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Go Firewire Mobile

Posted by Unknown On 2008-04-01 0 comments

It's a sad day for me, sorta... I've been using a sweet Tascam digital mixer (the TM-D1000) for at least 5 years now and it has served me well. So well, that I had no need to upgrade it... until... (wait for it)... well, now.

You see, the whole setup in my PC is based around these two M-Audio PCI cards. One of which connects to the digital mixer to provide 8in/8out. The second card is the dedicated hi power master outs (24bit/96khz for the geeks out there). I was able to piece the setup together for less than a grand (which made the wife super happy), and I got my 5 years out of it for sure.

But now I'm faced with this need to "go mobile" and my current hardware, PCI cards, big mixing desk, etc... just won't do the trick. So, I'm forced to sell, and switch over to dedicated external firewire hardware. This means the M-Audio/Tascam rig is up for sale.




Tascam TM-D1000 Digital Mixer
and PCI Interfaces package

includes:

M-Audio 24/96 PCI Card (including breakout cable)(worth $80 to $100 alone)

M-Audio TDIF interface PCI Card (including breakout cable) (worth $80)

TM-D1000 Mixer (valued at $350 used)

  • mixer has the FX-1000 Effects Board already installed providing 2 extra FX channels (adding another $100 value)
  • all manuals still in good readable condition
  • training Video included and quick reference card

Extra Stuff
  • TDIF Link Cable (25') PCI card to Mixer
  • MIDI Extension Cable (12') for external MIDI devices
  • USB Device Cable (3') for keyboard or other USB recording peripheral
  • burned CD with all the newest WinXP and Mac OS X drivers
  • all the manuals and documentation,
  • plus a training video on how to use the mixer
Awesome digital mixing package for someone looking to get into digital mixing on a PC or MAC and has a few PCI slots to spare. This setup can totally replace your current onboard sound or budget/Creative sound card setup.

This setup has been used for mixing with NI Traktor 2/3, integrated with a DM2MIDI dm2 hardware interface and an external DJ mixer for DJ'ing (works awesome). It's been used for recording electronic music, guitar (both unprocessed and processed) and vocals. It's performed admirably every time.

I've setup this mixer to interface with Cubase (3 and up), Nuendo (2 and 3), Ableton Live (versions 5 and 6), Reason (2, 2.5 and 3) and Mackie Tracktion (2 and 3) all with no problems via the unified M-Audio ASIO drivers and the TDIF PCI connector board. The 8 channels in the digital mixer show up as 8 selectable channels in the software environment configs (see the screen caps).

Using Nuendo 2 (my favorite
"heavy duty" setup - see screen caps), you can record and playback on a number of tracks simultaneously with minimal setup effort. Integration with NI Guitar Rig 2 was fantastic. Rewire performance was excellent (I would routinely run a 12+ track Nuendo project with another 6 to 8 tracks re-wired in from Reason).

It's a pain in the ass to let this setup go, but the need to 'go-mobile' for live setups has forced me into the MacBook/Firewire interface world. I've played around with a lot of different setups and software, and would be happy to answer any software questions you have before bidding. This is an excellent and complete entry point into digital mixing and recording on your computer that won't cost you $1000+ dollars.




So, there you go.

I gotta let the rig go, to make room for the more agile stuff (less gear for the buck). If I can find somebody I know that wants the stuff, I'm willing to let it all go for $380, otherwise, it's off to eBay/kijiji with it.

If anybody knows of anybody that has a 1GHz computer or faster and wants to get into recording, this is the maximum possible gain for the least amount of pain.

Screen Caps:

tascam_maudio_configs

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