US-122 vs Echo Audio Indigo I/O

[drjazz1947]

Hello
I am a newbie to Gigastudio, I have a compaq presario 900US with Win XP & 768MB ram laptop and tried GS3 with a borrowed US-428 and it seems to work fine for playing PMI grand piano sounds. The laptop only has one PCMCIA slot & two built in USB 1.1 Ports. The US-428 only works when I use a USB2 PCMCIA card.

I have a midisport 2x2 USB Midi I/F and just getting a Motu PC-flyer parallel port midi I/F

SO I am considering getting a US-122 USB Module or Echo Audio Indigo I/O
pcmcia card , both a similar price.

I have seem people posting problematic comments about the US-122 on various forums.

Wonder if anyone here has first hand experience with either audio card and can make a recommendation?
Many Thanks
Stephen

[howardv]

Have a US122 and no problems playing PMI or other pianos on my laptop where I use it for live performances. Works fine for me with either USB1.1 or 2.0 ports. Advantages are that it has phamtom mic inputs which are handy as well as a good gsif2 implementation which makes for great response when using its midi ports with GS3. But it doesn't do 96K, has no spidif, no w/c, and probably won't achieve the audio throughput of a cardbus audio card so you wouldn't want to use it for audio recording. But makes a good GS3 laptop piano/mic combo for live work.

Howard
Ragtime (http://www.rtpress.com) Press (http://www.rtpress.com)

[mal7]

Have a US122 and no problems playing PMI or other pianos on my laptop where I use it for live performances. Works fine for me with either USB1.1 or 2.0 ports. Advantages are that it has phamtom mic inputs which are handy as well as a good gsif2 implementation which makes for great response when using its midi ports with GS3. But it doesn't do 96K, has no spidif, no w/c, and probably won't achieve the audio throughput of a cardbus audio card so you wouldn't want to use it for audio recording. But makes a good GS3 laptop piano/mic combo for live work.

Howard

Interesting...
Howard, are you using an external hard drive? and how much ram. I also wish to use GS3 and the new VGP on gigs with my Toshiba P4 2.66Ghz Satellite Notebook.
Anyone else have comments on this?

Mal

[mal7]

I'd also be interested on hearing how the M-Audio audiophile USB compares with the US-122

[gugliel]

I use a us-122 successfully as an extra midi/audio connection beside my m-audio 24/96. Mine shipped with a copy of gigastudio solo, which I've never used but keep in mind for a laptop someday. It has an extremely limited computer interface, but a nice external box. No 88.2, no 96 khz, no spdif. No problems.

[thesoundsmith]

I have the Indigo and the 224 - IMHO the Indigo sounds way better. But if you can go FW, the M-Audio Audiophile sounds great, and has midi plus audio plus S/PDIF, $199 street. May have a higher CPU hit, tho...

[howardv]

Interesting...
Howard, are you using an external hard drive? and how much ram. I also wish to use GS3 and the new VGP on gigs with my Toshiba P4 2.66Ghz Satellite Notebook.I'm able to stream samples off my laptop's internal hd no problem. It's an Acer Aspire 1681 with the stock 60gb hd and 1 gb ram (came with 512k). The internal hd is partitioned into 27gb c: and d: drives which are each about half full. I threw the samples on when the thing was new so they're contigious at the begining of D: which is probably smack in the middle of the physical drive.

I do have an external ADS fw400/usb2 combo case with a seagate 200gig uata to fall back on but haven't needed it for playing gs3 samples yet. I just keep the White Grand and the Bardstown Bose on it. Just got the VGP but it's not gs3 (it's an NI engine) and haven't fired it up yet. I'll have to get myself up to speed on NI first.

Howard

[flashman]

I have both two indigos and a US-122 and the 122 is sitting in a box. It just can't take anything more than a very light load whereas the echo will handle anything I throw at it. The Emu 1616 looks like a great option however as well.