Mixer for Teac 3440?

[kollontai77]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking at getting a Teac 3440 reel to reel tape recorder, and had a few questions.

1. Do I need a mixer to get listenable songs out of it?
2. What mixer would be compatible with the Teac?

Thanks

 

[cjacek]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking at getting a Teac 3440 reel to reel tape recorder, and had a few questions.

1. Do I need a mixer to get listenable songs out of it?
2. What mixer would be compatible with the Teac?

Thanks

No, you don't need a mixer with the 3440 but it cartainly makes for easier presentation of your final recorded work to have a mixer handy. The 3440 was originally paired up with the TEAC 2A and model 3 mixer. However, there's nothing wrong with getting a model 5 or TASCAM M-30 or M-35. You can even get an M-50/200/300/500 series mixers. Any one of those would work great. Picking one of the above listed mixers depends mostly on what you wish to accomplish and how you plan to record. All of these will be "compatible" with the 3440.

~Daniel

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking at getting a Teac 3440 reel to reel tape recorder, and had a few questions.

1. Do I need a mixer to get listenable songs out of it?
2. What mixer would be compatible with the Teac?

Thanks

1. Yes, you need a mixer to at least mix down with. The recorder has microphone and line inputs already with their own level controls so if your needs are simple and your microphones are only dynamic ones, you could get by with as little as a passive summing box which would take the four outputs and combine them down to a stereo output, suitable for transfer to the medium of your choice; cassette, other open reel deck, CD recorder or computer.

TEAC made such a passive mixer device back in that era and it offered a switching matrix which allowed each output to be placed left, right or mono in the mix which was controlled by the output level controls on the recorder. The whole thing was about the size of a pack of smokes! I think it was called the AX-20 but, I'm not sure? It's been more then 20 years since I owned one myself.

2. Any mixer mixer with line level, -10db, RCA jack connectivity for recording buss output and the same level specs for input is compatible.

Cheers!

 

[cjacek]

It was called the Teac AX-20 and as Jeff (Ghost) points out that if your needs are relatively simple and all you want to do is a simple mixdown to 2 track cassette, cd, computer or just want to listen through your stereo system then the AX-20 would suffice. You could set the levels with the outputs on the 3440 and mix through the AX-20. But again it depends what you wish to accomplish with your setup. It's not that you need to have a mixer for the recording part but you'd need one for the playback if you're wanting to mix it down to something. The AX-20 would be the absolute minimum. After that the TEAC model 2 or 2A and then model 3 or 5 and then the TASCAM M-30 or 35 and above. All would be nice and compatible with your 3440. Here's an AX-20 on eBay right now:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=67814&item=5755152941&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

~Daniel

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Thanks Daniel!

I knew it had an X in the model number at least!

Scary, what time does to the human mind!

Cheers!

 

[jmarkwolf]

I'd recommend the Tascam Model 1 line level mixer before the AX10. The Model 1 has more channels tham you need for the 3440, but at least it has real volumes and pans for each channel. I see them on Ebay a lot for $50 or less.

 

[Muckelroy]

My first experience with analog was my senior piano solo album, done with a Teac A-3340S. No mixer was used to track it.
When we were done tracking, I used a Studio Master SOmething-er-ruther...........but it was that exact same architecture as stated above - 4 channels each w/ levels, pans, and a master level/pan control. Very simple. Ran the stereo output of that to the line-in of my computer to record the entire tape into Sound Forge, then I split it up to tracks, to burn a CD in the end.
Pros and cons of this method - Simple and Cheap. Very true sound, and a great way to test the quality of your mics, and your mic placement. Unfortunateley, without any form of EQ or noise reduction, there was a slightly rediculous amount of noise, even at 15 ips. A bit of EQ would have enhanced the master recording TREMENDOUSLY, I believe. I hope to do that someday when I have some spare time.