A few tascam mx2424 questions

gerard

Member
Hi all, I just bought a TASCAM MX2424SE with all the goodies and I would like to interface it to my TASCAM M3500 mixer. The MX2424 has the IF-AN24 analog converter card (and the IF-TD25 card) and the mixer tape inputs are line level. Since the MX2424's outs are balanced, I guess I should I use pins 24 (high) and 25 (ground) from the DB25 connector to feed the mixers line level tape in's and let pin 12 (cold) float, right? This would be just for channel 1. I'm sure I'll have a ton of questions but I'll save them for latter. Thanks in advance!

Jerry
 
Hi, I use a MX2424 and a tascam M3700 (automated version of the M3500). First up lets just clarify that there are line level inputs and tape inputs. The returns form the MX should be connected to the Tape inputs.

Here are the problems, the MX runs at the +4dB line level standard. The M3500 runs in -10dB line level standard. Some M3500 consoles had the optional balancing kit that had tape returns at the +4dB standard with balanced inputs. However this is not common, you will know if you have them as there will be D-sub connectors on the back of the M3500.

However all is not lost.

M3500 Tape inputs: What you need to do is to make up a simple pad on the returns form the MX, the pad can also at the same time convert balanced to un-balanced. This can also be built into the back of a patch bay if thats easier.

M3500 Direct outs: The direct outs are at -10dB and the MX needs +4dB, what I did was to get a tech to make up a line level matcher (24 channels) using small amp chips and a power supply. Tascam also made a unit that converted -10dB to +4db 8 channels at a time, but these are hard to come by. However another studio in town also had a M3700 and a MX2424 and they said there was no problem driving the line outs hard to achieve +4 as the Console has plenty of headroom before clipping. You just have to realise that the console vu's will show a hot signal.

With the connections, as a rule (channel 1 d-sub) you have pin 24 hot, pins 25 and 12 bridged as the shield (cold). The connection going to the MX is the same. However what I would do is to wire the D-subs as a fully balanced connection and do all the bridging/unbalancing at the console end.

What connection are the tape ins and direct outs on your console? The US had RCA connectors the rest of the world had unbalanced jacks as standard.
Cheers
Alan
 
Thanks Alen

Right now I have a Tascam MSR 16. I got it about 3 years ago and it's inputs are normaled to the mixers Direct Outs (RCA jacks) via a TT patchbay. The same for the outputs of the tape machine, normaled to Tape In (1/4" TS jacks) to the board via the TT patchbay. I plan on swapping the 16 track and adding 8 more inputs and outputs to the patchbays, each bay has 3 rows of 24 TT jacks. I have 3 bays right now but I plan on getting another one (from Mr Patchbay) so I can use both the MX2424 and the MSR 16.
I am a bit confused about the model number(s). Mine is MX2424SE, has the latest firmware, a power supply upgrade plus RAM upgrades. I did a search and the SE model should not have a internal drive(?) but mine does. I could not find anything about the power supply upgrade. It did come with one external drive in the bay slot. It's not wired in yet so all I can do is look at it and hope I didn't get bamboozeled on the deal.
 
I can't remember the actual difference with the SE, but I think it was mainly the removable drive bay as standard. If the SE did not have the internal hard drive originally , the drive may have been fitted by the previous owner. The power supply upgrade was phased in as some of the early models had power supply problems, as the SE was released later it would have most likely had the upgraded power supply. It's the same story with the ram, It was increased in size along the way due to the operating system need more ram. My original MX I bought new come with the larger ram but it had only just come out that month, they included the old 128meg ram in the box as the new 256meg ram was supplied at no cost to past buyers. The wiring for the drive bay is in the downloads on the Tascam web site in support under MX2424 here.

I always recommend to people that they remove all the drives from the MX and use an external scsi case, this reduces heat in the MX and lessons the load on the power supply.

You are actually following my path but a few years behind, I was using a MSR16S and the M3700, I added the MX2424 and originally had the MX2424 chasing the MSR to add more tracks, I only stopped using the MSR when tape became hard to get.

Cheers

Alan.
 
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