T
The Ghost of FM
Banned
It's all true!
It is back and I have been appointed the moderator of the Analog forum over there.
So, all you guys and gals with cassette Portastudios and reel to reel recorders are invited to visit the site and contribute to the knowledge base over there.
Of course, there are dedicated areas of the site for all the new Tascam products like the 2488 and such and I promise to stay away from those areas of the site as I am not a digital recording enthusiast.
Cheers!
It is back and I have been appointed the moderator of the Analog forum over there.
So, all you guys and gals with cassette Portastudios and reel to reel recorders are invited to visit the site and contribute to the knowledge base over there.
Of course, there are dedicated areas of the site for all the new Tascam products like the 2488 and such and I promise to stay away from those areas of the site as I am not a digital recording enthusiast.
Cheers!
T
The Ghost of FM
Banned
Pat, being the old moderator at Tascam's old and defunct official bbs?philboyd studge said:
I'm not sure?
For the longest time, he was never around and then near the very end, he started getting involved, editing and deleting posts for about a week and then the whole thing fell apart and disappeared.
Are we talking about the same guy?
Cheers!
S
StevenLindsey
New member
What? Nothing for the FW-1884? I just got one of these bad boys but........very little info out there on them yet. I know there are some people using them out there.
philboyd studge
New member
The Ghost of FM said:Pat, being the old moderator at Tascam's old and defunct official bbs?
I'm not sure?
For the longest time, he was never around and then near the very end, he started getting involved, editing and deleting posts for about a week and then the whole thing fell apart and disappeared.
Are we talking about the same guy?
Cheers!
Yep, that's the guy.
vestast
Gassy Member
StevenLindsey said:
So you decided to take the plunge ? How are you finding it so far ?
S
StevenLindsey
New member
Well it's big. And not quite as ugly as it looks in the catalogue pictures. 
Pretty cool looking actually. Oh, you were probably asking how it functions? So far it's just sitting there looking like it wants to do something. I haven't finished setting up my PC the way I want it yet ( I keep crashing my OS ) and have yet to install Sonar. I hope to have it set up by the end of this weekend. I'm hoping to find a flock of users before long.
Pretty cool looking actually. Oh, you were probably asking how it functions? So far it's just sitting there looking like it wants to do something. I haven't finished setting up my PC the way I want it yet ( I keep crashing my OS ) and have yet to install Sonar. I hope to have it set up by the end of this weekend. I'm hoping to find a flock of users before long.
vestast
Gassy Member
Actually I'm a user. That's why I was asking how you found it. I think we were talking on another post about it and you said you were thinking about buying it at the time..
You might want to make sure you have all the latest updates from Microsoft to see if that stops your OS from crashing. If your not running SP1 you should, and I think there are a few firewire and USB updates also.
Tascam also has a few firmware and control panel updates available on their site as well.
You might want to make sure you have all the latest updates from Microsoft to see if that stops your OS from crashing. If your not running SP1 you should, and I think there are a few firewire and USB updates also.
Tascam also has a few firmware and control panel updates available on their site as well.
S
StevenLindsey
New member
I'm crashing the OS with my tweaking not through compatibility issues or anything.....trying to set up XP for music and to set up two partitions running XP using Partition Magic. It's not quite as simple as I thought it'd be. I'm not even set up for internet yet so I can' t download any fixes. That's happening next week if I get my drives set up. I think my XP is running SP1a so I should be OK there. I'll get it all running pretty soon. Lotta fun! I'll be looking for all your posts. I'm probably gonna need a lot of help with this new setup. Tascam, looks like, has pulled the plug on any support for the 1884. Almost scared me off.....but it was pretty cheap....and I don't really mind being a guinea pig.
vestast
Gassy Member
Cool - We can swap horror/success stories !
I'm using mine with Cubase though so I don't know how much we'll be able to relate...
When you say pulled support are you talking about the forum that they used to run ? I know that in the past 4 months they've release 2 updates for the 1884. I just hate the way they organize the downloads. No dates or anything on them.
I'm using mine with Cubase though so I don't know how much we'll be able to relate...
When you say pulled support are you talking about the forum that they used to run ? I know that in the past 4 months they've release 2 updates for the 1884. I just hate the way they organize the downloads. No dates or anything on them.
S
StevenLindsey
New member
I was pretty impressed with the way Yamaha did with their 01X.......almost swayed me there. They actually have reps in a forum answering questions, giving tips. I think Tascam did have a BBS at one time didn't they? Anyway, I believe one should be able to reason out most of the operational questions with careful study. As long as there aren't many serious software and compatibility problems, I think I'll be OK with it. Looking forward to getting started.
S
StevenLindsey
New member
Well, first horror story. The driver installation disk that came with my 1884 was no good. It locked up my CD drive. Wouldn't auto start and when I tried to run it from the Start menu...it said "H:drive is inaccessible" or something like that. Waiting for another disk.
Also, I put the Gigastudio disk on my hard drive. ( It wouldn't auto-run either, for some reason. ) It had some sort of midi thing on it that showed up in my midi output devices in Sonar. I selected this thing just trying to get some sound out of Sonar and it crashed my Sonar, rebooted the PC and gave me a "serious error message" in Windows that I'm supposed to report to MS. Gigastudio came off my hard drive.
So far Tascam ain't looking too hot, softwarewise. The actual unit itself seems to work fine and sounds great.
The driver installation disk that came with my 1884 was no good. It locked up my CD drive. Wouldn't auto start and when I tried to run it from the Start menu...it said "H:drive is inaccessible" or something like that. Waiting for another disk.Also, I put the Gigastudio disk on my hard drive. ( It wouldn't auto-run either, for some reason. ) It had some sort of midi thing on it that showed up in my midi output devices in Sonar. I selected this thing just trying to get some sound out of Sonar and it crashed my Sonar, rebooted the PC and gave me a "serious error message" in Windows that I'm supposed to report to MS. Gigastudio came off my hard drive.
So far Tascam ain't looking too hot, softwarewise. The actual unit itself seems to work fine and sounds great.
vestast
Gassy Member
Hey Steven.
You can download the latest software drivers and firmware updates from Tascam at the following link
http://www.tascam.com/downloads.php?pid=269
If you don't have your DAW hooked up to the web you can put it on CD from your other pc perhaps ?
If you don't have SP1a installed you can still download it from Microsoft and put it on CD. I tried to find the updates for firewire and usb but it looks like you have to be able to use the update utility.
When you did your WinXP tweaks did you disable auto run on your cdrom ? I know I did....
You can download the latest software drivers and firmware updates from Tascam at the following link
http://www.tascam.com/downloads.php?pid=269
If you don't have your DAW hooked up to the web you can put it on CD from your other pc perhaps ?
If you don't have SP1a installed you can still download it from Microsoft and put it on CD. I tried to find the updates for firewire and usb but it looks like you have to be able to use the update utility.
When you did your WinXP tweaks did you disable auto run on your cdrom ? I know I did....
S
StevenLindsey
New member
Yeah, I've got the Road Runner guy coming out tomorrow afternoon to connect up my internet. I can just wait and download the stuff then I guess. Is the control panel and all on there too? No I haven't disabled the auto run yet but I will. Gonna disable the auto recover thing too. I'm sure that takes a lot of resources, always monitoring the drives in the background. I'm slowly but surely getting this thing set up. If it records well, I'm going to be really pleased with this setup, I think. When the FE-8 price drops to about $300 , I'm going to get a couple of those too.
What do you think? I have two separate partitions with two different OS's for my Sonar/music stuff and for my internet and other apps. I want to use the 1884 to play back stuff (mp3's, etc. from the net) as well as with my Sonar in the other partion. Will I have to install the drivers for the 1884 in both partitions? Or do you know? Note: You do not have to answer all of my ignorant questionings and rants.
, I'm going to get a couple of those too. What do you think? I have two separate partitions with two different OS's for my Sonar/music stuff and for my internet and other apps. I want to use the 1884 to play back stuff (mp3's, etc. from the net) as well as with my Sonar in the other partion. Will I have to install the drivers for the 1884 in both partitions? Or do you know? Note: You do not have to answer all of my ignorant questionings and rants.
S
StevenLindsey
New member
Well, the horror story continues. I got the files off the website and burned em here at work. The 1884 stuff worked fine. Both partitions recognized it. Plays back CDs fine on both. Played a demo file in Sonar fine. But, the file that I downloaded for the Sonar setup didn't do anything. Sonar recognizes the drivers but it won't recognize the control surface. Rats. On to the next step I guess. I've been waiting since last Thursday for someone at Musician's Friend ( yeah I know ) to call me or, as they said, someone from Tascam or Frontier Design to call. I don't really think it's going to happen. Anyway, I'll get it eventually I guess. Then, I was trying to figure out the routing thing so I could get the midi files to play back and must have created some sort of loop. I recorded a small voice piece and it sounded like an alien...ringing and terribly distorted. Then I got a CPU WARNING and a buzzer...... aaaaaaarrrrrgh! Had to power it down. I just don't understand the in/out thing yet I suppose, especially for midi.. never had to or wanted to deal with it. Now I suppose I'm going to be forced to learn midi. I'm almost wishing I had just gone with the Korg 32XD. I really think that Yamaha and Tascam were in such a race to get these things on the market that they jumped out there with a bunch of buggy, underdeveloped software. I think it will work great when it's set up right and when I learn what I'm doing, but I'm getting the feeling that I'm never again going to actually be able to record any music. My time is all going to learning computer junk. Oh well, the world is probably better off for it. The process is interesting. Tech support stinks.
Oh well, the world is probably better off for it. The process is interesting. Tech support stinks.
vestast
Gassy Member
Hey Steven.
I wish I could help more on the Sonar issue but since I'm using it with cubase I can't.
I was just reading the setup instructions for Sonar (http://www.tascam.com/products/FW-1884/pdf/fw1884_sonar_note_1_00.pdf ) and it seems pretty straight forward. When you hit the control panel button on the 1884 does it say that it's running in fw-1884 native mode and not emulating a mackie control ?
Can't think of anything else.
I wish I could help more on the Sonar issue but since I'm using it with cubase I can't.
I was just reading the setup instructions for Sonar (http://www.tascam.com/products/FW-1884/pdf/fw1884_sonar_note_1_00.pdf ) and it seems pretty straight forward. When you hit the control panel button on the 1884 does it say that it's running in fw-1884 native mode and not emulating a mackie control ?
Can't think of anything else.
S
StevenLindsey
New member
The control panel shows up fine. It was in Native Mode. It's just not communicating with Sonar. The Sonar setup file wouldn't run. When I clicked on the setup.exe file, it just spit out " all the files have been extracted" and greyed out the files. The 1884 is not in the Control Surface list in Sonar. So, I'm still waiting for a Sonar setup. I'll be in a little better shape once I get my internet set up, so I can register all this junk and email some folks. Just takes time. Thanks for the (attempted) help....may be all I'll get.