This is my first post on the forums! 
First off, I really want to thank everyone on here for sharing their wealth of knowledge. This site has been a fantastic resource for me lately since the need to do some band demos at home came up recently. Our band is going back into the studio in Jan to record our next CD, but this time we wanted to do mock studio recordings to finalize some vocals and possible minor song edits before going in. This way, we know 99% of what we want before stepping into the studio. That being said, I feel I have learned a ton over just the last few weeks from reading these forums, so I wanted to say thanks for that!
Ok, that being said, I figured I would ask the crowd and see what issues people have seen with the TASCAM US 1642 running Ableton Live 8 or another DAW. Also, TASCAMs technical support from what I is better to just avoid.
Here is what is going on
Lets say I recorded 8 tracks simultaneously in Ableton Live 8. I am experiencing some pops and noise and some occasional stutter during playback with Ableton Live 8. This is when using the Tascam drivers or changing to the ASIO4ALL drivers. While the ASIO4ALL drivers does work better the issues and noise still remains. I even tried the new 2.02 drivers that were just posted on the .de site but not on the us site yet and still the same problem.
I also have a Line6 UX2 that I was using before this device, mainly for PodFarm. I can just go swap the ASIO device to the Line6UX2 and with the exact same file now has zero play back issues. Since the Line6UX2 has worked perfectly I can at least say that the TASCAM US 1642 device driver has either a conflict with something else specifically or doesn't like Windows 7 64 much. From here, I am trying to determine the best resolution to the problem.
What i have done so far
Installed a 1TB HD, put on Windows 7 64, installed the drivers, and the ASIO4all drivers and just the main software I typically use. I fixed the power management options for all the USB hubs and devices to ensure they are never powered off, which can reduce some issues. I also even tried to disable some of the inputs on the TASCAM to see if that reduced PC load during playback, but still didnt help. So, what to do?
Possible resolutions
I found that theTASCAM US 1642 is known to have some issues with nvidia chipset powered USB ports. I am using a ASUS P5K-E motherboard; however, I cannot locate the brand of USB chipset. That being said, I probably need to put in a dedicated USB 2.0 card anyway so I know only 1 device is utilizing bandwidth on that card.
I have seen reports of soundcards conflicting with the device if the other cards are enabled in the device manager. While I could disable the soundcard, it seems a bit unnecessary.
If that doesnt work, the last ditch effort is I could install Windows XPSP3 on my other drive, only install what I need and just boot into XP when running recording. I have heard that this runs solid on XPSP3.
What do you think?
All that said, has anyone else had this much problem, or have any other ideas? While I could send it back, 14 inputs for simultaneous recording is what we need to record full mixes of practice as well as a few other things. After buying mics, cables and other things, with this device only being $300 bucks, it would do exactly what we needed (if working flawlessly) so it would be nice to get this device working properly.
Thanks for any help you can give!
First off, I really want to thank everyone on here for sharing their wealth of knowledge. This site has been a fantastic resource for me lately since the need to do some band demos at home came up recently. Our band is going back into the studio in Jan to record our next CD, but this time we wanted to do mock studio recordings to finalize some vocals and possible minor song edits before going in. This way, we know 99% of what we want before stepping into the studio. That being said, I feel I have learned a ton over just the last few weeks from reading these forums, so I wanted to say thanks for that!
Ok, that being said, I figured I would ask the crowd and see what issues people have seen with the TASCAM US 1642 running Ableton Live 8 or another DAW. Also, TASCAMs technical support from what I is better to just avoid.
Here is what is going on
Lets say I recorded 8 tracks simultaneously in Ableton Live 8. I am experiencing some pops and noise and some occasional stutter during playback with Ableton Live 8. This is when using the Tascam drivers or changing to the ASIO4ALL drivers. While the ASIO4ALL drivers does work better the issues and noise still remains. I even tried the new 2.02 drivers that were just posted on the .de site but not on the us site yet and still the same problem.
I also have a Line6 UX2 that I was using before this device, mainly for PodFarm. I can just go swap the ASIO device to the Line6UX2 and with the exact same file now has zero play back issues. Since the Line6UX2 has worked perfectly I can at least say that the TASCAM US 1642 device driver has either a conflict with something else specifically or doesn't like Windows 7 64 much. From here, I am trying to determine the best resolution to the problem.
What i have done so far
Installed a 1TB HD, put on Windows 7 64, installed the drivers, and the ASIO4all drivers and just the main software I typically use. I fixed the power management options for all the USB hubs and devices to ensure they are never powered off, which can reduce some issues. I also even tried to disable some of the inputs on the TASCAM to see if that reduced PC load during playback, but still didnt help. So, what to do?
Possible resolutions
I found that theTASCAM US 1642 is known to have some issues with nvidia chipset powered USB ports. I am using a ASUS P5K-E motherboard; however, I cannot locate the brand of USB chipset. That being said, I probably need to put in a dedicated USB 2.0 card anyway so I know only 1 device is utilizing bandwidth on that card.
I have seen reports of soundcards conflicting with the device if the other cards are enabled in the device manager. While I could disable the soundcard, it seems a bit unnecessary.
If that doesnt work, the last ditch effort is I could install Windows XPSP3 on my other drive, only install what I need and just boot into XP when running recording. I have heard that this runs solid on XPSP3.
What do you think?
All that said, has anyone else had this much problem, or have any other ideas? While I could send it back, 14 inputs for simultaneous recording is what we need to record full mixes of practice as well as a few other things. After buying mics, cables and other things, with this device only being $300 bucks, it would do exactly what we needed (if working flawlessly) so it would be nice to get this device working properly.
Thanks for any help you can give!
