by: Andrew Kilpatrick - 2002-04-21
My current bedroom / studio is really small (8x9 feet) and so I've had to rethink my setup a bit. I have one synth that I can play and the other leaned against the wall. (just for sounds, you know?) About a year ago I ditched my large analog mixer and got a digital board instead. Better sound, smaller size. I've done away with almost all outboard processing gear in attempts to shrink the size of my setup and increase the sound quality by doing everything digitally. I now use a laptop instead of a desktop machine for all my work, and this means that the SBLive that gave me headaches but continued to do a "good enough" job had to go.
Without any PCI slots I needed to find a different kind of S/PDIF interface for my computer. In 1999 I had tried an Opcode DATPort with terrible results and have since been afraid to risk the hassle of trying USB audio devices. After looking at the price of PCMCIA and Cardbus audio cards, and recovering from shock, I thought it might be worth giving USB audio another try. After all, my other USB experiences have improved greatly as hardware and software has gotten better over the last few years.
After evaluating my needs I decided to keep it simple so I purchased an Edirol UA-1D. (Edirol is a Roland company) It cost me $144 Canadian, which is by far the cheapest device of this type I've ever seen. It looks just like the picture above and has coax I/O and optical I/O, which is really handy. One drawback, or advantage depending on how you look at it is that it only does S/PDIF I/O. No analog connections or fancy bells and whistles and so simple in fact that I have it hidden amongst my wires and cables hoping to never have to see it again. If it does its job that's all that matters.
It's not entirely as the marketing suggests... but I like it. Below are my loves and hates.
Well, first of all this thing works... and it works well. Manufacturers never tell you the important things about products so let me do it here.
This is do damn cool! The UA-1D is just a USB Audio Device in Windows. This means that even if Edirol completely stops supporting it, chances are that all future versions of Windows will work with it. I'm using mine with Windows XP, and it works great.
My laptop only has 2 USB ports. One is for my mouse, and the other is for everything else. Right now I've got a 7 port USB hub with the UA-1D and my Midiman USB Midisport 2x2 and everything is groovy.
Any windows program can use the UA-1D, and you can even set it to be the default device for recording and/or playing.
You can't adjust the volume control for recording. This is a BIG HUGE flaw with the SBLive!, and it has caused me much grief. Record stuff at the volume I send in, damn it! I think of a S/PDIF input as just another port on the computer, not a mixing console. The data your S/PDIF device sends to the UA-1D seems to be what you get in your favorite recording software. This on its own makes the UA-1D worth its cost.
This is the biggest drawback, and is really unfortunate. It seems like this should have been mentioned in BIG HUGE letters on the Edirol website. When I first connected the UA-1D I plugged it into both the input and output from my mixer. The mixer wouldn't lock. After looking through the manual I found a small note that says you can't use the input and output at the same time. Whatever you plug into the input comes out the outputs, I guess for using the UA-1D as a media converter.
So, you can use it as an input device or an output device, but not both. I think this is stupid, and full duplex I/O, or at least the ability to change direction without having to touch wires should be an option. Thankfully my laptop audio output is good enough at playback that I can live with only using the UA-1D as an input device.
This seems rather odd, and slightly irratating. The UA-1D records at 32K, 44.1K or 48K, so why can it only play back at 48k? Certainly not the end of the world, but rather peculiar.
If you want a high quality S/PDIF input or output for your computer, especially if you have a laptop, the UA-1D is a great value. Even if it's not your primary S/PDIF interface, it would probably be a useful device to have around for whenever you need an easy way to get digital sound in or out of a computer. In terms of simplicity, ease of use and cost I'd say that the UA-1D is a winner.
