brings me to the next subject... Setting up the sample rates & bit depth. I was not entirely clear from reading the supplied documentation about how to actually change the sample rate & bit depth settings for this device at first. While the supplied Mixer Panel app does display the bit depth and sample rate... It does NOT let you change these settings. Some audio recording applications (Including the free Cubase 6 app supplied with the unit) let you control these settings. Many other common recording apps (Like Audacity, Final Cut...) do NOT send core audio commands to change the bit depth or sample rate. It's not clear at first how you would use this interface with applications like Final Cut pro or Audacity. There are no settings that appear in the system sound control panel as one might expect. For example: I have some 48kHz and 96kHz AIFF files in my iTunes library. iTunes & core audio will not command the US-366 to play a file at it's native sample rate. You have to set the sample rate on the US-366 manually to match or core audio resamples your music to match whatever setting the US-366 happens to be set at.. Fortunately Apple DOES supply a utility called "Audio Midi Setup.app" located un the Utilities folder in your Applications folder. Using Apple's supplied Audio Midi Setup.app you CAN control the bit depth and sample rate of the US-366. For users of higher end audio editing software like Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Wavelab, Cubase or DSP-Quatro... Most have controls within the app that directly controls the sample rate and bit depth settings.So how does it sound? Short answer: Darn good! (Waaaay better than the older 144.) Compared to my $1,975. Sound Devices 702... It's very similar quality sound. (The fact that I am even mentioning "Sound Devices" in the same sentence with a Tascam product is saying a lot.) These mic preamps are very clean and seem to have plenty of quiet gain to work well with most mics... Including dynamic microphones like an EV RE50. These mic preamps also seem to have great bandwidth & headroom. The sound is detailed and clean. Tascam's effort to use a discrete preamp design actually does seem to improve the sound quality significantly. The analog inputs do have analog "trim" knobs to match your levels.I should also mention that the headphone amp is pretty darn nice too. Many of these inexpensive interfaces skimp on the headphone amp. The headphone amp in this 366 is reasonably quiet and provides enough output to drive most headphones to an adequate level without adding too much noise. The only feature here that I wish Tascam included would be a headphone amp clipping indicator. The Sound Devices recorders have a little led that tells you when you pushed the headphone amp into clipping. It's very a useful feature that I wish Tascam had included.Now for the downside... Tragically, Tascam did NOT include a hardware limiter in this US-366. While the 366 does include a DSP compressor/limiter function... This DSP limiter does nothing to prevent the mic preamp from clipping. If the preamp clips... the audio damage is done. The DSP limiter cannot prevent the input from clipping because the signal has already been through the ADC with the clipped signal. (The audio damage was done before it was converted to digital.) So... You will have to watch the analog input levels closely to avoid clipping.I did notice a few odd issues with this US-366 DSP mixer as well. You have to make sure that you set the "mode" switch on the bottom of the unit to the "multi-track" position or the monitor mix knob will not function. In stereo mix mode the monitor mix is disabled. Another issue with the DSP mixer... When you "Link" two channels as a stereo pair the output to the mater buss seems to be attenuated by about 3-4 dB. If you spit the channels and pan them left & right the levels track properly. Why would linking the channels as a stereo pair attenuate the signal more than a split pair with the pan set left & right? This is a DSP digital mixer. There should be NO LOSS of signal between the input buss and the master output. (Linked or not linked.)Ultimately... I think this is a very nice audio interface for the price. The basic preamp electronics are clean and detailed. If you manage your trim settings correctly... You will get excellent sound quality. A hardware limiter would have been helpful... But many high end interfaces do not have hardware limiters either...The DSP mixer features might be useful for some users who want to mix a mic with a digital source such as a audio recorder with a toslink output. In my opinion... The other DSP effects & features are of limited practical use. I can see how a musician might want to add a touch of EQ or reverb to a mic... But why would you want to add reverb at the input stage vs applying reverb to the track in your recording software? If you record the unaltered digital signal to your audio recording application you can play with EQ and reverb non-disructively in post. Why add effects at the input stage where you can't alter them after they are recorded?I would have preferred that Tascam left out the DSP bells & whistles and included a good hardware limiter for the analog input stage. A clip indicator for the headphone amp would also have been helpful.I hope this information has been helpful to people looking for advise about this new interface. I will try to update this review as I learn more.

I have been tearing out my hair for the past week or so due to a recurring (and seemingly random) buildup of buzzing and distortion on the US-366, used on a Macbook Pro. First I tried to use Pro Tools, then hoped the simplicity of Garage Band might do the trick (not having to create aggregate audio sources, etc.). But the problems repeated on Garage Band. Most recently I tried upgrading to the most recent version of the Yosemite OS, all without success. While recording (or waiting to record), a light buzzing/crackle would begin on the recording channel that would gradually grow in volume, distorting every sound going through the microphone, to a constant buzz of distortion that rendered the track useless.After maybe ten days of this, and on the verge of getting rid of my US-366 and giving up, I tried something this morning that seems to have worked. I can't guarantee universal success, but I was able to record the rest of today without any distortion problems. Here is what I did.I haven't yet tried this solution with Pro Tools, but in Garage Band, I went to "Preferences" and "Audio/MIDI". I selected "Built in Output" for the output device, and "US-366 (Bit Accurate)" for the input device. Prior to that, I HAD ONLY EVER SELECTED "US-366 (Core Audio)" for the Input Device -- both in Garage Band AND Pro Tools -- per all of the setup screen shots I had been referencing. I also went into Utilities/Audio MIDI Setup and selected the "US-366 (Bit Accurate)" option there (instead of US-366 Core Audio). Ever since I selected "Bit Accurate" for the input device rather than "Core Audio" it has worked fine-- none of that distortion buildup. Admittedly it has only been a day, but this is the first time I'd gotten it to work at all. One more note: I made the Mac "sleep" at one point during recording, and when I woke it up and tried to resume recording the buzzing/distortion came back (even with the Bit Accurate option selected!) But I restarted the computer and after that point it has been problem-free. I hope this helps some people avoid the frustrations I have had.As I said it has only been a day without problems, but with the unit (apparently) working I am happy with the result, thus the four stars. But there seems to be widespread problems for users of USB-based Digital Audio Converter (DAC) units when plugged into Macs; the US-366 is just another one of those products. Hopefully my problems have been solved. I will update this review if problems reoccur.

This is stable and works well sound unit. The driver has a great quick start button to see all operations. My only complaint it that the MIDI ports were removed from the earlier version but as I needed a small desk top unit this was well worth the price.

The unit is smaller than I expected but this was certainly not a problem. It is also very light compared to the tascam us 122. The unit sounds great and is extremely quiet. I use it as my audio interface for for guitar and am impressed with the sound and on board effects

This is a great Interface. There is a lot of value packed into this unit and it's well worth the price.Firstly, I need to respond to the other reviewer. There is a power indicator light if connected to USB (). It's blue. There is no power switch but that's pretty standard. I would like there to be one but only because of the way windows deals with audio drivers when put to sleep. You simply need to unplug and re-plug this in if you put your computer to sleep. It's annoying but not the US-366's fault.All the hardware features of this interface work flawlessly but there are two things to note: you cannot use all the built-in effects (compressor, EQ, de-esser, reverb, etc...) all at once. At 24/192 you can't use any and at 24/96 you can only choose one. I use the compressor and it works great. This isn't surprising because you're not buying a $1000 or $10,000 unit.The other thing that I wish I knew prior to buying is that the RCA outputs are line-level and do not have a volume control. So running an RCA subwoofer with two XLR monitors is not possible without am XLR Y-Splitter (or two). Looking at all other interfaces, this seems to be standard and corresponds to the philosophy of use. It's better for chaining hardware together but kind of sucks for listening.I want to mention something that isn't often noted in audio interface reviews: the drivers. The software has proven to be rock-solid ever since the initial install. The installer itself crashed once it was done but since then I've had no hiccups or issues with them. Stability is very very important so hats-off to Tascam for not releasing bad software.Ergonomics are great as long as you want front ports. I find that having front inputs are great for getting work done, but they do cause some desk clutter; 6 of 1, half dozen of the other. The best part of the design is the volume knob (which moves freely and linearly) and the mixer button. The latter will launch the well-designed and attractive mixer and effects console which really gives this machine an edge over its competitors. I use this all the time when recording, playing, and gaming. It's far more handy than I would have ever anticipated.Finally, this has Coax, Optical, RCA, XLR, TRS, and USB inputs. It also has RCA, Optical, Coax, TRS outputs with software, switches, and knobs to control it at will. There are no competitors offering all this for the price. It also comes with Cubase LE6 if that matters to you.

l'US-366 est un très bon produit que j'utilise maintenant depuis plusieurs mois. Il dispose de très nombreuses interfaces analogiques (ligne et micro) et numériques en entrée et en sortie. Je voulais l'utiliser comme carte d'entrée pour numériser des vinyles et cela marche parfaitement bien. Je voulais aussi pouvoir enregistrer des flux audio de mon PC (enregistrement de musique en streaming par exemple) sans passer par une conversion analogique et ceci est possible grâce à une fonction de rebouclage entrée/sortie sur le port USB. L'alimentation par le port USB est vraiment très pratique et évite d'avoir un adaptateur secteur supplémentaire.Le driver dispose d'une interface avec un mixeur numérique pas toujours très intuitif et des effets numériques de qualité moyenne (raisons pour lesquelles je retire une étoile). Testé sur PC, les premières versions du driver que j'utilisais provoquaient des décrochement, ce n'est plus le cas avec les dernières versions.La fréquence d'échantillonnage maximale est de 192 kHz mais celle-ci doit être modifiée manuellement avec l'interface du driver (pas de changement automatique en fonction du flux de l'application). La résolution maximale est de 24 bits mais il faut noter qu'il n'est pas possible de forcer la résolution à 16 bits.J'ai fait de nombreuses recherches sur Internet avant d'acheter ce produit et il n'a pas d'équivalent à ma connaissance.

I wasn't happy with the recording quality. Somehow I did not manage to create an exact copy of the input audio. It sounded like there is more in the higher frequency range and not the way the input sounded. I tried both the analogue and Toslink in. Had to return it.