sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Through experimenting I was able to answer some of my own questions. Sorry some of my questions were so unclear. Regarding the first question, I assigned the tracks using the pan/l-r knobs, and kept the red assign button down so I could eq the mix being sent to tracks 7/8. Everting went fine and I probably should have left it at that, but was wondering what the difference would be if the red assign l/r was depressed on tracks 7/8. Maybe that would allow more eq effect to print on those tracks. When I track a band, the red buttons are up and I mix the headphones with the monitor section. My friend records with the red buttons depressed. Maybe it’s the same means to an end?
Regarding the second question, I think I discovered my answer. Thanks for explaining the next parts.
I have another question that hopefully I can word well. So I have a m-1b line mixer. I read a recent post in which you commented, but there’s another poster who suggested using that line mixer to expand effect capabilities. Follow the instructions on that posting, I was able to hook up the line mixer with separate spring reverb unit. What I’m trying to figure out is can I have 3 or 4 global effect units hooked up to the tascam 388 ready for use without having to fuss too much behind the unit. Obviously the machine has 2 options, effect and Aux... but my limited understanding is that can be expanded with the line mixer. Is this achievable and if so, how would I would I wire things up.
And... can I hook up a second pair of external monitors to the M – 1B? I definitely will be experimenting with all of this as well.
Thank you very much
So many times I wish I could just talk to people face-to-face wherever their gear is at to answer questions...
Regarding the L-R assign switches and your first paragraph, what I need to understand that you aren't answering is this: do the channels that have the L-R assign switches latched also have one or more PGM group assign switches latched, or are you saying you are able to record to tape tracks with only the L-R assign switches latched? If it is the latter, there is something wrong with your machine. The L-R assign switches assign signal to the L-R main STEREO buss. There is no pathway from the STEREO buss to any of the tape tracks, unless you physically patch the STEREO OUT jacks to PGM input jacks. Now, the L-R assign switch ALSO acts as a solo-in-place function IF there is also one or more PGM group assign switches latched on a channel that ALSO has the L-R assign switch latched. So if you have PGM group assign switches latched on channels 1, 2 & 3 and ALSO have the L-R assign switches latched on channels 1, 2, & 3, then you will have channels 1, 2 & 3 routed to both their respective PGM groups AND the L-R main STEREO buss. Under those circumstances any other channels with ONLY L-R assign switches latched will be muted in the main mix. This is one way to monitor your signals being recorded during recording, but that's not really the way Tascam intended you do it...they intended for you to use the monitor mixer to monitor your PGM groups during tracking, overdubs and punches.
Regarding your second question about the M-1B, if I understand you correctly, what you are wanting to do is use the limited number of AUX busses (the AUX buss and the EFF buss) to simultaneously feed a greater number of send type effect processors and then sum the outputs of those processors into a mono or stereo signal...is that correct? Or to have the whole mess hooked up all the time and be able to pick and choose what processor you want to use without having to mess with connections on the 388 backplane?
That would be addressed by using a patchbay. And then hooking up the outputs of the effect processors to the M-1B. Or if you want to feed them all simultaneously there are two ways to accomplish that:
1. Connect all the processors in parallel...use 'Y' cables to divide the AUX and/or EFF master send into multiple feeds and connect those to the inputs of your effect processors. As long as the inputs of those processors are high impedance there shouldn't be a problem driving them with the AUX and/or EFF send outputs. Also keep in mind you'll only have singular control of the output level of those auxiliary busses, so your effect processors will need to have input trim controls to fine tune the input levels at each processor. Then you could connect the outputs of the processors to inputs on the M-1B, and use the M-1B to sum those multiple signals in to a mono or stereo submix and bring that back into the 388 either using EFF RTN 1 or EFF RTN 2 or, like we talked about in an earlier post you could also bring that sum back using one or more of the 388 mixer channels and have control over assigning that sum to the main mix and/or tape tracks.
2. Daisy-chain your effect processors; serial connection. Connect the AUX or EFF output to the input of one processor, the output of that processor connects to the input of the next and so on. Yes this will bring a different result than feeding all processors in parallel as in #1, but this is another way to do it. And yes you need to experiment and think about the order in which the processors are chained. But, again, this is not a weird concept to execute. With this method you don't need the M-1B to sum the effects because they were never split into multiple channels.
I hope I'm understanding something about what you are asking.
Can you share a link to this post your talking about where there were instructions for how to use the M-1B to expand effect capabilities?
Also, IIRC there are application examples for the M-1B in the 388 manual...maybe...maybe I'm thinking of the M-512/M-520 manual...can't look right now. You have the manual right?
And hooking up a second pair of monitor speakers to the M-1B outputs...to monitor what? If you're using the M-1B to sum your send effects, that's what you'll be listening to on the second set of monitors. And you could do that instead by using the 388 mixer to monitor wherever you are bringing the effect sum back into the 388...if its via a couple channels on the mixer section you can use the L-R assign switches in their dual purpose role to solo-in-place any of the 388's 8 channels. What do you want to monitor? And are you wanting the second set of monitors just so you have a couple different types of speakers to use in the course of mixing? Or a "studio feed" for playback monitoring for the talent in the next room? Having multiple monitor speaker sets hooked up is a really common and smart technique to test your mix as you go, but you usually have the second set connected to the same outputs as the first set, and have some way to switch between the two in real time. Is there some reason you are wanting to monitor something different than whats being monitored on your main set of monitors?