NAMM 2021 Booth Report: Tascam

This year Tascam  are championing their US-HR series of interfaces which are some very sleek looking units. I’m a big fan of the black and red colour combo they’ve gone with. This is a stark difference to the previous version of the US interfaces which sported a more conservative colour scheme of silver and black. 

Not only have they updated the colours but they’ve tinkered under the hood as well. A loopback function (which allows audio to be routed internally without a third-party app) and OBS support makes this interface ideal for any kind of streaming. The US-HRs are armed with Tascam’s Ultra HDDA preamps which are the same preamps found on their Model series of mixers. 

Tascam released a firmware update which coincided with the release of the new US-HR series. This update allows all Tascam interfaces to record with a minimum buffer size of 4 samples. This is a huge boon for all Tascam users as they now have access to near zero latency recording. Not bad! 

Alongside the US-HR series Tascam have decided to bring their range of Portastudios back in to limelight with a presentation on the range this weekend. This make perfect sense – they may not be a new product however the history of these recorders is about as rich as you can get in the audio world. When the first Portastudio was released back in 1979 it made recording accessible to everyone, not just music studios.  

There’s been many iterations of the Portastudio over the years, from tape to CD, to where we are now with SD and USB recording. Ranging from 6 track to 32 track recorders with features like multitrack recording, effects and multiband mastering tools the Portastudio family is as relevant today as it was when it was first released 42 years ago.