Hi Scott,

I'm presently using a Tascam US-122 usb sound card with midi in/out. I have it connected to my Sony Vaio laptop and have my Tyros setup on bottom with either a Trinity V3 or Wavestation EX on top. I also have a fully expanded Fantom XR module sitting underneath my laptop. All of this is connected through a Midisport 4X4 interface. I have the stereo outs from both keyboards and the XR module feeding into the inputs on my D1600 along with the audio outs of the US-122. I then have the stereo master outs of the D1600 connected to the input on the US-122. This allows me to use either the D1600 for recording or I can feed everything through and record in Sonar 4 or Adobe Audition or anything else. It also allows me to use softsyths and record not only internally but also, if I want, to the D1600. I have a latency of 5.8 ms which I find to be unnoticeable. It all works very well and is quite stable. The US-122 cost $199 and Tascam includes a copy of Cubase LE and GigaStudio 3 LE with the interface.

However, I do use firewire for my two 250 gig external HDs, one is a backup archive drive and the other is my working sample, etc. drive. Here firewire is better because it has a higher throughput than usb 2.0 even though the "spec" on the usb 2 is higher. Somewhere down the line when firewire 800 gets common, I'll probably switch my sound card over to that, but in the meantime I'm having no problems with my present setup...well, except for some operator error here and there.

Tom

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Bigger is not always better