Driving me insane. US-2x2 issues

[DethBringa]

First off, forgive my frustration.
Some of what I say will be due to feeling like I have been utterly walked into a complete ripoff. I'm here hoping that I can get some form of help and to prove my feelings about the TASCAM/TEAC brand is wrong.

Let me start by saying support for this unit costs me a long distance call. I already paid more than I budgeted for this unit but on top of that I have to pay for help. So time to rely on the community. In many cases the community is better than the company at helping.

So, the whole audiophile thingy is an area I dont know much about and instead of learning everything I could rely on people in-the-know and thats how I ended up here.
I have always thought that USB audio is a bad choice and its better to stick with onboard audio and 3.5mm jacks as it works without issues. I decided I wanted good mic quality rather than crap and USB seemed what everyone uses or says to use.
Blue yeti VS audio interface. If I'm spending that much I might as well jump in at the deep end. I started asking around and got told to buy one of [enter list of common cheap audio interfaces] but when I went to the local audio store and talked to the guy there he said the extra spend to go with the TASCAM was worth it. Feel like this was just extra commission or something. But I did it anyway.

All the software I got free is useless. I spent ages on the forums for SONAR and gave up. Now all I want is to be able to use this device without having to exit out of everything and unplug and replug it over and over till it works and then load everything back up every time I reboot my PC. Its driving me INSANE.
Its a decent PC so there really is no issue with it being underpowered in any way. How do I fix this? I've tried reinstalling the software/drivers, tried different USB ports.

TLDR:
Start PC, exit everything, unplug TASCAM, plug it back in, test with "recording devices", repeat unplug/replug until it shows input, start other programs. Do this EVERY day.
Mic plugged into IN1 (XLR)
Speakers into lineout 1 and 2 (audio out always works).
Tascam unit plugged into onboard usb (no powered hubs or extra cards in the way).

 

[DethBringa]

Another day of issues. Unplug/replug and open/close everything. 2 days on here so far, starting to think this really was a lemon.

 

[cmaffia]

All those words and you haven't made it clear at all what the problem is but from what I can piece together, this sounds like your OS is the cause, not the device. Maybe do a fresh installation and then install. Hard to recommend any course of action without know what OS, what's installed on it already etc. Most of us use the our PC's only for music. We don't play games on it or clog it up with other things that could create driver conflicts (which I suspect is what's going on). Like I said before, please give a very clear step by step description of the problem. Also give us some hardware/OS information as well as confirm you are using the latest Tascam drivers and firmware on the device. Think rationally for a moment, if this product was so flawed there would be a sea of complaints here similar to yours but that's not the case.

 

[DethBringa]

I did explain but I guess more detail so you actually know what I'm talking about would help rather than giving you a heap of guesswork and expecting you to be a mind reader XD. I'll extend it a little.
I boot up my PC, the mic does not register any input at all. It shows up but there is no sound coming into the system. "Recording devices" shows a levels meter for each device, this is how I check whether there is an input or not. I then need to unplug the USB cable between the PC and the TASCAM unit, then plug it back in and watch the levels meter to see if it is picking up anything yet. Having ANYTHING running can cause issues. Any software or games prevents the mic from working. The audio out always works. i.e. My speakers plugged into the TASCAM unit always output sound from the PC whether the mic is working or not.
My PC is a gaming setup, I explained this to the sales rep but it feels he was only seeing $$$ rather than suggesting the best for my setup.
This does feel like some driver issue as the drivers appear to look like they were designed for windows XP and have probably only had minor fixes. No info on anything at all driver/software wise. I'm running windows 10 pro 64bit.
What I expected was something I could plug and play. It seems that if I want to use SONAR or ABLETON (the bundled software) I must disable all audio for eveything else. If I want to use the mic as a normal mic I must exit everything, unplug it, plug it back in, test to see if it works, repeat until it shows an input in the levels meter, then load up discord so I can talk to people.

What I want seems (to me at least) simple. Boot up PC, load up discord, talk to friends.

 

[cmaffia]

Sounds like you have driver conflicts. My guess is that it's your computer's OS is clogged after years of installations. It's standard practice to have a dedicated machine for music and control it's environment by not using it for everything (especially for gaming). In fact my DAW workstation doesn't even have the network card/internet activated. I'd offer other troubleshooting tips but it sounds like your computer is a mess with a lot of past history on it plus you need a PC that only runs your DAW and associated music programs. Good luck.

 

[DethBringa]

Its been maybe 6 months since last reinstall of windows. I got a 1TB SSD and decided to do a fresh clean install when I put it in. Its odd that everything works fine without any issues except the TASCAM unit. Getting another PC seems a little overkill for a driver issue. I would then have to run my main PC audio into IN2 XLR to mix the audio from both PC's with the mic. Seems like adding more would cause more issues rather than solve them.
Since the purpose of buying this setup wasn't actually for music having a dedicated PC for music isn't the best choice.

The purpose of my setup is:
1) Discord for speaking to people while gaming.
2) making videos for youtube.

Sounding like crap through a webcam mic is ok for discord chat but when every other aspect of my system is top end, I thought my audio should be too.

 

[cmaffia]

Re-read my advice. Not much else I can suggest other than rebuild from scratch and make your first installation be the Tascam interface. Make sure it works and then add each program (game) you want until you find out what breaks it.

 

[soundfriend]

i had the same problem. my solution was to uninstall microsoft redistributables and it starting working like a charm

 

[max_null]

check http://www.tascamforums.com/threads...ixing-driver-playback-device.4288/#post-29378

 

[spantini]

I have a similar problem all the time with my US-2x2. I figured out it's the drivers. I'm on Win 10 recording into Reaper (DAW). When I first installed the interface with it's original driver everything worked great. After a period of time, Tascam updated the driver and that's when it stopped connecting - the updated driver wouldn't work after proper installation.

I uninstalled the updated driver and reinstalled the previous driver V2.10 and all worked perfectly again. I've tried installing each subsequent driver update and none will work, so I reinstall V2.10 and BINGO! it all works again.

To top it all off, every time Windows 10 updates, it bumps the driver off. Have to Repair it in Add Remove Programs.

 

[Eti Lau]

@spantini
Do you run into latency drift with vst instrument and Reaper? Let it sit for a couple of hour and check if the instrument is unplayable with a midi keyboard due to latency.

 

[spantini]

I've never noticed problems with latency, it's been good that way so far. I don't have a MIDI keyboard, just VST plugins - not using plugin keys either, other than to edit drums in the piano roll editor. I'm using VST drums and Amplitube for guitars.