Individual Tracks and a DAW

[Elliot Keys]

I've seen lots of posts and reviews that say that people have been able to record and playback individual tracks to their DAW. Nobody is saying how they managed to do it. One review said that you could actually mix on the Model24 controlling the DAW (but I've seen the thread about being unable to do it the other way - moving the DAW faders doesn't change the Model24 settings.)

All I'm looking to do is record individual tracks directly to the computer through the Model24 and playback individual tracks (not just a mix onto tracks one and two) for mixing. Overdubbing would be nice as well. Is this actually possible?

I'm using Windows 10 with all the latest updates, but in control panel, sounds, there are no options to recognize the Model24 as anything other than a mono or stereo device, so my DAW can't give me multi-track options. I’m using the 1.01 Tascam drivers. I'm using Sonar Platinum (and downloaded the much newer free Bandlab Cakewalk to see if being newer would help) and have tried the newest Audacity version as well. None of them gives me the option to use any more than two channels. I noticed one review that said that the line in the manual that says that the normal mixer properties were unavailable when in USB mode; is there any chance that the work-around relies on that (assuming it's true?)

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

[-mjk-]

Welcome to the Tascam Forums @Elliot Keys

I don't own a Model 24. I did read the user manual and it's so confusing that I honestly still don't know what it does. This is a quote from their website:

Beyond the ability to simply move recorded tracks to and from a DAW, the Model 24 is also designed as a powerful USB Audio Interface, complete with premium quality mic preamps and onboard compression. Ideal for project studios, the Model 24 will provide 24 simultaneous inputs to a computer based recording system, making it incredibly easy to record multiple musicians simultaneously without the frustration of channel limitations. The Model 24 also provides incredible flexibility at mixdown by making it simple to work completely in-the-box, or route tracks back through the mixer for 22 channels of hands-on control and true analog sound.

I do know this: if you need multitrack USB, then you need an ASIO driver. Otherwise all you get is 2 channels.

 

[Elliot Keys]

Turns out that the Tascam ASIO drivers didn't properly install at the first attempt. They LOOKED like they were functioning in Device Manager, but weren't grabbing the additional channels. Did an uninstall and a re-install, and everything is PERFECT.

 

[-mjk-]

Thanks for the follow-up! Too many people get the answer and disappear, so we never know what worked.

 

[Aaron S Needle]

Hi Elliot, I am trying to connect the Model 24 to Sonar as well. However, I have had no luck so far. Can you explain how you were able to get it working and what you can do with it. Thank you!

 

[Elliot Keys]

Hi Aaron, and welcome to the forum.
I'm making an assumption that you're not just looking to import the tracks you recorded on the Model24's SD card INTO the DAW, you actually want to use the Model24 as the front end of the DAW itself.

Assuming that's correct, I need to know where you're getting stuck. Have you installed the drivers and control software you need to download for the Model24? If you haven't, Windows will use the generic ASIO driver, and from Windows point of view, it will be installed, but in actuality, Sonar won't work with it.

Here's the first step to try: unplug the USB connection between the board and the computer. Then open Control Panel, go to Device Manager, hit the VIEW menu top left, and select "Show Hidden Devices." (This will let you see connections for devices that aren't CURRENTLY connected. We need to be physically disconnected because otherwise if we deleted the current driver, Windows would just automatically install it again when it realized it had a device attached with no driver.)

Find the Model24 (for you it may be in "Sound, video and game controllers" or in "Audio inputs and outputs" or even in one of the USB folders. When you find it, right click it and select "Uninstall." If it asks if you want the drivers removed as well, say Yes.

Now install the current Tascam Model24 package ( you can find the download link here: https://tascam.com/us/product/model_24/download about halfway down the page listed as "TASCAM Model Mixer setting panel (Windows) v 1.10"

Reboot the computer. NOW plug the Model24 into the computer, and it should install with the Tascam drivers instead of the Microsoft ones. If you look at the driver details, most of the files it uses are Microsoft, but at least ONE has to be the Tascam file.

Let me know once you're at this point. You might also want to update the firmware in the Model24 to the new version that came out last week, v 1.4 Read the How-To-Update and it should be pretty straight forward.

Cheers,
E

 

[Aaron S Needle]

Hi Elliot! Awesome. I followed your instructions and it is looking good. Thank you very much! Now, how can I use the Model 24 as the mixer and Sonar as the recording device?
Aaron

 

[Elliot Keys]

Hey Aaron, glad that it's now at least being recognized by the DAW. Here's where it's going to SOUND a little tricky, but once you see the logic, it's easy.

First, go into Sonar, and in EDIT\Preferences go to the Audio section, go to the first part of audio, DEVICES, and take any checkmarks out of both input and output devices that are already there and APPLY. (This is because if you already have something like a soundcard checked (selected) as your input or output device, Sonar won't let you select channels on a DIFFERENT interface. Go to the bottom and put a checkmark in "Show Mono Outputs. Now you can put check marks in the all the boxes of all your Model 24 Inputs AND Outputs. Now hit apply.

Now go to the "Playback and Recording" subsection and set "Driver Mode" to ASIO. Hit Apply. Go to the Driver Settings subsection, and make sure the two timing masters are your Model24 track 1. Now hit apply again.

Last, if you're going to be doing mostly audio instead of video work, you probably want to be working at 44.1 kHz and 24 bits. On the Driver Settings subsection, put these in the "Bit Depth" and "Sampling Rate" boxes. Then hit the button that says "ASIO PANEL" and your TASCAM app will pop up and show the sample rate the Model24 is set to. If it's not 44.1, you adjust it from the utility menu on the Model24 itself, then close the Tascam computer pop-up and open it again to make sure it now matches what we just put into Sonar. Now you can close the Sonar Preferences.



The only thing left is to assign tracks in the DAW to the individual channels of the Model24. (You probably want to do this once and then save the workspace as your default "New Project" setting, so you never have to do this part again.) Remember we told the preferences to show mono outputs. This is because while the Model24 LOOKS like it has channels 1,2,3,4, etc, Sonar is going to see them as Left 1, Right 1, Left 3, Right 3, Left 5, etc. (we don't use the ones that have "Stereo" in their names, even for our stereo channels on the board, or we lose the ability to control each side separately in the DAW. Create your audio channels in the DAW, and then assign each one's input and output to the input and output of the driver, using that "1 and 2 are Left 1 and Right 1" method.

I'm going to attach some pictures, so you can see it's not as complex as it sounds. Once you've done all this, set all your channel input switches on the Model24 to USB, and you can use the hardware gains and compressors to record to the DAW, and the eq, effects and faders to mix from the DAW.

Le me know if you have any questions.
E

 

[-mjk-]

@Elliot Keys I want to thank you for taking the time to help out with the Model 24 forum. We're fortunate to have you as a resource!

 

[Aaron S Needle]

Hi Elliot!
Thank you so much for all your help. I got everything up and running and it is awesome. Your instructions were excellent and spot on! Happy Holidays and Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!! Aaron

 

[Matthew Fogel]

Brilliant Tutorial Elliot! Just one note: There is now a version 1.10 of the Windows drivers. I have it installed myself and it's a lot less buggy and also allows you to dial the number of frames to as low as 5. I'm personally using 32 frames on my Windows machine. Cheers.