Tascam US-1800 - Never Again!

Well...

I bought it because it was so cheap it seemed too good to be true and of course it is....

The interface works and it's not too bad sounding, but it has the worst monitoring ability of any device I've ever tried...

I want to return it but I can't find anything else to buy (that I can afford)....

I'm stuck running Vista64 on one machine and this is the only interface I've found with support for that.... I could skip this machine and wait another week or so to have Win7Pro installed on my Mac and then use a better interface there, but then this machine (HP) is dead in the water... I guess it could have some kind of use, but what a waste of money and time this piece of gear is to a typical user....

I can't even do one-instrument at a time as the monitoring is so bad it won't even allow reasonable monitoring of that let alone a 14 input session! <sigh>...

Sorry to rant, but I thought I should post this for anyone else considering buying this... All I can say is "Don't"... Me? I'm stuck and very unhappy...

Keni

Thanks for the idea, but tha wouldn't change the monitoring issues this box has... Very poorly thought out, extremely limited and avoided in all sales info and conversations...

The box itself is working fine according to the manuf. It's bad design I'm stuck with here...

This coming week I hope to have more cash and possibly return it for a Presonus 1818VSL ($200 more)...

It sucks being so poor and spoiled. My SSL/Mixtreme 192 might be a decade old, but it's so much better it's hard to believe the gap!

Thanks for trying tho...

Keni

Tascam =

I will not buy a tascam unit.  they still can't get it right.

Glad I bought the Zoom R-16.  Almost pulled the trigger on the Tascam.

You are complaining about a feature that of cousre is not there at that price point. Did you expect a mixing board with aux sends for $300?

I know what your complaining about and if you need individual monitoring of each input then you have to be creative and use other external gear. All interfaces of this type are the same in this regard.
The only other solution is super low latency and monitor out the back door..not going to happen.

I record a live band with mine without any issue what so ever.
 
The Monitor output of the tascam will have a 100% mix of all inputs.
Because your goal is to have good record levels these are all blasting away at unity. There is no way to turn indavidual channels up or down without interfering with record levels----all these style of interfaces work the same. This is not a design flaw, it is expect that you will use a mixer to solve the problem.

The solution is to use the monitor output as PART of your monitoring system. Each musician then uses a headphone amp with blending or a sub mixer to acomplish a personal mix.
 Example . the bass player uses a sub mixer with a feed from the drummers sub mixer, the tascam, and his DI output.

I don't see why you would have a problem with monitoring, Unless something is different with the US 1800 from the US1641 the monitoring is very functional and logical. As the monkey said, you can't set up a custom mix for multi track, but one instrument is very easy.  
You use the blend knob to mix the input with the computers output.
I find the headphones are very loud too. So what do you mean by not working,?? you must be doing something wrong.

Hi Kenni Sorry to wonder a bit from your subject but I thought I would mention something I am planning for a monitoring setup. I've also have been expanding my system over the years and my next major purchase is a decent headphone monitor system. I have been looking at the Behringer Powerplay units. This is a new modular system and has a 16 channel input module ($299) that allows you to plug in up to 6 personal monitors ($199 each). The personal monitors allow the musician to create and save a number of personal mixes within the personal mixer and recall them. That way, other than setting up sends for each monitor signal, you don't have to worry about futzing things for the musician. I have two older Presonus FP10 units and they have been flawless with Sonar when I use it (I moved over to Studio One last year after being frustrated with X1). I believe the 1818VSL has the same 8 line out setup as the FP10s - I plan to connect each of the FP10's line outs (16 total) to the 16 inputs of the Powerplay input module and start off with a few of the personal monitor units and expand as I need for additional musicians. The entry level price maybe beyond what you are looking at since you already purchased the 1818VSL, but after looking for a long time at systems like Aviom, this seems like a pretty reasonable alternative that does not break the bank and gets me pretty close to the kind of system I wanted. I know I used the word Behringer, but they have been getting pretty good reviews on these units. Welcome to Presonus - I'm sure you will enjoy the 1818VSL (if my FP10's ever crap out, I will probably join you with a set of them). Take care, gs