Tascam M520 VU Meters

What did you get?

I ordered s Rhode NT1. Heard about them for years in a favorable light, then a video took me over the cliff.
:D
Yeah, a youtube video. Hahaha!
Saw Warren Huart (produce like a pro) demo one in a giveaway.
First thoughts were, shit I never win anything, then, I bet Rhode will sell a bunch of these over the next month. :D

Almost the next day my sweetwater rep calls me out of the blue. The usual, how's it going, working on anything cool, ya need anything?

So what the hell, I want to try one, and no one's gonna give me one, so I ordered it.
:D

We'll see how it stacks up to my fave. I got a vintage (I guess) from the 70s AKG C414

So, today is NMD!

Now where the hell is UPS? Got errands to run, can't hang out all day.
:D
 
As if I didn't already have way too many mics that have piled up, and many rarely used...I've also been itching to get another ribbon mic., specifically for guitar cabs. :D

For awhile there I was thinking about the new Royer R-10, which looks cool and has gotten some decent reviews for a $500 ribbon...
...but then I checked out a guitar cabinet mic shootout online, and now what I want is the Beyerdynamic M160...which IMO sounds better...though it's $700.
It sounds more clearer in the highs...though the one interesting thing was how close the Royer R-10 is to the more expensive (more than double) Royer R-121

Check out this shootout: Guitar Cabinet Mic Shootout
 
I think we scared away the OP.
:D

Btw, mic came in. Haven't pulled out orher mics and compared them.
But on it's own, it's a pretty nice mic. Sounded good on micing my Champ, Acoustic, and Vocals.

Seems like a great all purpose mic. Kind of like the 58 of condensers.

Pleased so far.
 
I think we scared away the OP.
:D

Hahaha, Nah you guys didn't scare me away, Just had a super crazy/long week at work and hadn't had a chance to reply. TONS of good advice thus far and a lot to digest. I'll probably hold off for recapping for now but may try eventually.

How are any of you all connecting outboard gear to the 520? For instance, Ive got a couple compressors, EQ, a spring reverb and a plate reverb I built a couple years ago based on the EMT plate that Ive never gotten to reliably incorporate into my setup. As an aside, we have a cistern thats 30'L x 9'H x 5'W that Im itching to try as an echo chamber.

Ive tried to attach a pic of the plate and one of a couple friends singing down into the cistern as an experiment just for fun
IMG_2703.JPG
 
Hi Pitol678 and yes, welcome!

Now, I am not in nearly the same league as Sweetbeats and the other guys here ref these old tape machines, just a 72yrd old tech' who has poked about in most things electronics, especially audio. I would like therefore to give my view on 're-capping'?

Can be a bit of a 'fashion' in many areas but I suspect these machines are mostly old enough to warrant it?
Before you get stuck in however do some homework and gather some test gear or software to 'spec out' the kit. Aged capacitor can cause the following problems..

1) loss of low frequency response. This is because as the cap falls in value its impedance rises and attenuates LF.
2) As well as LOSS of LF, a drop in value can cause an increase in harmonic distortion, this is due to two possible effects. Electrolytic caps ALL cause slight distortion but the higher the value, the lower it is at any given frequency but since the distortion in a tape path is many times that of say digital recording, the effect is likely never noticed. However, a reduced cap value CAN reduce Negative Feedback and that will increase distortion.
3) Failing caps can cause increased power supply noise or even in some cases instability. The latter can be hard to spot without an oscilloscope.

So, bottom line. You need to run a frequency response and distortion test to check that these parameters are up to specification. If they are 'good' there is little point IMHO in the protracted, possible damaging process of re- capping.

Note, if you DO replace any electrolytics, fit 105C types if you can. Likely bigger than MODERN 85C caps but probably about the same size as the originals?

Dave.

Dave, I appreciate the info! I would very much like to educate myself on using an oscilloscope and generally understanding electronics and repairs but don't even really know where to begin. For me, its kind of one of those situations where I don't know what I don't know ie not knowing where to start, however, Im still determined to dig in when/where I can.

The m520 is a mixer.
He doesn't even have a tape machine hooked up to it.

I definitely would like to incorporate a tape machine at some point, other than my 388, but I live in a rural area where a repair tech who can/will work on tape machines, as well as a tape machine itself, is very hard to find. I actually needed a repair for my 388 and a repair shop in a larger city a couple hours away told me I needed to drop 500$ just to bring it in the door! Hence my determination to develop skills for repairing my own audio equipment. ;)
 
1) One interface is an allen and heath unit set up for stand alone. It has no preamps, just 16 analog in and 16 analog out. I could hook it up the computer as an interface but just use it as a tape machine.
It's hooked up so i can use it as a recorder, and so I can dump 16 tracks of tape to a harddrive which gets proceesed in protools or reaper.

Both can be mixed in the box or on the desk


2) I have a focusrite interface hooked to the computer into protools.
This as well I can put back into the console for mixing.


Do you mind telling me the model of the A&H and the focusrite? Do you run individual tracks to the board or busses?




You brought up pfl and solo fuctions.
Solo takes what you have on the channel including any effects you have on the insert and you hear only that channel in its pan position.

Pfl brings that channel up in mono and before the fader.

I like to think if pfl being for tracking and solo for mixing.

One word of caution. Watch out when using headphones!!!!!

All helpful info, thanks!!
 
Do you mind telling me the model of the A&H and the focusrite? Do you run individual tracks to the board or busses?

My allen and heath unit is an ice16 It records to a thumbdrive or a hardrive as a stand alone unit, or to a daw. It can be connected via usb or firewire.

As a standalone recording device, you can't do multitrack recording. You can record anything from 1 to16 tracks at once, but no over dubbing. It's great for recording a band off of a board, tape to daw transfers, etc. There are no preamps, which for my uses aren't needed, seeing how I'm using a board.


Side note: firewire gets a lot of shit, but my computer has a great firewire card and I'm real happy with it's performance

The ice16 is run into the line in channels 1 to 16
Currently it's inputs are from the tape machine's outs, although I could hook it up directly to the tape outs of the board.

But the way I'm set up, I record to tape, go out of the tape into the Allen and Heath, out of the A&H into the board.

The other interface is a focusrite pro40. That is fed by the 8 buss outs (but not always)


You asked about effects. Here's my method.

I'll use the first 16 channel's insert points for any effect I want to print to tape. Can also use the insert points on mixdown.

Channels 17 to 20 are used as effects returns, which I usually just use for stereo effects such as reverb or compression that i want to apply to the whole mix.

In practice however, most effects on individual tracks are done in protools.

Let's use compression as an example. With bomb factory (stock protools plugin), that gives me unlimited 1176 style compression,
which in the real world of hardware compressors would be financially impossible. :D


I'd highly recommend getting some patchbays, if for no other reason than bringing up front all the points on the m520 you want to access.

There's a LOT of jacks back there! :D
 
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