Tascam US-428

kimnjess

I recently bought a secondhand Tascam US-428 and I am having some trouble with it that I can't seem to resolve.I have it hooked up to my home PC which is running Windows XP and I have set it up as the manual describes.The problem arises when I play back a recording, which so far is a single guitar track, I am getting small audio dropouts now and again, it's like the recording is being interrupted but I can't figure out why.
Any help would be appreciated, I am a complete novice but I have heard that this unit is quite good and I would like to get it working.

cornbb

Make sure you're recording at 44.1kHz/16 bit and try increasing the latency in your ASIO audio driver settings.

kimnjess

Thanks cornbb, I'll have a look at those settings this evening and see if it solves the problem.Do you have the same unit?

cornbb

No but thats a fairly common solution if you're hearing dropouts or glitches in your recordings.

kimnjess

Tried that cornbb, I was set to 24 bit and 44.1K but 16 bit made no difference.When I increased the latency the recording sounded much slower than it should have been.Maybe it's my PC?????????????

ktoal

I also have a Tascam US-428, thought I used to get, what I can only describe as, Spikes. They sounded like a high pitched reversed cymbol crash. I upgraded my PC's RAM to 1GB and it's never happend again. The US-428 is at the heart of my home studio. I think it might be time to get the US-2400. It's now under a 1000euro.

kelloggs

gonna just hijack this thread! i'm just starting off in home recording, i know very little about it and probably less about computers. been offered one of these 428's for €250, is that good value? and how good a PC will i need to work it. was thinking of getting a PC that Dunnes are selling, key points of its spec are (i think)

processor: intel celeron D335 2.6Ghz, 256kb L2/533
memory: 512 MB DDR RAM
hard drive: 80 GB

is this gonna work? any assistance would be great. ain't planning on recording anything to complex.

oneRoom

Stay away from this machine is my advice. I have used it and it continually caused problems with the computer. The drivers had to be reinstalled nearly every time it was used. For €250 I would not buy it considering that the mic inputs cant even phantom power a condenser microphone. The only reason that people are attracted to this machine are because it has faders, however, they are too small and stiff to be of much use in a real mix anyway.

Thumbs down all around.

kelloggs

thanks for that, so could you recommend an alternative? im just going to be recording some tracks on my laptop. thought it would be handy for a band as had multiple inputs. dont want to spend too much here if possible!