12 track old school Studio Mixing Board

[Richard King]

Scratch the broadcast board idea. It has WAY too much "stuff" on it for a broadcast application. It's a studio board of some kind and I would still guess that it's a prototype that never made it to the market.

To the original poster: Where do you live? Tascam was based in Montebello California. If you are near there I think that makes it even stronger that this is a prototype of some kind. At that time a fellow by the name of Bill Mohrhoff ran Tascam. I tried to Google him and it appears that he left the company in 1990. If he could be found I suspect that he could clear it up real fast.

More pix of the channel strips might help tell what's going on also. Get a picture of at least a whole strip up there. Split it in 3 parts so everything is readable.

 

[Richard King]

One of you guys needs to order this: http://books.google.com/books?id=xb...a=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1

 

[sweetbeats]

Yeah-yeah...multi-part photos of the channel strip. YEA!

Richard, Yes, definitely early 80's 500-series era. I thought of transitional between the 15 and the advent of the 300/500 mixers because shoulderpain's board, like you said, has individual cannel modules...also, I'm seeing that input and source selection for different stages of the channel strip are on latching switches rather than the lever-type selector switches employed by Tascam on just about everything else...that might fit the prototype idea as it is unique, along with the all white knob caps, whereas everything else from that era used color to differentiate the different stages/sections of the signal path.

Wow...and maybe the Molex power-supply connector is original then if it is a prototype.

This is wild...maybe it's, like, a protoype for the 500-series boards...there is so much that is similar but seems less refined in some areas, and more feature-laden in others.

More pictures, shoulderpain...more pictures

No serial number label and no model plate/screen on the meter bridge also hints at a prototype model...

The plot thickens...

 

[Shoulderpain]

Lots of Pictures coming

I took close ups of the channel strips and also the Master strip, better lit view of the back and I flipped the top up and photographed that in a few close ups.
I guess I can post 2 at a time:

 

[Shoulderpain]

pictures

more of the channel strip

 

[Shoulderpain]

more pictures

The Master strip

 

[Shoulderpain]

More pictures

Better view of back

 

[Shoulderpain]

more pictures

I flipped up the display top and photographed what was hand written at the top of the channel strips.

 

[Shoulderpain]

more pictures

more images of writing at top of channel strips under hinged display:

 

[Rokket]

If that thing works, you have an awesome eq, lots of control over frequencies and so forth. I think you could probably use this to mix, but you will need an outboard machine to record on. With all the TRS connections on the back, I am betting that it takes individual tracks from a reel to reel.

 

[sweetbeats]

All those connections on the back are RCA, not TRS.

The LINE 1 and LINE 2 connections can and are likely designed to be used as tape returns since you can select those on the top panel.

shoulderpain I saw in your other thread you are in the LA area...how far is Montebello from you?

Please put up some pics now of the channel strip...not the writing at the top of the panel, but the controls like you did for the master section.

 

[Richard King]

Construction is very similar to the old Model 10, but this thing, I am sure, came well after the Model 10. I still lean toward the prototype of a board that never got mass produced. It may just be a one of a kind. It certainly looks like it has been well used. I wonder if there is still someone at Tascam that might remember it.

 

[Shoulderpain]

sweetbeats check out post #24 and #25

I put 4 pictures (4 sections) of a channel strip on those posts. I think they're on page one of this thread so I think they were easy to miss.

As for Montebello , you may have something there as it is not very far from where I found it. Look at this map: the yard sale was in La Canada up above Montebello and to the left (all of this is in LA County):

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=monte...um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image

 

[Shoulderpain]

We drove back to the yard sale house

I was hoping I could find out a little more and since I knew they were doing a multi-day kind of sale, I was hoping that while pulling more things out to sell they somehow had found the power supply. They did not, but I did learn that the guy who gave this to us, said he got it from a guy who "claimed" and I stress "claimed" that it had been a Grateful Dead board.

So, that got me wondering, if on the incredibly slim chance that this was true, is it possible then that this was a custom made board?

 

[Richard King]

Maybe Tascam would buy it from you for their museum, if they have a museum.

 

[sweetbeats]

shoulderpain, yes I did indeed miss posts 24 and 25...

I'll have a closer look at those...on the road right now.

If you're close to Montebello then you might indeed just want to take the mixer to Tascam and let Jimmy or Jim Finch in Operational Support have a look at it.

Since nobody can figure out what it is I'm guessing it is a one-off prototype or custom unit, and so was the power supply.

It is certainly feasible to custom build a replacement power supply, but without a schematic or knowledge of what is inside it'll be no small job...not impossible though...be on the lookout for a power supply for another Tascam mixer from that era. There's a good chance a power supply for a model 15, or an M-520 or 3500 or something will have the rails needed, and then the job will be to figure out which rails are needed and to build the cable to connect them up.

 

[Shoulderpain]

Great idea

I'll send some images and a link to this thread to Jim Finch at Tascam and see if he recognizes it.

 

[dualflip]

You could try to build PSU, im guessing it works under +15/-15 V, but ill need the schems to be sure, you also need phantom power if you plan to use condenser microphones. Here is a kit for a +18/-18 and phantom power PSU, you can trim it to go down to like 16.5 V so its OK http://fivefishstudios.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=61 I think i have some of those Molex connectors my MCI JH-500 C uses a lot of those, but not sure.... if not you could just solder some wires from the PSU to the mixer, easy if you have schematics

The fader knobs and rotary knobs, well you can try to look for them at www.canford.uk, i recently bought some fader caps, i dont think they have the same as yours, but you could replace all the fader caps with some nice P&G's.

Hope this Helps

 

[sweetbeats]

+/- 15VDC for sure...but it goes far beyond that and 48VDC if it is anything like my M-520...and there are a lot of functional similarities...

My M-520 power supply produces:

+/- 15VDC
+/- 18VDC
+ 48VDC
+ 6VDC
11VAC
0VDC x2

 

[stevieb]

Man, this is one cool mystery! And keeps getting better! Gonna watch THIS tread!