Hey All,
I’m thinking about getting a remote/workstation and was wondering if anybodie’s used the tascam 224 or what other units have worked out well?
thanks in advance,
gunner
Hello,
I have N-track and a 224, and I just cannot imagine life without either to be honest (sure… I would find some other tools to do the jobs if I really had to… but I am quite happy with things the way they are).
To begin with I had a couple of teething problems that I can’t even really remember fully now. I think I had to set the Tascams application in control panel to 428 emulation mode before N recognized it’s faders (but come to think of it that might have been true with the awful Cubasis that comes packaged with the Tascam too).
I remember that I did mess around with some other drivers too, but am now perfectly ok with ASIO. I think I was just trying things out.
The Tascam 224 is USB 1, so speed is a little restricted by that.
I actually have a very bad setup but still manage to get by. By this I mean:
HP Pavilion ze4500 (not so bad in itself).
512 MB RAM (get 1G if you can).
I am using system drive as data drive, and to be honest I am not even sure that it’s a 7200 RPM drive.
I use this laptop as a general PC too, although that only involves a bit of browsing, media playback and the VERY odd low spec game of some sort.
USB 1 ports on laptop.
I record tracks that rarely have more than a count in track, drum track, bass, 2 guitar tracks and then vocals. This never gives me a problem.
Sometimes recording vocals I do it piece by piece so I can end up with 8 vocal tracks or more (not playing at once) and I do start to get some jumping as I put compression on them. I also get a bit of jumping if I move the mixer window during playback or something like that.
The biggest gripe I have is that sometimes when pressing record the first beat or two of my count in track may be blurred, but I could easily fix that by dragging everything a few seconds along the time line if I bothered.
Other concerns:
Sometimes I would like 8 mixers so I kind of wish I had saved a little more for the Tascam 428, but I that only requires me using the mouse a little instead (controlling more tracks by shifting the bank over does not seem to save effort to me).
I have heard it said that the Tascam mic pre amps are very poor. I want no more than demo quality so that really does not cause a problem… to my ears at least.
All of the above will make it very obvious that I am far from an expert… but hopefully my experiences will help your choice a little.
If you want to ask any specific questions I will try to answer.
Cheers,
Mark
Hey Mark,
thanks for the feedback! I’m particularly interested if the play/ff/rewind/rec functions are available throught 224? (i’m getting somewhat tired of the mouse/button combo).
thanks for the write up, it definately helps!
Merry Christmas,
Jeff A
The functions you mention all work just fine… along with the big tracking wheel working to drag the timeline along (think you might be able to customize that too but I am not sure).
And a happy Christmas to you and everyone else here too! 
Hey Mark,
thanks for the reply and the info. I’m glad to hear everything works, I just won an ebay auction for a 224. 86 bucks! Can I send ya a pm if I get stuck?
take it easy,
Jeff
Cool… sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
You certainly can feel free to PM me.
I might not be able to help… but if I can I will.
Cheers