Topic: Tascam US-1800 - Experiences/Opinions?

[ScoobieKW]

Hey y'all

I'm looking to dip into the world of 5+ channel recording. I've had mostly good experiences with my Tascam DR-2D (other than battery life and a condensation issue at a late night festival stage)
and the $200 US price point of the 1800 is oh so tempting.

Anyone have experience with this line of preamp/interfaces? 1641, 1800, 2000?

[yousef]

I've used the Tascam US-1800 a few times.

Lots of inputs, decent number of outs if you need them. The preamps are ok, if nothing special.

The only two issues I've had are:

-some difficulty selecting recording mode (seems to choose 96kHz or 48kHz arbitrarily - and not obvious how to change it again) 
-playback of one particular recording via Audition caused some weird issue that locked up playback. Was never able to get to the bottom of it: only the combination of that recording, Audition and the US-1800 caused the problem 

But I don't think anything can compete for the money. Add in a ADC (a spare UA-5?) and you can run 16 tracks simulaneously.

This is a rough mix of a four-piece (3x vox, elec gtr, elec bass, drums, keys/pedal steel/acc gtr) band recorded with the US1800. 48kHz, 16bit single untracked FLAC file:

http://manchestertaper.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/crane-MTmix-48kHz-16bit-.flac

There's a bit of background hiss in places but that is because I haven't muted a noisy DI when it wasn't in use.

[ScoobieKW]

the UA-1800 and two of these

http://www.audiopile.net/products/Electronics/MST-412_rack_splitter/MST-412_cutsheet.shtml

[H₂O]

With the dr680 only costing about $475 new and $400 or less used I'd go that route before considering lugging this unit and a laptop around (which the us-1800 would require)


I ran minime > laptop back in 2002-2003 and it was a PITA

[kirk97132]

You mention battery life, the US-1800 is AC power only.

[ScoobieKW]

You mention battery life, the US-1800 is AC power only.

Understood, if you read my initial mail, I mention the DR-2D I own and am reasonably happy with it, except for battery life.

Ordered the unit yesterday from B&H. Building cables to record from inserts today, can't wait for a chance to try it out.

[jefflester]

I've been using one in my home music space for 1.5 years now, no complaints. For band practices I have two guitar cabs miced with SM-57s, a pair of condenser overheads for the drums, a direct line out from the bass amp, and a line out from the vocal mixer for a total of 6 channels. I record those 6 channels each as mono in Adobe Audition 3 and then mix it down later. Works great. I've taken it on location to a few band performances and it worked fine though I never used more than a pair of on-stage condensers and a PA vocal feed in those situations. I don't have enough of an ear to tell how the preamps compare to higher end gear.