New Mixer Day

I pulled the 8 channels today, cleaned out the pots and switches, nothing out of the ordinary on them except for the minor surgery I found on the first channel. Not sure what that's about since everything else looks in place.

I didn't expect any issues here since this thing passes sound but figured I might as well go through it piece by piece to see if I can find any obvious issues. I can't seem to find a service manual for this thing anyways, but testing this thing with a signal present would be.... challenging.

Hopefully a thorough cleaning and lube will set it right. I'm still fairly convinced that a lot of my issues are from not fully understanding how everything actually works on this thing. Hopefully a combo of cleaning it up, learning more, and hooking up some more I/O to it will help me figure it out. I was just using headphones before.

Here's a few close-up photos of one of the channels and a top view with the first four channels cleaned up. Another of the gunk with the knobs pulled. At least it's looking a lot prettier!
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So I finally have an update on this guy.

I am working from home today and with school being out my schedule is super light today, so I decided to spend this morning poking around inside this console.

A member of the Home Recording forum who is familiar with this era of Tascam suggested trying to clean the switches better since that tends to be a big issue.

After cleaning everything out I hauled it inside to test it out, but I ran into the same issues.

I taped numbers to the slots and started pulling channels out and rearranging them, testing them, and seeing if there was a pattern. There was! Slots 1, 4, 5, and 8 were solid. 2, 3, 6, and 7 were faulty.

I could hear a very slight signal when overloading but that's all.

Found a pattern, but what's it mean? I can't really think of anything tying these particular channels to one another. Strange, but good news since it's probably not something electronic.

I had an RCA cable on my desk because I got new ones for my turntable the other day. I oulled out the jumper and replaced it with the new RCA cable and.... Voila! It works!

Every channel works perfect now! I assumed from the get-go that it was something simple. The guts were in amazing shape, the channels that worked, worked flawlessly. I'm glad I kept at it and stuck with my guns that it was an easy fix that I just had to find. I'd feel terrible if I tore this thing apart only to find it's a nickel part bricking the entire thing.

Now my conundrum is whether or not to replace my Mackie with it. I've gotten to know my Mackie pretty well and I'm liking it, but don't currently have the space for two big mixers, and I he Tascam is like twice the size (and four times the weight) of the Mackie.

Anyways, I just wanted to share. This felt like a win and I thought y'all might like the update!

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Very cool! Go with the Tascam over the Mackie, it looks cooler therefore sounds better!

Back in the day I had the 388, an 8 channel mixer and reel to reel all in one. MASSIVE. The eq was really good, could almost get into filter territory. Little noisy but sounded cool. Not sure it is the same lineage though.
 
CheapSuitG said:
Very cool! Go with the Tascam over the Mackie, it looks cooler therefore sounds better!

Back in the day I had the 388, an 8 channel mixer and reel to reel all in one. MASSIVE. The eq was really good, could almost get into filter territory. Little noisy but sounded cool. Not sure it is the same lineage though.
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The 388's are super cool - too bad you don't still have that thing!
 
CheapSuitG said:
Very cool! Go with the Tascam over the Mackie, it looks cooler therefore sounds better!

Back in the day I had the 388, an 8 channel mixer and reel to reel all in one. MASSIVE. The eq was really good, could almost get into filter territory. Little noisy but sounded cool. Not sure it is the same lineage though.
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Also see the ADAT in there, OLD SCHOOL! When I was in school we learned on analog tape and ADAT, the BRC linking 24 tracks together was the bane of my existence. Although I have some tapes from that era, if they are still in good shape should probably transfer....
 
CheapSuitG said:
Also see the ADAT in there, OLD SCHOOL! When I was in school we learned on analog tape and ADAT, the BRC linking 24 tracks together was the bane of my existence. Although I have some tapes from that era, if they are still in good shape should probably transfer....
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That's pretty cool. I got this one on eBay for something like $16. I think $40 shipping or something. After an easy repair it works great. I thought it'd be a cool way to experiment with 8 track. I know it's digital, but ,like, it's tape, too, right? So that counts 😂


The ADAT is setup to track on 1-8 and mix on 9-16 on the Mackie, so it's setup pretty easy to use. I haven't used it much though because it's still not as easy as just firing up the Tascam the 4 track. The Tascam is just way too easy to plug and play. So I haven't gotten to know it very beyond basic tracking and playback yet.

I have a song or two I want to try mixing lots of vocal tracks for (I'm a big Dan Reeder fan and he does it in most of his songs, so I want to experiment with it) and I'm going to use the ADAT for that. I'm holding out till then before I get an LRC. When I do that I'll get to know the ADAT pretty well, I think.
 
Erik S said:
How’s the noise on the tascam?
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The mic inputs are all clean. It'll be hard for sure to know until it's all hooked up, but there wasn't any hum, buzzing, or anything obviously egregious standing out. Input gain overloaded my Beta 58a before any hiss came through the monitors, so that's not an issue.

The few other people I've seen talk about these claim that they are clean. We'll see.

I have plans to to recap the power section, fix the vu lights, and (hopefully) get some wood sides made up for it. It'll be a bit before it sees service, but now that I know it works I'm a lot more motivated to get started on these other things.
 
That’s awesome. I have a little teac mixer I was excited to use, but it’s pretty hissy. Now I’m using a Behringer. Zero mojo, but also zero noise. Oh well.
 
Erik S said:
That’s awesome. I have a little teac mixer I was excited to use, but it’s pretty hissy. Now I’m using a Behringer. Zero mojo, but also zero noise. Oh well.
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Gotta go with what works!

Is that the Teac 2A you posted in this thread, with the meter bridge? Too bad it's noisy. Have you looked into it at all?
 
peccary said:
Gotta go with what works!

Is that the Teac 2A you posted in this thread, with the meter bridge? Too bad it's noisy. Have you looked into it at all?
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That’s the one. Around the same time I realized how noisy it was I also realized I wanted a lot of features it didn’t have and I ordered the Behringer.

I recently found the reel to reel machine that was originally paired with that 2a. It’s still sitting in a barn at my aunts house, but I think I’ll end up bringing that home too. If I get that running I’ll definitely take another pass at the mixer.
 
PunchySunshine said:
While the Mackie is a quiet, decent package whom I will always have a place in my heart for (I cut my live sound teeth on one of these 1604s). I have to agree with @CheapSuitG just for the transformer on each channel alone. Channel count is overrated IMO.
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Since the M-35 was made to work with their 8-track reel to reels, this can still track and mix 8 channels without having to reroute any cables, even with only 8 channels available because of the tape returns and the ability to switch each channel from mic/line to its respective tape channel as well. This mixer is pretty wild in what's possible routing-wise.

So it's more of a matter of space and getting things organized better, really. I want to use the Tascam but I'm going to wait till I finish it up right and then get it connected to my ADAT.
 
peccary said:
Since the M-35 was made to work with their 8-track reel to reels, this can still track and mix 8 channels without having to reroute any cables, even with only 8 channels available because of the tape returns and the ability to switch each channel from mic/line to its respective tape channel as well. This mixer is pretty wild in what's possible routing-wise.

So it's more of a matter of space and getting things organized better, really. I want to use the Tascam but I'm going to wait till I finish it up right and then get it connected to my ADAT.
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Limiting to 8 channels actually sounds like a lot of fun, old school recording. With Logic, my DAW of choice I tend to end up with 20-30-40 tracks on a song. Be fun to try to get everything in 8. May have to pick up an ADAT!
 
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