Excellent Product 
by Aaron from Indianapolis, IN, September 2008
Music Background:  Student/Hobbyist

The US-1641 is an excellent product for the price. I use it to record my 3-piece band and I have had no problems with it yet. We generally record all music at the same time and then go back through and record vocals. One plus about this product is its ability to record all inputs onto separate tracks. Many USB mixers only record the stereo outs. The included Cubase LE works well. I would like to use this interface with Sonar, but have not tried it yet. I would assume that it is compatible, but there is nothing on Tascam's website or in their manual that addresses compatibility. NOTE: it is very important that you update all drivers and firmware prior to using this interface or you may experience problems.

  LOVE IT!!! 
by Rumeal Cunningham from Brooklyn, NY USA, April 2008
Music Background:  Music Producer/ Musician/ Recording & Live Sound Engineer

Just Got it yesterday. Used it at a church to do a Live Recording. Used 10 Channels. I was Blown away. The quality is great. For the Price.... Cant beat it!!! Look forward to buying the Tascam DM-3200.

  Very nice unit 
by Rick from Nashville, TN, January 2008
Music Background:  Pro Musician

I got my music business degree back in the analog days and I never imagined then that a virtual 16 channel studio could be contained in one rack space. I've had this for a couple of months now and looking around at different forums am amazed that more people aren't talking about this! For the price it really is incredible- For about a month of rehearsals now I've been recording 13 channels simultaneously and there have been very few glitches. I did buy a pci usb 2.0 card because it wasn't compatible with the chipset on the motherboard (Nvidia). Other than that it's been pretty straighforward. The preamps have plenty of headroom and seem fairly neutral. My prior interfaces were all Aardvark and this preamp compares favorably, if not better. I don't own any boutique equipment so I don't know how well it would fit in that environment but this is more than adequate for my home studio!

  A step up... 
by D.W. Bird from Fort Wayne, IN USA, January 2008
Music Background:  Recording Engineer, Live Sound, Live and Studio Musician

I am what you would call a "project studio" guy with a background in very technical music production. What I mean by that is that I attended a school and graduated with a degree, yet I can't afford all the nifty little gadgets that would put me in great debt, so trust me when I say that what this package offers for the price is an excellent investment.

First off, I had previously purchased an interface that was about half the price (not mentioning due to the fact that other people have had problems and others not), only to be faced with countless problems with drivers and months of non-recording frustrations. With that said, it was time to get it fixed, or make a step up. I was able to return my product back to Sweetwater after having reviewed my problem with tech support. (Thanks guys!) They understood my issues and were able to get me back to scratch..."in the market for a reliable USB home studio interface, with lots of features, but without breaking the bank".

After reviewing different options in it's price range, the obvious question to me was...what's the catch? There was no catch. Just pure gadet recording pleasure. The minute I opened the package I knew I was in for a world of fun. You can review all the specifications they list for yourself, but trust me, you have enough inputs to record your entire band, or even record other bands without looking like a goof with only 2 inputs! This would be great for the little tasks such as vocal (radio) work, yet is good enough to bring that major studio quality to your home.

If you have experience with Cubase, LE version 4 is also included which is a great value! Make sure your computer's system requirements are up to speed, and after that, ENJOY!

Tascam is a company that is solid as a rock. Always reliable, and always innovative at great values.

  Is it ready for Prime Time? 
by Larry Ludwick from USA, November 2007

Having spent a number of years with the Tascam US-428, I was interested in this new piece of hardware that seemed to greatly extend the same USB Audio functionality.I realized I would be a bit on the cutting edge and will accept a bit of a delay for the new device to adjust to the its place in music production.For the most part, I am very happy with the 1641. It does deliver a great sound on its monitors. Installation was pretty straight forward, well documented and well executed.Now for the quibbles. In a comparison with the old 428 it is a bit of a step down for the instrument and midi ports. 428 had 4 instrument ports and 4 midi ports. 1641 only supports 2 instrument ports (one set of right and left) and 2 midi ports (one set of midi in and out). Of course, the 1461 has many mike ports and 4 unbalanced ports. Well, the 428 was more of a control surface and therefore a bit more like a mixer, while the 1641 seems to assume you are mixing your balanced line inputs from an exterior mixer.A more serious concern might be what software you can use this USB audio interface with. It comes with Cubase 4 LE (installation without the dreaded dongle, but the authorization process seems a bit of a back and forth tangle). With this supplied software and the setup notes in the brief 1641 manual, the setup went well at first. However, the next time I ran the Cusbase 4, the ports were not working properly. When I redid the setup after frustration with the problems, I discovered the setup had not really been saved by Cubase. Several reruns of the application proved that Cubase seemed to forget consistently.I also have Cubase 3 SL on my other music machine. I attempted to install the 1641 on this machine which more than met all the 1641 requirement specs, but had what appeared to be severe latency problems. The truth is I had a USB extender cable I was using that caused the problem. By direct connecting the supplied USB 2 cable to a USB 2 port, the problems went away. This does point out another problem, the supplied USB 2 cable is pretty short so the device really has to be close to your music computer.With Cubase 3 SL, I was not able to setup the device properly because the device setup in SL did not seem to work well with the 1641 driver information passed to the software. I have not looked into this deeply so I can't say if the 1641 will be incompatible. There is really no mention of any other software setup in the 1641 manual other than the supplied Cubase 4 LE. I hope this is just an ommision due to the fact that the 1641 is so new. I would eventually like to use this with Sonar, but certainly would want to use it with my older Cubase 3 SL.So I have to say, there are some very fine things about this device, but I am not sure it will be acceptable for users other than those that want to take a chance on compatibility. The price certainly seems reasonable for what you get hardware wise.

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