Behringer U Control UCA202 USB Audio Interface Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This thing is great. I needed to bypass my crappy soundcard on my PC in order to record high quality stereo audio onto my computer for a podcast. I had just shelled out $80 for the Inport Deluxe package from Xitel, which is basically a little analog-audio-to-USB adapter box similar to this, with a long audio cable and some bad software thrown in to justify the steep pricetag. Luckily I saved the receipt on the Inport and was able to take it back after discovering this item, which you can find for about $30 all over the internet.
The UCA202 has a headphone jack with a volume control so you can monitor what's being recorded to your computer, as you record it. Just be aware that you won't be able to listen to the playback from your audio recording software through your computer's monitor speakers unless you unplug this device from your USB port first, and there is no warning about this in the manual, which is why the 4 star review instead of 5. On some review sites there seemed to be confusion about what drivers were required to work with this device, but the first page of the manual states clearly that you don't need any drivers. I am running Windows XP and was able to just plug and play, no drivers needed, audio is loud and clear. By the way this is not a paid endorsement or anything, I just wanted to spare someone else a lot of the research time that I spent by saying, go ahead and get it.
Oh and of course you do need a good audio recording software like ProTools, Sound Forge, or Cubase to do a decent job of recording audio on your computer and letting you edit it and manipulate it with professional sounding results. If you are recording audio from a turntable (digitizing your LP collection) don't forget that you need some sort of preamp or tuner amp between the phonograph and this device. The output straight out of your turntable is too weak a signal to drive this device.
A grateful shout-out and mad props for this device go the Germans at Behringer, who designed it.

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PreSonus FaderPort USB Automation Controller Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)If you're looking to get away from mixing with your mouse and are looking to spend as little as possible... there are two big choices. PreSonus Faderport ($150) and Frontier Design Alphatrack ($200).
Faderport - PROS: PreSonus put most of their money into the fader... it's an alps fader used in many higher end consoles.
Nothing fancy. It is intuitive and to the point, but still has what I want and need... a good fader and transport control.
Easy to install.
Small.
CONS: Wall-wart. It is bus powered, but you need the AC adapter for fader automation.
You can only automate volume and pan. (protools user's! If you have a track selected with the faderport with pan automation, protools will lock to the pan control of the faderport and will not play back the written automation until you switch to another track. This is a known issue that PreSonus says they are working on for an upcoming firmware update.)
Alphatrack - PROS: Controls; volume, pan, EQ, plugins, and automation.
3 encoders instead of 1.
Jog and shuttle strip... (this is really cool.)
Bus powered.
LED screen with track/eq/plugin info.
CONS: NOT Intuitive... It took the guy at G***Center over 30 minutes just to get it to do anything. And after another 30 minutes could only get the fader, pan and transport controls to work. (I never did get to automate any plugins with it.)
The fader was sluggish and when it played back the automation in kinda shook and was loud. (check out youtube.com "faderport vs alphatrack" and see a side by side comparison.)
The LED screen was hard to navigate through and the user programmable controls (which only work with native software, not HUI emulation) are labeled F1- F8 which may take a while to remember.
Slightly bigger then faderport.
OVERALL: I went with the faderport. While there are a few quirky things I've had to deal with (in protools, so far it has worked great with sonar) it's still straight forward, serves its purpose and does what I need it to do. It gives me the ability to feel and touch a mix. The transport controls alone make it a great asset, not having to reach for the mouse every time I want to arm, mute, solo or record a track. As for the alphatrack, the fader on it alone was enough for me to steer clear. But, the fact that it was a fight to get it to work at all (and never saw it fully functioning) put me over the edge... I fight with enough stuff to keep everything running.



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The FaderPort puts the feel, vibe, and efficiency back into music recording and production. No more clicking through menus and drawing automation edits with a mouse. The easy-to-use FaderPort delivers complete transport control for fast and efficient recording along with ultra high quality, touch sensitive motorized fader for writing fades and automation.The touch-sensitive, long throw motorized fader on the FaderPort has the feel needed for recording perfect fades and writing volume, mute and pan automation in real-time. Solo and record enable can also be easily controlled with the FaderPort along with window selection, play, stop, record, and managing markers (locate points) for fast and easy recording. A foot switch jack is also included on the FaderPort for hands free punch-in/out recording. The FaderPort works with all Mac or Windows-based recording software including Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic and more.

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Tascam US-144 USB 2.0 Audio and MIDI Interface Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I absolutely love this product for portable recording. I have a Dell notebook computer and have used this to record solo piano and my music lessons. The microphone pre-amps are pretty decent. I have used the mic preamps directly and have compared them with the same mics used through Grace One preamps. Surprisingly decent in comparison. The recordings of piano compared to a setup with a MOTU 828 MKII and Grace One's was really pretty good. I absolutely loved the large controls for gain on the top of the unit. Very easy to manipulate and more solid than other competitive product cheap knobs. The fact that this unit is USB 2 means that the recording quality can be far superior than USB 1.1 units that are going to limit whether you can do high quality recordings on multiple channels. The midi interface works great also in Acid and Sonar. The unit definitely will cause your laptop battery to drain faster if you are using mic inputs with phantom power but that is fine by me for the great functionality. Line in works fine but if I had any minor complaint it would be that it would be nice to have an effects insert interface. Obviously, this should not be a problem for line-in devices but is more of an issue for mic recording where you might want some outboard vocal processing. The headphone interface is good and I like the ability to use a mix between the computer and the external source into the headphones.

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