Ok, I am a drummer who is looking to put together a budget home studio. I have been looking and from what I can see the Tascam US-1800 will provide me with all the options I need..as long as I can get it to work with me computer system.
I have 2 different computers I can use for this, and I need some help figuring out if either of them will work. I have a laptop, Dell Inspirion 1501, it has Windows Vista Basic (32bit I believe), and 1gb of ram. Not sure of the processor on this one. The other computer I have is my PC, Dell Dimension E510 which I have upgraded to 4gb of ram and running Windows XP Media Center Edition. Processor is an Intel Pentium D CPU 2.80GHz.
I have been researching and see that tons of people are having problems with this, can anyone tell me if either one of my computers will work correctly with the Tascam US-1800, or which one would be better? Any help will be greatly appreciated.
FYI. I am very new at this so if you respond please remember that I am new and do not know all the acronyms and abbreviations that most of you know.
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You'll not find many Tascam fans here. What's your budget? You c
You'll not find many Tascam fans here. What's your budget? You could get a [="http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/PreSonus-FP10-10x10-FireWire-Interface-Firepod?sku=242036"]Presonus FP10[/]="http://pro-audio.mu…"]Presonus FP10[/] for under $400. This also means you will need a Texas Instruments based Firwire Card.
The FP10 is not without it's issues.
Mackie have the [[url=http://="http://pro-audio.mu…"]Blackbird[/]="http://pro-audio.mu…"]Blackbird[/]. Also not a flawless machine but none of them are. Mackie's Preamps are some of the better ones included in an audio interface. More money and you start to get into the RME FireFace and the like.
Unfortunately, you are not starting from a very good place. Yo
Unfortunately, you are not starting from a very good place.
Your two computers are both flawed in different ways. The Dell 1501 laptop probably has a 1.8GHz AMD Sempron processor and shared screen memory. It's a slow system and is about as far away from a being a good audio laptop as you could get. On the other hand, you report that your Dell Dimension PC has the Windows XP Media Center operating sytem, which does not support add-in audio device drivers and so will not run usefully with an exernal interface.
The Tascam US-1800 interface looks good on paper, but the looks are unfortunately not matched by reality. Drummers particularly need pre-amps with good transient repsonse and a lot of headroom, both of which the US-1800 has in the mediocre category. I'm also suspicious of a high channel-count interface connected via USB.
I'm sorry to sound negative, but unless you get things right at this stage, you will have spent considerable money and still not have a workable system. Hueseph made the good suggestion of a TI-equipped PCI FireWire card, which would open your world to the range of FireWire interfaces, but first you would have to consider what computer to run it all on.
Hey there Nick. I think you would be best off with using the PC.
Hey there Nick. I think you would be best off with using the PC. I have messed with the 1641 on my Vista Vaio and it was finicky at best. Gave up quickly though. I don't see any reason why the 1800 wouldn't work for you there. I run huge projects with my PC and 1641 with no problems whatsoever. I have a $400 HP slimline with AMD Athlon dual processor and 3gb of ram. It didn't even have USB 2.0. I had to buy a PCIe slimline USB 2.0 card for $16 and have never had a dropout. Ever.
I would totally recommend the 1800. Especially for a drummer. We like this interface. :)
Jimmy