Tascam Us 1641

BloodyFingers · Post by **BloodyFingers** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 12:44 am

If you have Nvidia Chips on your motherboard driving your usb ports this unit will not work correctly. Something which there is no one telling you this till you read the manual. The fix for this is getting yourself a pci usb 2.0 card. I bought a Belkin and now this thing works great. I recorded 8 tracks at once and my cpu was only into it 1%. A previous session using 16 tracks playing back used 25%. Plugins were using most of that.

No one out there probily gives a poop about what I sed, but if your looking for something to record with and want more tracks than 4, it's a good buy.

I did have alot of trouble installing the drivers, but that could have been the OB USB.

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 5:18 pm

reader reviews scared me away from this unit. that and the fact that it did not have the xlr / 1/4" combo inputs. I have always liked tascam stuff; but the last things I have bought from them had no resale value once I was done with them. Do u like the preamps?

BloodyFingers · Post by **BloodyFingers** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:12 pm

I like the unit. I have only been playing around with it. The pres seem to work fine for me. I was ready to send it back at one point after I first got it, but once I put the Belkin usb 2.0 card in my computer this thing just came to life. The sound i'm getting from it is just great and dollar for dollar you can't beat it. The only thing is the LT versoin of Cubase sucks that came with it. But i'm a Cakewalk person anyway. The Tascam intergrated with it with no problems. The Usb connection is running at 480 mbs which is faster than firewire 400...which is only rated at 400 mbs. If you would like to check it out leave me a pm and you can come over and check it out. I feel that alot of the problems people were having out there was the Nvidia chips. If you don't know about this you would think this tyhing is a peice of junk !!. Motu had a simalar problem. The motu needed Intel chips to preform properly a few years ago. I don't know if they resolved that issue or not. (that was the motu's that came with a pci card)

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:23 pm

I actually bought 2 firestudios and daisychained them. that was new for Presonus I think in November. they kept saying it was possible; but they hadnt even released the drivers. LOL

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:49 pm

Killjingle wrote:I actually bought 2 firestudios and daisychained them. that was new for Presonus I think in November. they kept saying it was possible; but they hadnt even released the drivers. LOL

Do you have to have a pretty robust computer for that? I'd love to have a Firestudio... I've never used one, but all the Presonus stuff I've ever used was pretty nice. My band can record live with just 8 tracks, but I'd rather have a capability of 16, for overdubs, ambience mics, etc. I don't really need or want something that does 48 tracks wide-open, and the Firestudio is in my price range.--->JMS

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:36 pm

I have experienced no problems at all with the sync'd Firestudio projects. I always forget there are a few models.

I was skeptical if I had enough cpu power; but a lot of the processing is actually handled by the units themselves. One problem that I dont like is the fact that when u sync them u actually drop down to 14 analog inputs. I suppose its not that big of a deal. I bought one brand new; and one off of ebay. I dont do any digital I/O at this point.

I am using a compaq sr1550nx tower with windows xp. I have 2gb of ram installed; and a reasonable video card installed to free up the system. I use Cubase studio essentials and use the firestudio drivers the sync is handled by the FStudio. I couldnt be happier; for what I have into the 2 units. I have expereienced no pops or latency issues to date.

Any other questions; feel free to ask.

riksylvania · Post by **riksylvania** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:39 pm

I use 2 Firepods with a 3 gig dell and it works great. I didn't think you had to drop to 14 inputs when daisy chaining, I thought it was the full 16. Songsmith, if you can record your band with 8 channels then you don't need any more for overdubs, you'd just use one of the channels to record your overdubs. Each of those input channel can be assigned wherever you want it to go.

I do advise to whoever wants to use those Presonus rigs to use better preamps if you are going to be a little serious about the sound. A good tube preamp goes a long way, as the stock preamps from Presonus are a little blah and flat sounding.

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 9:39 pm

riksylvania wrote:I Songsmith, if you can record your band with 8 channels then you don't need any more for overdubs, you'd just use one of the channels to record your overdubs.
I do advise to whoever wants to use those Presonus rigs to use better preamps if you are going to be a little serious about the sound. A good tube preamp goes a long way, as the stock preamps from Presonus are a little blah and flat sounding.

Thanks, I knew about the overdubs... I realized how I phrased it after I hit Submit, and was too lazy to fix it.
Thanks for the info on the mic pre's. I've used a Presonus mic pre, a stand-alone model (can't remember the model), and it sounded pretty nice to my ears... I wouldn't have known the pre's on the Firestudio are weak.--->JMS

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:19 pm

I disagree. Im not saying the preamps are first class; but they are pretty decent sounding to me. I did however buy a seperate preamp for vox; and I used that preamp for the snare on the drum recordings.

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:24 pm

I didn't think you had to drop to 14 inputs when daisy chaining, I thought it was the full 16

Heres the data that I used.

http://www.presonus.com/media/pdf/Using ... _Tubes.pdf

if u know of a different way please post. Thanks in advance.

BloodyFingers · Post by **BloodyFingers** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:47 pm

I get 14 channels on this one unit. Really works great. My computer is a AMD 3200 + , 64 400 fsbs, 2 gig of mem, 3-80 gigs drives. It's not a duel core but it handles everything great.

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:58 pm

can u bypass the preamps on the tascam? on the FS channels 3-8 can be bypassed with a 1/4 trs. channels 1 & 2 are high impedance instrument inputs if u use the 1/4

Killjingle · Post by **Killjingle** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 12:07 am

songsmith... my old ideal drum recording situation was (at least for my band)

kick
snare
tom 1
tom 2
tom 3
oh left
oh right
room

what sucked was that I didnt have any tracks left for a scratch (software issue; read on... I found out more as I progressed); unless I used the digital I/O; or at least so I thought. I dont own a digital board; and nothing I own I could convert with. So I omitted the room for the scratch.

Future ideal scenario (my band again)

kick
snare
tom 1
tom 2
tom 3
oh left
oh right
hat
room
kick 2
scratch

dont buy 2 firestudios unless your software supports it. cubase le (which is bundled in) and some other le versions usuually only support 8 ins at a time. I was disappointed when I found that out.

So now I can record 16 in at a time (software upgrade); but because of they way u have to route to monitor FS#2 I can only do 14 analog at a time.

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:53 am

Thanks for the info, I'll keep it in mind. Instead of rehearsal tonight, we decided to try an Alesis Firewire mixer. Kelly claims it'll record 8 tracks at once, if it does, we're going to try recording some stuff. I have to find a headphone distribution amp by next Monday, until I can find one to buy.--->JMS

rockpage.net

Tascam Us 1641

Tascam Us 1641

Yes

Tascam