US-2x2 high latency

[Dr. Pokerian]

Hello there,
I recently bought TASCAM US-2x2 primarily with vsti live performance in mind. I play software synths on stage and I wanted a solid audio interface to take with me on gigs. I use REAPER with SWS extensions as a host. I like US2x2's pristine sound quality.

Unfortunately, the lowest latency I can obtain without risking glitches is 15 ms while using a buffer size of 256 samples. I tested the US-2x2 on as well on desktop PC as on laptop, which is quite powerfull. 15 ms on both, which is unacceptable during gigs.

With my other audio interfaces: Roland Quad-Track and Alesis IO2 Express I can obtain a latency of about 7-8 ms without a problem.

Please tell me, is my US2x2 defective? Or is it a normal latency for that piece of gear? Can I do something to decrease latency to level obtainable with my other interfaces?
I am considering sending it back and getting another interface which would offer me smaller latency.
Best regards & thanks!

 

[StFual]

I have the same issue. I use a US2x2 with propellerhead reason 24 bit and 44.1 and it glitches at anything below 512 samples and usually i leave it on 1024. Thats on a 3.5Ghz quad core machine. I dont use it live but it does seem like low end performance for a unit that wasnt cheap to buy. Also have to wind up the gain to max to get an response from my SM58 mic. Guitar is fine.

 

[xtech]

I have the same issue, unfortunately. This is a nightmare, and a serious blow on the company reputation. I have a US-2000 working good and i trusted Tascam in buying the US-2x2.

I have the latest firmware and drivers installed, on Windows 7 64 bit, and the latency is so high that it just renders the interface useless.

I have sent an email to Tascam, and got no answer. I do have a fairly potent Desktop PC, 24GB RAM, SSD Raid 0 Disk, and an Opteron Dual CPU with 32 cores total, so i rule out slow computer.

I find that "normal recording" with no effects is acceptable but when you use effects, VST's or emulation software (revalver, or sampletank, etc) the CPU use mettering goes crazy (but if i look at the system task manager CPU usage is very low).

As i suspect the drivers are very poorly written (and they are - sorry Tascam staff but it is true, but keep reading to find why i'm telling this), i tried the Asio4All driver. Guess what? I could use Revalver decently for the first time! So the Asio4All drivers are much better than the Tascam ones.

Other thing: i have a midi keyboard (Novation Impulse 61) which i plug into computer USB. With Tascam Drivers, it is impossible to use Sampletank. Too much latency, if i reduce the number of samples anything less than 2048 i just get noise, noise and more noise. If i use the Asio4All driver i can get it almost playable, but still noise at 256 samples. Now the suprise: if i plug off Tascam US2x2 and use the onboard laptop sound card with Asio4All (my laptop is very very cheap and basic..) a use it FINE at 256 samples, incredibly!

It is not normal a dedicated sound interface being much worse than a computer onboard soundcard. There are comparable interfaces to US2x2 that have very low latency. Being a "small" audio interface is no excuse for such a poor perfomance. I feel like being robbed: tascam announced an interface that would work "normally" but reality shows the converse. My money worked good for Tascam, but i got an interface that doesn't. What a shame for tascam!

Conclusion i have to extract:

Tascam US2x2 Driver Sucks. They need to put some serious work on them, because they are damaging company reputation.

It would be good other people also send them emails to put pressure on them to upgrade it, otherwise we were robbed.