Mackie Control or Tascam Control Surface?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Adzzz
  • Start date Start date
Hey Adzzz,

I'm using a Tascam FW-1884 with Cubase SX 2. One thing to consider if your buying the tascam is what software you plan on running it with. Tascam has plenty of templates that allows you to use the 1884 in it's native mode for most software, but Cubase isn't one of them. I have to run it emulating a Mackie control, which is fine but some of the functions do not work yet for Cubase. I have patiently waited for either Cubase or Tascam to provide a template for Cubase and was hopeful that with the last update it would be there.....but nothing. Another thing to consider is that Tascam support is non existent. I sent them an email last week asking if there was any plans to release a template for cubase and they still have not replied. Didn't even acknowledge receiving my email.

That being said, I still love it. The pre's are good, the faders are not cheap and the sound is better than my old maudio hardware. I had a few issues when I first started using it like glitches here and there, but since I've taken my DAW off the internet and removed any background programs that were running - it kicks ass !

If your just looking for a controller than maybe the Mackie is a better choice for you, and I had considered it also. In the end I decided that for the price of the Tascam it was worth it to get an all in one solution. It allowed me to sell off my old hardware as well so that I could recover some of the cost.
 
I'm using the 1884 also. I like it very well now that I've finally got it working close to the way it should. It's a rather finicky machine or at least the drivers are not very robust. Ditto the above statement about Tascam support.....nada. Useless. What a shame for a company with that kind of name. I had several issues with mine to begin with also but I think I've got is useable for my purposes anyway. I'm not a power user so it'll be ok. To be honest with you, if I'd found a good quiet standalone recorder with comparable features to this DAW thing, I'd have preferred it. I get tired of always wondering how to fix the next glitch. All that said, I think the 1884 is a good machine and will work well for you IF... you have the right motherboard, firewire card..etc. Do your homework before you buy. Mackie - no experience with it.
 
Oh, and I'm using it with Sonar 3.1.1. Works very well with it in Native mode.
 
hope this information helps someone:

after connecting the fw1884 to my pc, i was having a lot of audio dropouts (with any application). i went through every forum looking for an answer, reinstalled the drivers, changed the pci slot of the firewire card, disabled the internet connection (as many people suggested), but nothing fixed the problem. so i got frustrated (or desperate) and tried to install it on a different machine running windows 2003 (copied the driver from my win xp machine, as the original software didn't let me install it), and it worked! no audio dropouts even with the default settings! so i figured it was the motherboard that was causing the trouble. so i switched the motherboards and never had a single audio dropout since then. now it's running fine on the win xp machine. :D

the motherboard that did not work with fw1884:
Asrock K7VT2 (VIA chipset)

the one that worked:
Asrock K7S8X (sis chipset)

was it because of the chipset? or was it because of some other component on the motherboard? i have no idea.

by the way, it works awesome with Nuendo.

-shami
 
Hey, if you're looking at Mackie check out the Onyx line up, the 1220 starts around 500 and it has an optional firewire card for an extra 300. It'll do what the Tascam does for about 300 less. I've been looking at the Tascam 1884 for awhile myself looking to move up from my US-224. Mackie is serious stuff, good support, and built like an ox to boot, download the manual and give it a look. http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1220/index.html
J.
 
jeffrydada said:
Hey, if you're looking at Mackie check out the Onyx line up, the 1220 starts around 500 and it has an optional firewire card for an extra 300. It'll do what the Tascam does for about 300 less. I've been looking at the Tascam 1884 for awhile myself looking to move up from my US-224. Mackie is serious stuff, good support, and built like an ox to boot, download the manual and give it a look. http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1220/index.html
J.
Click to expand...

Looks pretty cool, but it wont do everything that the tascam does. The fw-1884 is a controller for my DAW application also. Almost anything that can be done with a mouse can be done on the 1884 surface.

The firewire interface for the Onyx looks to be just an interface to get sound into your PC..
 
If I had to get one of those control surfaces, I'd get the TASCAM US-2400. The FW-1884 seems to have some serious driver/software problems, and a Mackie controller plus expansion costs a lot more than the US-2400, which has 24 channels.

Just a thought.
 
now that i have my fw1884 running perfectly for the last two weeks, i wouldn't trade it even for a digi 002 with control surface. think about it, who wants to give up the surround capabilites? and i must have at least 4 midi inputs/outputs. i connected my old ezbus using adat optical and get 8 additional inputs(i couldn't do that with onyx or yamaha 01X). some of my friends have digi 002 and i'm telling you, 002 looks like a toy next to the fw1884 (if looks matter to you). besides, which other board has the expandibility? just look at this picture:

http://www.tascam.com/products/FW-1884/images/FW1884wFE8.jpg

even if you can't afford the fe8, knowing that you can expand later lets you dream at least!

okay i'm starting to sound like a sales person, so i'll stop here...


-shami

ps the latency of the asio driver is pretty good too.
 
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