Tascam US-16x08 – USB Audio/MIDI Interface (16 in/8 out)

Product Information

The prospect of combining the functionality of a mixer and an audio interface is an attractive one, for a number of reasons... Universal Audio used to focus on the high-end market with interfaces that boasted both a quality signal flow and also acted as hosts and accelerators for the company’s very well-regarded plugin range. That changed with the Volt range, a set of four units that eschew the plugin hosting in favour of value and more standard features. The more expensive 176 and 276 are reviewed later in this buyer’s guide, but the Volt 1 and 2 offers most of what they deliver bar their extra 1176-style compression. The best news is that the MOTU 16A is around half the price of the Fireface and still provides similar overall quality, similar latency (as long as you use the Thunderbolt connection), and up to 32 simultaneous channels.

Even though this is the last thing I’ll mention, it is the most crucial and cannot be ignored. To connect to your computer, audio interfaces typically have one of three types of ports: USB, Thunderbolt, or Firewire. Love 'em or hate 'em, Behringer make audio interfaces at an affordable price, giving the budding producer the opportunity to kit out their studio on a budget. If the RME Fireface UFX+ were to be described in one word compared to the UFX II, it would be "more."

All units in the range have received physical and technical upgrades, with improved preamps (now up to 56dB gain), balanced connectivity throughout, and the inclusion of Focusrite’s ISA transformer preamp emulation option (Air). On the bus-powered Scarlett 4i4, you get two mic/line/instrument inputs with gain, two line-level TRS inputs, and four TRS outputs.

A strong competitor to the Scarlett 18i20 is the Presonus Studio 1824C. In fact, the two are so similar the decision may come down to whether you like the sound of Xmax preamps over those on the Focusrite Scarlett, or your preference for bundled software. This is why I was surprised to find that a product like the PreSonus ioSTATION 24c existed. It is a combination of a 2 preamp audio interface and the company's own Faderport. Once I read about it more and found that the XMAX preamps were getting a lot of praise from users, I knew I had to get it. Most recording of raw sound is done with a microphone of some sort. The microphone turns physical sound waves into an electrical signal. And that electrical signal is often referred to as analog sound or an analog signal. Many of them include digital input channels to their devices, such as SP/DIF or ADAT in the channel count, even though these would require another piece of hardware acting as an audio interface (EG, some mixers and mic preamps also provide A/D conversion) to allow them to be used. So, a "16 channel audio interface" might only handle 8 analog inputs.These converters will have analog inputs and digital outputs (and vice versa) that you can use to plug in additional microphones and then connect to an audio interface via ADAT (or sometimes other types of connections).

Like every flagship product we’ve introduced, Symphony I/O Mk II benefits from on-going expertise that constitutes the Apogee Engineering Advantage, once again pushing forward the state-of-the-art. Each preamp has an additional "Air" setting that brings in an upper-midrange lift similar to their famed ISA series preamps. This feature was added to this 3rd generation of interfaces from Focusrite, including the 4i4. The XR18 has 16 flexible analog inputs and preamps built in to the device, and serves as a mixer as well as an interface, but the quality is middle of the road. Komplete Audio 2 is a two-input, two-output design with two identical mic/line/instrument inputs. Connections are on space-saving combi XLRs with individual selector switches to select between line and instrument. 48V phantom power, meanwhile, is engaged globally via a single switch. Audient's tagline for the iD44 is "For the Creatives." It is meant to cater to the needs of productive artists.Since we initially recommended this, Tascam has released Version 4.00 of their Settings Panel for Windows software that improves driver stability. The I/O section is placed in the rear with two combo XLR/TRS inputs for the XMAX preamps, Main L/R outs, Headphone Out, Power Button, and USB connection. Bundled Software: Ableton Live Lite, Melodyne Essential, UJAM, Softube Marshall, Plugin Alliance Ampeg, Relab LX480 Essentials You can even hook up Behringer's very own ADA8200 mic preamp unit to the ADAT input of the UMC to create more mic preamps for your recording needs.