USB Soundcard Shootout

Hey sports fans,

A friend of mine just sent me an email, asking me about my home studio setup, and for advice about which would be the best USB soundcard to go for, for home recordings and practice.

Now I hasten to add, for those of you who are new to the home-studio malarkey, or who are bulding or revamping their old rig, that a good soundcard, although necessary, is but one very small link in a long chain of stuff that you'll need to get your recordings set up on your hard drive. Indeed, I don't use a USB soundcard at all. I use a basic ASIO audio soundcard with an old Tascam desk routed into the stereo input (the desk also handles the monitor mix). It's not the most elegant of solutions, however it does have the advantage of totally avoiding the monitoring latency issue.

As much as I was an early adopter of digital recording technology (I was already bouncing down tape mixes to HDD for mastering in the mid-nineties), one philosophy I've tried to stick to as much as possible is to keep as much of my signal chain as hardware as possible. This has its drawbacks (noise, extra space etc.), but it has the crucial advantage of keeping the processes, for lack of a better term, "real". When you put a mic into a hardware mic preamp, you're using actual circuits to treat the signal, it's being warmed by actual valves, when you boost the low-end or add a touch of compression, that's really happening. When you use a plug-in, you're employing a lot of background processes that bear very little resemblance to the functions they're supposed to emulate. We could argue for days about the resulting sound quality, but I prefer to just point out that the best-sounding recordings of all time were all done with analogue gear. That's why all of my signals are routed, balanced and EQd through analogue machinery before they're even slightly digitised.

That being said, since we're here to compare some USB interfaces, let's get to it.

The first item is a Tascam US-122mkII

Two XLR inputs with phantom power, two 1/4" jack inputs (one balanced, one not), MIDI throughput, USB-powered, distinct phones (jack)/monitor (RCA) mix, stereo input gains, that's your lot. It has a smallish footprint and will suit the large majority of uncomplicated home-studio applications. They also chuck in Cubase LE4 with it. I don't use Cubase and never will, because I find their layouts and processes completely arse-backwards, but some people swear by it. Go figure. Either way this piece of kit isn't tied to it, so you can use whatever DAW you feel like. The Tascam retails for about £100.

The next one is the E-MU 0404 USB.

This one boasts largely the same functionality as the Tascam, with the differences that the XLR/jack inputs are combined here, the monitor outs are 1/4" jacks, and there's a shedload of S/PDIF and optical functionality on tap. Now say what you like about these cards and how they're used, but I put it to you that very few if any of the people who use a budget USB interface ever employ S/PDIF or optical connectivity. The cards are built for people to jack a mic or guitar or MIDI keyboard and a set of monitors into their PC in under five minutes. That's what they're for, and that's why the Tascam doesn't bother with extra bells & whistles that are only of any real interest to people who are going to spend a little more than £150 on an interface. I should also mention the visual metering available for the inputs - which is totally pointless, seeing as you'rer going to be visually monitoring your input gain on your PC screen. And finally, this card isn't even bus-powered, which significantly reduces its portability.

The third item is the Cakewalk UA-1G

This is your bare-bones option, for little over £75. No XLR, no MIDI, just a jack input and an input gain dial. You can also connect another desk via a stereo RCA input, and next to that your monitors are connected via another RCA connection. This card turn the tables on the E-MU in that instead of adding pointless functionality, it subtracts useful functionality. Simply put, this card is only of use to a guitar player who works on a laptop with a decent piece of amp modelling software. As soon as you take the XLR mic connectivity out of the equation, you've reduced what could be a serious and useful home-studio tool to the level of practice gadget. It's even funnier because they've given you RCA connections so you can plug your desk into it - but if you've got a desk, what's the point of the card?

The verdict, in case you hadn't guessed, is that the Tascam is the most serious option here. It's a reasonable price for the product, and it does pretty much all you need. If I worked on a laptop and absolutely had to have one of these cards, this would be the one I'd go for.

There is of course a fourth option. A basic soundcard with ASIO functionality goes for around £30 or less. You can get a good 4-track desk off eBay for the same again. Hook the two up and you have a better, more versatile solution that any of these cards propose - most likely with better preamps and some form of EQ. It's what I've been doing for ten years. I've tried many USB solutions and none of them offer sufficient functionality at a sufficiently attractive design and price point to make it worthwhile.

An additonal aside -
I just reread my friend's email, in which he points out that he's using a Macbook. Macbooks, as you may be aware, have only one audio jack input, which also serves as the audio jack output. I won't dwell on why this design is moronic, but I will say that this is yet another item on the long, boring list of how Apple chooses to make their products incompatible with pretty much anything that isn't pointlessly expensive and over-designed. As a result of this, my friend is essentially bound to use the USB port if he wants to produce recordings.

So my recommendation to him is this:

The Lexicon Ionix U22

The same price as the E-MU, it substitutes useless S/PDIF crap for better mic preamps. It also ships with not only Cubase LE but also EZDrummer Lite, one of the best virtual drum packages available, and the Lexicon Pantheon II reverb kit. 2 XLR/Hi-Z 1/4" combi-inputs, MIDI I/O, zero-latency monitoring and 1/4" TRS monitor outputs. This is the best for the money on the market, and has the additional advantage of not looking like a cheap gadget. It's not bus-powered, but that's a compromise worth making. If I were to start using USB interfaces, this would be the one I'd pick.

Max