Tapco

[guitarfreak12]

Anyone hear anything good or bad about the new Tapco boards? They have USB out on them, I know USB isn't good for recording, but whatever.

[guitarfreak12]

Bueler? Bueler?

[Agent47]

They advertise them saying that they have the same pres as their Mackie-branded desks, so they're probably pretty good.

Why isn't USB good for recording? I'm thinking of getting a small USB mixer for recording single VO, song vocals and sound effects. Should I not get one? Why?

[guitarfreak12]

I've read that USB doesn't have good enough band width to reproduce accurately. I've heard recordings made with it, and they seem thin, but I may just be hearing things. Maybe someone else can elaborate.

[bubbagump]

The USB issue is that the bandwidth does not allow huge sustained multitrack streams like Firewire or PCI do. That is why many USB interfaces only have 2 or 4 channels. If there was a bandwidth issue, you would have drop outs, not thin sound. It's not like the bass can't "fit" because it is too big. This is digital samples that pop out one sample at a time from a digital stream. It's either all or nothing. Thin would be from the usual suspects... crappy mixing, crappy convertors, crappy pres, crappy mics, crappy mic placement, crappy rooms.... To say USB doesn't reproduce well is like saying a JPG stored on a hard drive looks better than the same JPG stored on a CD. However, I do have some premium Mogami oxygen free USB cables with gold connectors.

[ssscientist]

Originally Posted by guitarfreak12

I know USB isn't good for recording

Originally Posted by bubbagump

The USB issue is that the bandwidth does not allow huge sustained multitrack streams like Firewire or PCI do.

Both of you are talking about USB 1.0 or 1.1, which is not in use anymore except on small format mixers - like the Tapco. You should have no problems getting 2 channels in and 2 channels out of any computer successfully over USB 1.1 --- which is all the Tapco boards have facilities for anyway.

USB 2.0 is faster than Firewire - 480 mps vs 400 mps - and USB 2.0 is what most computers made in the last two years are equipped with. In practice and in the real world, the speed jump that USB 2.0 has over Firewire doesn't mean much, because at sustained transfer rates it levels out to a small advantage for Firewire.

I have a 7200 rpm external USB 2.0 external hard drive exclusively for audio and have yet to have a single issue with it's performance. And I use it a lot.

And saying something like 'I know USB isn't good for recording' is how misinformation spreads around the web. Instead of making a statement like that, put it in the form of a question --- 'anybody have any opinions on USB for recording?' --- or some such.

[guitarfreak12]

Jeeze, I read that about USB here. The bandwidth comment was not my own. It was said by someone else before. Now heres the real question, if I get the tapco with usb, will my audition 2.0 work with it?

[guitarfreak12]

of course I probably would avoid getting something that comletely eleminates the money I have invested in patchbays and audio cards.

[bubbagump]

Originally Posted by ssscientist

Both of you are talking about USB 1.0 or 1.1, which is not in use anymore except on small format mixers - like the Tapco. You should have no problems getting 2 channels in and 2 channels out of any computer successfully over USB 1.1 --- which is all the Tapco boards have facilities for anyway.

Correct, I should have clarified. However, the USB 2 sutained rate is lower than Firewire.... so theoretically, FW is safer.... but that is splitting hairs.

As for Audition... what drivers do the Tapcos come with and does Audition support them? If the Tapcos are regular old WDM or ASIO and Audition support that, then yup, it should work fine. (Should being the operative word. )

[guitarfreak12]

anyone have opinions on the Alesis Firewire boards?