An interesting opportunity has come my way and I can't think of any better group of people to discuss it with...
A couple months ago I bought a Tascam M3500 in fairly good condition. It has some minor cosmetic issues and a few technical issues but nothing catastrophic. The only major issue I've found is that the right balanced out on the master bus doesn't work. The unbalanced RCA jack does, just not the XLR.
The other day I came across a guy not (too) far from me selling an M3700 with some issues for $200. Considering I just spent more than that amount on ebay for 8 channel modules for spares, I've committed to buying the M3700 and am picking it up next week. The guy who owns it says the second fuse in the power supply keeps popping and as such the inputs don't work. Sounds.. interesting. In my conversation with him it's also come up that 1/2 of the channels have been modded with 'burr brown' chips. I suspect a bad channel is causing the issue with the power supply but I'm not in any way an expert.
The question now is, which board should I harvest from and which should I rebuild?
From what I've gathered the 3700 and 3500 differ only in respect to automation. The 3700 has it, the 3500 does not. The 3700 has VCA automation controlled by an onboard computer sync'd via MIDI? I've also heard that the automation is noisy but I don't know what that means. The faders on the 3700 are noisier than those on the 3500? Is that true only when automation is enabled or are they just more noisy all the time?
I think it would be a lot fun to get the automation system working on the M3700 and I would enjoy the project even if I never use it on a paying session. It appeals to my inner geek and I've always been fascinated with older technologies and how they relate today. That being said, if using the M3700 with it's automatable faders will degrade the quality of sound going to mix bus even when I'm not using the automation, then I would prefer to not do it. Does anyone know? Has anyone used both?
The M3700 has the full 32 channel meter bridge that I desperately want for my M3500 and that alone is worth the $200, to me at least. If beyond that this board is just a pile of spares I'm fine with that but, as I said, I'm a geek and I love a fun project.
Step one will be to pull each channel module out and look it over for burn marks, ect. to see if I can find the problem channel strip. If I'm successful it'll just be a matter of cleaning up the board and testing every function and plug. Any further ideas? Right now the plan is to drive out and pickup the board a week from today so it's not a great rush nor do I need this board to go into use for a session ASAP. I'm in the process of moving my studio to a new location and things at the old location are still running fine... though sadly without the help of these M3000 series boards
Robert
A couple months ago I bought a Tascam M3500 in fairly good condition. It has some minor cosmetic issues and a few technical issues but nothing catastrophic. The only major issue I've found is that the right balanced out on the master bus doesn't work. The unbalanced RCA jack does, just not the XLR.
The other day I came across a guy not (too) far from me selling an M3700 with some issues for $200. Considering I just spent more than that amount on ebay for 8 channel modules for spares, I've committed to buying the M3700 and am picking it up next week. The guy who owns it says the second fuse in the power supply keeps popping and as such the inputs don't work. Sounds.. interesting. In my conversation with him it's also come up that 1/2 of the channels have been modded with 'burr brown' chips. I suspect a bad channel is causing the issue with the power supply but I'm not in any way an expert.
The question now is, which board should I harvest from and which should I rebuild?
From what I've gathered the 3700 and 3500 differ only in respect to automation. The 3700 has it, the 3500 does not. The 3700 has VCA automation controlled by an onboard computer sync'd via MIDI? I've also heard that the automation is noisy but I don't know what that means. The faders on the 3700 are noisier than those on the 3500? Is that true only when automation is enabled or are they just more noisy all the time?
I think it would be a lot fun to get the automation system working on the M3700 and I would enjoy the project even if I never use it on a paying session. It appeals to my inner geek and I've always been fascinated with older technologies and how they relate today. That being said, if using the M3700 with it's automatable faders will degrade the quality of sound going to mix bus even when I'm not using the automation, then I would prefer to not do it. Does anyone know? Has anyone used both?
The M3700 has the full 32 channel meter bridge that I desperately want for my M3500 and that alone is worth the $200, to me at least. If beyond that this board is just a pile of spares I'm fine with that but, as I said, I'm a geek and I love a fun project.
Step one will be to pull each channel module out and look it over for burn marks, ect. to see if I can find the problem channel strip. If I'm successful it'll just be a matter of cleaning up the board and testing every function and plug. Any further ideas? Right now the plan is to drive out and pickup the board a week from today so it's not a great rush nor do I need this board to go into use for a session ASAP. I'm in the process of moving my studio to a new location and things at the old location are still running fine... though sadly without the help of these M3000 series boards
Robert