Anyone ever used a Tascam M-320 board?

[argosyinflames]

Just wondering your impressions of it.

[Girl Toes]

Is that a brown one?

[argosyinflames]

The wood border around it is, the chassis is black from what I can tell.

[trashy]

Is that a brown one?

you are my hero.


Buying gear because of its color is one of my hobbies.


The m-series stuff from tascam is great, btw. the pres are totally underrated.

[Girl Toes]

I had an M-80 but it blew up.

[trashy]

I had an M-80 but it blew up.

you are on fire!




figuratively speaking.

[sonic dogg]

Clear and clean....mic pres have a limited headroom...you can drive the master section real hard and it warms up a bit....EQ's are usable though not clinical....built like a Tank...A touch on the noisy side at high gain...I cant remember if they got away from the RCA connections on these boards....M320/M520...I think some parts of the I/O may be -10 and some parts +4....it may be switchable on these from the inside. As far as an inexpensive way to work into a DAW these are a lot better sounding than most of the cheap crap available.

RECYCLE! Another good oldie are the Ramsa boards.

[mertmo]

I just recently scored an M-520 and wired it up to record and mix with.

Pros:
Great preamps, really thick sounding but not muddy or too dark. YUM!

Looks incredibly cool, VU meter board and such.


Cons:
IMO, the EQ was not real useable. I'll probably be lynched for saying this,
but I think the EQ on my Mackie is way better. It turns me off when I hear a
difference in the audio as soon as I turn the EQ button on... (tascam). Plus I just didn't think the EQ sounded that good.

Another con, albiet a "fun" con, was that each channel and buss sounds slightly
different from one another. Kind of cool, but then again kinda not.
This could just be my board of course.

RCA interconnects.



I ended up reinstalling my Mackie to mix with and I use the Tascam just to track
with, as the pres destroy the mackie's. I am VERY happy with this setup.
They are definitely cool boards.

[Harry]

I just picked up an M3500...still shopping around for cables so I haven't recorded anything yet.
My headphone mix rocks though!!

crazy that I'll end up spending almost as much on cables that I did on a beautiful 32x8 console????

[T-rex]

I picked up an M520 a year ago and I really like it. Mainly the flexibility while tracking and the talkback features are why I like it since I do most stuff in the box, but mixing on it is fun when I don't really need exact recall.

[gregnrom]

I just recently scored an M-520 and wired it up to record and mix with.

Pros:
Great preamps, really thick sounding but not muddy or too dark. YUM!

Looks incredibly cool, VU meter board and such.


Cons:
IMO, the EQ was not real useable. I'll probably be lynched for saying this,
but I think the EQ on my Mackie is way better. It turns me off when I hear a
difference in the audio as soon as I turn the EQ button on... (tascam). Plus I just didn't think the EQ sounded that good.

Another con, albiet a "fun" con, was that each channel and buss sounds slightly
different from one another. Kind of cool, but then again kinda not.
This could just be my board of course.

RCA interconnects.

I had the M520 for years (I'm sorry argosyinflames that I'm continuing the non 320 discussion). The preamps are pretty good for low gain use, but have a bunch of noise on them. I like the pad, that is handy. The meters, well they're meters (lights never burned out on me).
There are a lot of interconnect options with that board that make it super versatile (inserts, direct out mults on each chan, floating balancing amps, phono, and DI ins, 3 input options per channel). The eqs are a bit bland, and I didn't like using them much.
The construction/wiring of the mixer is remarkably good. Internally, it has shielded twisted pair wire for the mic lines, shielded wire for other mundane audio, and nice gold connections. Most boards have all that on a mother board (more crosstalk, and possible induced noise). It is a good candidate for hot-rodding with nicer op amps. People seem to loath RCA connections. Tascam equipment have always been covered in them. I know they seem to be amateurish, but they are far better than the typical 1/4" connectors you see all over medium level equipment. The contact area is much greater than a 1/4" connection. Other than the initial annoyance of making a RCA to *** snake, there is nothing bad about them.

It sounds like your mixer is a bit fucked up. Obviously all the busses should sound the same. If there is a difference when you switch on the eq (other than there being more noise) that might mean that the caps might be going bad, or the pots are out of alignment.
I never had a noisy pot, or switch on that board. There was one bad input that I was able to fix in less than an hour (dead half of a dual op amp). The manual is great for everyone (techy and informative). Tascam had a consistent design ethic, so the M320 would probably be similar, if only less featured.

[mertmo]

gregnrom:

I'm sure you are right, my board is probably a bit tweaked and/or in need of
a little service. None of the busses sound bad, per se, but just a little different
from each other. The mic amps don't all sound the same, either. There are a few
that slightly outshine all the others. No complaints here, tho, I think it's a great
board.

I agree about there being nothing totally "wrong" with RCA connections, either.
My main beef was I needed all new cabling just to check the thing out.