Great interface, but Cubase 5LE limits it's "effect-tiveness".
I owned North Country Sounds Recording Studios in the 70's and 80's, and produced and recorded records for The Nubs, GG Allan, Tyler Capone, and many others that now sell for hundreds of dollars on Ebay. In fact, The Nubs' 45 was just re-released this week, and is available on Ebay!
I've been getting back into acoustic music lately, and I bought a 2 channel M-Box Pre with Pro Tool 9MP earlier this year. Loved it, and loved the versatility of Pro Tools 9MP, which came with the interface, but found I was limited by only being able to record 2 channels at once.
The Tascam was the lowest priced interface with 8 mic inputs I could find. It allows as many as 16 channels, 8 mic, 2 instrument/line, 4 line, and 2 MIDI, to be recorded simultaneously.
Although advertized as being Pro Tools compatible, it is NOT compatible with the Pro Tools MP software, which will only recognize certain Avid interfaces. I was aware of this when I bought it, but figured Cubase 5LE would be similar. Read on.......
The Tascam comes with Cubase 5 LE, and when they say "LE", or limited edition, they are not kidding! It's a bare bones program with limited effects, but it does let you record your tracks, and does a good job in that department.
Getting the Tascam set up on Cubase was somewhat convoluted, although not terribly difficult. It recorded flawlessly, and was easy to use.
However, mixing acoustic music and vocals in Cubase 5LE was very, very disappointing. Compared to PT9 MP it was pitifully inadequate. One chintzy sounding reverb with only 2 knobs for adjusting. The EQ wasn't bad, though, but again, just one option. Cubase, this is not the best way to introduce your product!
But both programs record in WMA format, so it was just a matter of dragging the recorded tracks from Cubase 5LE into PT9 MP and doing my mixing in PT9 MP.
Bottom line; the Tascam US-1800 is a nice, inexpensive interface that makes good recordings. I've used Tascam products for decades, and I've always found them to be reliable, well designed, and well thought out. That goes for the US-1800, too. It is truly a "best buy"!
The only downside, as I said earlier, is that it ships with Cubase 5LE. This is a shame, because the limitations of the Cubase 5LE software will, in my opinion, severely limit your ability to achieve professional sounding results.Read full review
