Hi all,

I'm on the road in Japan with a musical revue, doing mostly one-nighters. My home rig is a beige G3 (upgraded to)500 mHz w/768 MB RAM - I've been using DP with a 2408 mkI/PCI 324 card and ProTools Free (w/ Sound Manager). Of course, we're talking no Firewire or USB. For my 2-month road trip, I invested in a Pismo PB G3 500 for hotel-room recording.

For the most part, I've been fairly successful, considering that the peripherals I bought over here all have Japanese manuals only - I got an inexpensive Firewire CD burner, and a RolandED PC-70 MIDI controller, using a UM-1 USB MIDI interface. No prob w/that - I can record MIDI and record my Unity DS-1 as audio. For audio input I bought a RolandED UA-30 USB audio interface - it works to the extent that I can hear audio coming in thru the headphones, but for the life of me, I cannot get a vocal into DP - I don't know if it's a FreeMIDI problem or something else entirely - the main problem is, the manual is in Japanese, and the pictures only go so far.

I e-mailed Roland, who said that they would sell me an English manual at a Roland dealer, but so far at the stores I've been to, they don't have them in stock, and ordering them is not an option, obviously. The language barrier is a severe problem - just trying to get folks to understand what the problem is may take an hour or two (this is with 2 or 3 dictionaries, 2 phrasebooks, Japanese manuals, the PB with me and drawings galore). By that time it's time to go to the venue...

Long story short, does anyone have a working knowledge of USB audio? At home I don't have USB so it's never been an issue, but I'd like to integrate this PB into my rig when I get home. either with a MOTU 828 or a Digi001. Nevertheless, while I'm here I would really like to use the stuff I bought - I could send in audio throught the little minijack, but then what's the use of USB?

TIA for any suggestions - I love the mobility otherwise, but don't want to spend more $$ (or yen) and a VXPocket seems a little excessive unless I was going to be on the road a really long time (not!).

all best, Alicia Morgan

What version of Mac OS are you using? 9.0.4 & 9.1 should automatically make the UA30 show up in the sound control panel. Select USB audio & ext. mic, or line in as your input source. Just make sure you set the switch on the UA30 to 44.1 (sound manager doesn't like 48) and the other switch to GTR/MIC. THEN launch the app you're recording into. You may need to make input settings there as well. I've used the UA30 with a Wallstreet PB (USB PC card) and the original iBook into Peak, Deck II, Soundedit 16, UltraRecorder & Sound Studio. The sound is better than the 1/8 ' jack & onboard converters, but not as good as the MOTU 828 I just got.