How to use your Tascam US-1800 with OS X Mavericks

Tascam Support: just sayin' ...

The Tascam US-1800 does not have drivers for OS X Mavericks (10.9) nearly a month after Apple released the new OS. Here is the press release from Tascam support, should you be ... as I was ... in utter disbelief.

However, I have discovered a pretty easy work around, read on to get the deets my friends.

First, let me say that the US-1800 is really not a bad interface at all. In fact, if what you need is a boatload of pretty decent inputs and more than one stereo output, you really can't do a whole lot better for $250, which is about what thing will run you. For instance, say you wanna mic up a drum kit, and you'd like to take a DI off a bass and keys, and maybe mic up a guitar amp or two ... this will do the job pretty well.

However if you're asking yourself "why is this thing so cheap?", let me answer those questions for you:

1. It is not class-compliant
   On OS X the thing needs an actual bonafide driver, and it is not coded very efficiently. The driver uses an insane amount of CPU for what it's doing. So, if you've got beef ... for instance on my 4-core xenon ... it's not really a problem. On my core-2 duo laptop ... you'll be bouncing software tracks down all day 'cause you're gonna hit that CPU wall quickly.
   
   
2. there are actually only 4 outputs, not 6
   Output 1-2 is a hard-wired copy of the L-R monitor output. Output 3-4 is actually a separate output though. The manuals and marketing go to great extents to obfuscate this fact. boo.
    

Well anyhow, it's not bad, if you've got the beef to run it. Which I do, and I presume you do also, and so ... you want to know what the deal is, because you just installed Mavericks and now your OS either can't see your US-1800 or simply refuses to play sound through it ... here's the deal:

1. If you already had the driver installed and upgraded your OS in place, skip this step, otherwise: Trick the driver installer into installing anyhow:


1. download the 10.8 driver from tascam such as it is.
2. unzip / mount the disk image (duh)
3. the trickery, right click on the installer and select "show package contents"
   
   
4.  install ./Contents/Resources/104/TASCAM_US1800_2.10.mpkg
   
   
   
2. download SoundFlower and SoundFlowerBed
   Let's be honest ... if you don't have them installed already ... because they are pretty much the ubiquitous duct-tape of OS X audio. If SoundFlower is new to you, you're going to love it. What it does is set up two fake audio interfaces on your computer, one is a 2-in-2-out stereo interface, the second is a 16-in-16-out interface. You can use these fake interfaces to route audio internally between applications on your mac. In the case of the US-1800 we're lucky, because soundflower can see it, even though OS X Mavericks can't. Oh, and it's free.
1. Get soundflower from Cycling 74 here
2. Oh sweet. SoundFlowerBed is bundled with it now. Used to be a separate download. SoundFlowerBed, is status bar app that installs next to your wi-fi widget thing and the clock. It looks like a flower.
   
   
3. set OS X's sound output to SoundFlower (2ch)
   
   

   

   Set OS X's output to Soundflower (2 ch)

   
   Pretty simple stuff. Open your system preferences -> Sound -> Output, and select "Soundflower (2ch) as shown above. OS X is now sending it's audio output to the Soundflower 2 channel pseudo-interface. Next step is to tell soundflower to route the 2 channel pseudo-interface out to your US-1800 ...
   
   
4. use SoundFlowerBed to route audio out to US-1800 (1-2).
   
   As mentioned, SoundFlowerBed is a tiny app that runs in your status bar. You have to manually launch it. If like me, you find it to be very useful, you might want to set it to run on login (System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Current User -> Login Items):
   
   

   

   Set SoundFlowerBed to launch on login ... if you want to

   Now just tell SoundFlowerBed to route "Soundflower (2ch)" to your US-1800 on Output 1-2:
   
   

   

   That ought to do it

5. Logic sees it too, so you're back in business on Mavericks:
   
   

   

   w00t!

   
   

   

   Gosh Darn it, Donchaknow ...

Sunlight Video

I made a video for it.
think it turned out pretty good!

Sunlight

I am about to make one of the biggest changes of my life. That being said, I'm running out of options, and if I don't make this change now then I will most certainly have it made later on my behalf. I suppose the only difference between then and now is the illusion of control ...

This is leaving home. This is starting over.

Mainstage 3 is the awesomest midi sound module you didn't know existed

This is the most amazingly awesome thing you probably didn't even know your mac could do. It takes a little explaining, but hang with me. This  is worth it.

First, let's talk about Mainstage 3. If you make music with a computer, you have surely heard that the first major release of Logic in like forever was released  last month and that this is called Logic X, and that finally the thing has "midi effects" (i.e. an Arpeggiator among other things), as well as a number of truly kickass new instruments. I am here to tell you that this is all completely true.

Mainstage 3 is amazing ... but probably the most amazing thing is that, pretty much Mainstage 3 is all the juicy good parts of Logic X, for $30.  Totes serious, bro. Even right down to getting all the new apple loops and samples.

Second, let's talk about motivation.

I have two mac computers. One is an aging 2008 Mac Pro (i.e. my "legit machine"), and one is a home-brewed Hackintosh (yes it's all legal 'cause I bought the software). The "hack pro" is a single-purpose machine which runs my home studio (which I built in an attic -- this is important later). Due to the unbelievably high pain factor of upgrading OS X on this particular set of hardware, the hack pro is permanently at 10.6.8, and will likely never see another OS upgrade.

Mainstage 3 requires 10.8, which is fine 'cause it runs on my laptop and that's what I've got running there. So ... I've got wicked new sounds on my laptop, all configurated for my live rig, but I want to make recordings on my studio computer which can never run 10.8. Also my live rig is heavier than a truckload of lead suitcases, and for reasons of the studio being attic-based, toting that mess up the stairs isn't a real popular option either.

Here is what you can do ... I've been doing it all day, and I cannot believe that it works so well:

you can set up a wireless midi connection between your mac pro and your laptop, and you can drive mainstage on your laptop right out of Logic on your mac pro.

Tempo sync works so you can run that arpeggiator like the second coming of Giorgio Morodor, latency is negligible and it takes like 2 minutes to set up, no joke. 

Here's how to do it:

make one and name it something

1.  set up a private wireless network between the two machines. Latency is important here, you don't wanna be relaying packets across your wireless router. Select "Create Network ... ", choose a cute name and connect both machines to it (note: this has the added benefit of disconnecting your ass from facebook so you can get some music and/or work done).
2. Open up Audio Midi Setup (/Applications/Utilities). Select Window->Show MIDI Window. Double click the "Network" Icon. You're gonna see something like this:
   
   
   
   
   

   

   do this on both machines: enable them, after a second
   they will see each other in the bottom left, click connect.

   
   you have now established a dern near latency free wireless midi connection between your computers.


3. Set up Logic
   Plug the audio output of your laptop into an audio input on your mac pro, then set up logic to have a (stereo) audio input corresponding to that (just like you'd plug any other external sound source in) then set up an external midi instrument:
   
   
   
   
   
4. Set up Mainstage 3
   Open up Mainstage 3 on your laptop. Go to the layout mode and select a keyboard or a knob or whatever, and set the midi input to your wireless session, as so:
   

BOOM, you're done. Play some keys on the Mac Pro, and marvel at the awesome sounds emanating from your laptop and coming right back into Logic on your Mac Pro.

And you didn't even have to haul your synthesizers up the stairs.

this man would be proud

Ancestors

Like all living things on this Earth, we are born, we grow, we thrive, we weaken, and we eventually die. Right down to the smallest bacteria, each of us a tiny spark amid this enormous interconnected ocean of life, looping through the endless iteration of the eons. Birth, growth, reproduction, death, repeat. Fragments of our DNA live on beneath the surface, an endlessly long trail forming the fabric of our reality, like ghostly echoes on an endless tape loop. In a very real scientific sense, part of us does live forever, and who we are is a unique sum of fragments of all those that have come before us.

This is real, and it is astounding, and it is beautiful.

Rest in peace, Irene Hicox. You will be missed, but your echoes will be felt for many generations to come.