4 Buss vs. 8

Q

qwarks

New member
Ok, it does pay to research before you buy .

I have a Tascam 320B on the way that I'm pleased to be getting, and,
for the time being will work just fine with my Otari 1/2" 4-track.

I also have a Tascam 38 that I might want to use occasionally .
But,, I do plan, at some point, to move up to 1" 8-track.

My basic thought is that I should have went, instead, for a 520, due to
the 8-buss capabilites .

Again, I'm OK, for now, and will get a lot done; being it's just me at home
tracking my own music .

Q: Is there a RELATIVELY easy way use an 8 track w/ a 4 buss board, or is it more of a patching nightmare to try and monitor 8 tracks ?

Just thinking in the not-so-distant future, that I may have limited myself ..
Of course I could sell and upgrade, but am just wondering what workable
solution there might be, in the meantime.

Thanks .
 
Though the M320B is only a 4 buss mixer, each main mixing channel strip has a direct out connection so in effect the mixer in fact a 20 x 20 x 4 x 2 x 1 mixer.

The 4 buss outs are tripled anyway so you can have both an 8 track, 4 track and two track all connected at the same time.

Have I ever mentioned how flexible the 300 series is? I bet I have!

The only occasion where an 8 buss board really comes in handy is when you need to record 8 tracks all at the same time in one take and make use of multiple channel strips to assemble buss mixes to feed to each track.

If you traditionally work by yourself or with up to three other people simultaneously, a 4 buss board is all you would ever need, even if you had a 16 track deck like I do.

Cheers! :)
 
That's a big relief !

Admittedly I'm a real greenhorn when it comes to thus stuff, so I'm glad
to hear that; very reassuring .

Thanks Ghost, you be da man !!
 
8-buss is always better than 4-buss, if you can pay the uplift in price.

However, a 4-buss board like the M320b will be fine, and is a heck of a nice mixer on it's own.

The 4-buss board will support a 38 8-track very easily, as each buss [1-4] has two parallel UNBALANCED outputs each. Keep in mind, that the 4-busses would each feed 2 tracks on the 38, as follows:

Buss 1 > Tracks 1 & 5
Buss 2 > Tracks 2 & 6
Buss 3 > Tracks 3 & 7
Buss 4 > Tracks 4 & 8,...

Therefore, in BUSS mode routing, this limits you to 4-tracks simultaneous recording. However, through use of DIRECT-OUT patch points, you may easily move up to 8-track-simul recording, through a combination of 4-buss and Direct-Out patching. Simple as that.

I was not aware of a 3rd output of the BUSS-OUTs, but if GFM says there is a 3rd output, it's easy enough to believe him. Could this 3rd Buss-Out be reference to the BALANCED BUSS OUTs, [1-4]? I believe so, as there's only 2 UNbalanced Buss Outs per Buss,... that's "Line Out & Aux Out" patch points on each Buss, 1-4.

That's to the best of my knowledge, but GFM is quite a bit more familiar with the 300-Series mixers than I am, from a practical standpoint. He has [2] M312's patched in parallel, a 38 and MS-16 all patched together, so consider him the authority.

To support a 16-track recorder with a 4-Buss mixer, you'd usually employ a patch bay, to facilitate patching the 4-Busses to the 16-tracks, as needed.

That's all I have to say on the subject, for now.;)
 
OK... if I understand this right

We are having this problem too in our little studio. we now have a Tascam 38 and 2 238s (I love those things!) and a midiizer to sync everything so we need to be able to transfer 14 tracks of tape either to mixdown or into the computer and the mixer we have does not have direct outs. So... we don'y actually need a buss track per channel of tape if we have direct outs and ins on each channel. The wretched little thing we have now, an Allen and Heath doesn't seem to have direct outs per channel although it has like 20 push buttons per channel. Oh and it hates me too.

We are looking at a M512/M50 on e**y (please don't tell!) and that has eight busses so that would do the job ya think? The job I mean is doing the tape channel stuff back and forth to the tape machines ... the samplers and an mpc-60 are mixed by a couple of rack line mixers coz they have so many channels.

Does the M216 have direct outs too? It's smaller and cheaper than the 300 and 500 but doesn't seem as nice. I love the wood on the 512.

tra!
 
You got it, Dave. :)

The doubled RCA Buss jacks and the 4 balanced buss connections technically gives the 12 outs I had in mind. All of them can be used simultaneously if need be and quarks does have a balanced 4 track deck currently with plans to add an 8 track deck in the future.

Cheers! :)
 
alejandra said:
Does the M216 have direct outs too?
Click to expand...

The 200 series doesn't have direct outs per se. However, you can tap into the insert points of each channel and use those for direct outs. They are post EQ and pre fader, so level adjustment will have to be done with the pad, and trim pots, as the fader will have no effect.

The inserts are Tip-Ring-Sleeve 1/4". What you would do is use an insert cable to go into the channel of the recorder and just not return it back to the board.

The 200 series are actually very nice boards, though not as decked out as the 300 series. I've never felt limited by a 4-buss system. The 200 series has four pairs of RCA program out jacks, and you can even expand that with Y-cables or patch bays.

:cool:
 
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