IBOOK or LAPTOP WITH TASCAM US428 Options

[UPOWER]

HI,

I wonder if anyone has a similar set up? The Tascam US428 seems to be a good unit. Does anyone have any comments about this? I like to have hands on in regards to mixing and twisting knobs. It looks like a good combination of audio interface, midi controller and mixing desk for live performances.

[Ged]

I'm currently using an ibook and tascam 428 combination to produce various kinds of soundtrack/instrumental music (no vocals, mainly sounds from an sc88 pro, di electric guitar and miked accoustic). The 428 comes bundled with cubasis VST and interfaces amazingly well with this sequencer (not sure about others although the manual gives protools a mention...) giving complete 'hands-on' control of levels, eq, pan, transport functions etc. I had a few problems at first with signal levels - the 428 tends to really boost input signals so, if you're recording to hard disk, what you're listening to through headphones/speakers is soooo much fatter than what's going to/coming from disk/comparable CDs etc. However, as you can probably guess, this was mainly due to my inexperience with hard disk recording/setting up the 428 etc. I guess the only real downside of the 428 is, it's a bit of a beast to look at (unless you're into very bright blue objects of course ...) Otherwise, as an interface for an ibook, it's more than satisfied both audio and midi requirements for me. Checkout both tascam and apple's sites for info/specs etc.

R