I give up. Somebody sell me a 1604 VLZ.

[kiira]

So I finally had time and wellness and nice weather and got my new Tascam M512 wired into the patch bay and check the line ins on channel 5-12 and three of them are dead. I'm afraid to check the rest of the board for fear of finding what else is broken.

\WHINEY MODE ON
ALL I WANT TO DO IS TRACK SOME SONGS.
\WHINEY MODE OFF

So um yeah. Guess I'll go off to GC and ask one of the kewl salesdudes which mixer to buy and believe all their sweet talkin' lies and come home with a Behrninger or an Alesis. yeah, that's what I need.

a very bitter and unhappy,

Kiira - going out to the corner with my gibson to make some money

 

[qwarks]

Wow,,what a bummer ..

I should probably go thru and verify that all of MY channels are fully
functioning on my recently acquired 320B

Have you notified your seller of the issue,, just to see what the response
would be ? I wonder if he knew about it ,already

I could have had a 520, locally, for the same money I spent for the 320B,
which may have served me better in some applications .

The guy that sold me the 320B quoted me a price of $48.00 to ship which
I found suspiciously cheap .. when he went to the UPS Store( )
they quoted him $400+ to pack and ship

He emailed me to inform me of this, and I said ".....no way jose "
I'd already paid him, and wasn't paying more for his misinformed quote(s).

So he packed it himself and shipped it and absorbed whatever additional
costs were incurred(not my problem,at that point, this was an eBay sale) .

So I made a point of reminding him to pack it WELL,, particularly the top
section of the mixer(duh??) so I didn't get any cracked VU meters broken
shafts ... etcetera .

It arrived from UPS with a suspicious puncture in the carton coming off of
the truck. When I unpacked it all looked well, at first glances .
Then I noted that Ch 18. EQ knob had a broken knob on the top half of
the concentric pot .

Arrrgh !!!! I then noted the position on the board is exactly where the
puncture hole is on the shipping carton

He did a so-so packing job; electing to use bubblewrap over the top and a
_few_ firm carboard strips over that.


I would've used a *sheet* of cardboard over the top and then bubble wrap
over that and maybe a sheet of cardboard again .

Anyway my mixer could've arrived perfect and instead arrived with a blemish

Not cool, but it could've been much worse given the weight and size and
of course UPS's notorious rep .

UPS stands for : United Parcel Smashers

So now I better make sure that _everything_ is working as I'm just a little
paranoid after hearing you story, Kiira .

I'd been playing with my 388 the past few days, and don't have my 320B
hooked up yet(still have to get the Otari 4-track here)


Keep your chin up ..

 

[The Ghost of FM]

Kiira,

Sorry to read your sad news about your M500 series mixer!

Have you considered getting an estimate to fix it rather then spending hundreds or more on a new and inferior board?

Think it over and don't do something you will regret!

Cheers!

 

[A Reel Person]

No long dissertation, here, but...

make sure all channels and busses have the 2P jumper plug installed.

Other such defects may be related to a connector or two that was jostled loose from shipping. Open up the bottom of the unit, and look inside for relevant connectors to the defective channels, pull and reseat them. (Eh,... bottom or top opened for servicing,... I can't remember,... pls check the manual!!)

I'd not give up the ship so easily, but I know how disappointing it can be to find flaws in newly purchased vintage gear.

Good luck!!

 

[A Reel Person]

Did you also catch,...

that there's a LINE-TRIM pot stacked (lower/outer ring) below the MIC-TRIM?

You want to make sure that the LINE-TRIM is adjusted, because that will have an effect on the LINE-IN signal you get through the input stage of the channel.

 

[kiira]

hiya guys,

I'm not really going to buy an Alesis. I called my mom and she calmed me down. She's used to me doing crazy impulsive caca. haha.

Oh yeah I do stuff like set the line trim the same on each channel, I have all the little jumpers etc.

ARP it is acting wonky... one time all 8 channels worked for a few minuts and then 11 and 12 started doing the jumpy volume thing when I played with the volume... like usually that can be old caps I think? Then channels 6,7,8 went dead again. gah. But that's good... failing connections or components give me more clues than totally broken ones.

The channels come out the top in groups of 4 and there is also access from the bottom, I'm going to pull a channle strip and De-oxit everything that moves and see how it looks for replacing caps and checking resister values. I can also put a signal through and look at it on my Tek. Hey with a little luck I might be able to track the guitar part for my new song by chrismas.

wow sometimes I wish I was the way I used to be.. just tell the guys in the studio I want to use one of the mics with the pretty red badge on it.

thanks,

Kiira

 

[A Reel Person]

Haha, yeah, the pretty mics.

Okay, yes, from the top in grouped gangs of 4.

Oxidized connectors may do this type of thing, and cleaning connectors is always a good first-pass of troubleshooting.

Another thing, is when you're in there, check every fuse in the unit, because I've seen where fuses actually become intermittent from old age, despite not being "blown" outright. Fuses are a bit of an esoteric longshot, but it would pay to check them properly, anyway. Use an ohm meter, and check them for intermittence due to vibration. Make sure the unit's all the way UNPLUGGED from the wall source voltage, before going in deep.

It could be almost anything, including caps going bad, but start with the simplest stuff, and work forward from that.

 

[kiira]

I should probably go thru and verify that all of MY channels are fully
functioning on my recently acquired 320B

Oh yeah I would. My M512 looks immaculate, I mean really nice and it arrived in a solid wooden box put together with screws. Still....

Have you notified your seller of the issue,, just to see what the response
would be ? I wonder if he knew about it ,already

No I haven't because the guy seems honest to me. He said he didn't know anything about recording and that the board looked good, all the lights worked and he would pack it great and all that was true. I don't think it's his fault and like, we take a chance when we buy 20year old stuff. I just have to stand up and take it like a ... girl.

I could have had a 520, locally, for the same money I spent for the 320B,
which may have served me better in some applications .

yeah they have 8 busses and a few cooler features like the 512. They're nice.

So now I better make sure that _everything_ is working as I'm just a little
paranoid after hearing you story, Kiira .

I'd been playing with my 388 the past few days, and don't have my 320B
hooked up yet(still have to get the Otari 4-track here)


Keep your chin up ..

fankoo fankoo. Good luck when you check it out!!!!

 

[kiira]

Okay, yes, from the top in grouped gangs of 4.

Oxidized connectors may do this type of thing, and cleaning connectors is always a good first-pass of troubleshooting.

Another thing, is when you're in there, check every fuse in the unit, because I've seen where fuses actually become intermittent from old age, despite not being "blown" outright. Fuses are a bit of an esoteric longshot, but it would pay to check them properly, anyway. Use an ohm meter, and check them for intermittence due to vibration. Make sure the unit's all the way UNPLUGGED from the wall source voltage, before going in deep.

It could be almost anything, including caps going bad, but start with the simplest stuff, and work forward from that.

cool cool, thanks for more help.

Yeah so I pulled a channel strip last night but it's kinda garbled with spaghetti in there so today I will pull each header off and clean with De-oxit. Then I guess after that I will trace through (ick ick ick) the module with a scope and signal... don't need a card extender coz it has no edge connectors - I can just flip the module and everything stays connected.

One weird thing... the board seems like it is dying when I plug in from channel to channel on my patch bay checking it out with a signal from a sampler I have running a sequence. I wonder if the temporary short is causing some problem? I will put a 1K signal into each channel diectly from my generator and turn it off between tests and see what happens. Like it maybe doesn't like being temporarily shorted across the inputs?

Ok... I have gone through the shock and depression and cying to mama and grieving stages of New/Old Console Death. Now it's time to kick some broken Tascam fanny!!!

Kiira - a dangerous girl with a soldering iron

 

[ausrock]

If you get bored with your gear just pop on over here and you can help me with my Soundcraft ..........then I have some PCB's to stuff for an 1176, Pultec and SSL Comp.

 

[kiira]

If you get bored with your gear just pop on over here and you can help me with my Soundcraft ..........then I have some PCB's to stuff for an 1176, Pultec and SSL Comp.

Ha ha.. I always wanted to visit Australia.

What's the matter with your Soundcraft? If I didn't have a Tascam I would consider one of them or a Studiomaster mixdown classic - they seem pretty cool.

Oh yeah. I am ordering the Pultec and 1176 PCBs from Gustav too! I have a few more projects to finish up first but that stuff looks sweet. What's with the SSL compressor is that a stereo buss only thingey? See I have a pair of Aphex Compellors and they are quite nice on a mix and I wouldn't want to duplicate functionality... yet. haha I am falling into a pit of gearsluthood. It's like buying jewelry.... "Oooo shiney I want that!" My boyfriend is happy though coz he says he can buy me stuff he understands instead of girl presents, like he gave me a weller soldering station for my birthday. LOL.

I am making progress on my Tascam... if I monitor off of the AUX channels all works ok. The mic inputs I've checked sa far seem to work ok. That means the problem might be in the buss monitor circuit not the channel strips coz they all output to the auxs ok. Um... that's wrong though I just realized... the LINE input circuitry up to the buss output circuitry is ok maybe. Darn these things are complicated!

tra!

 

[ausrock]

My S/craft has one channel that isn't working, numerous grotty switches and the Master fader died in the bum.

The Fixes.......

The dead channel means I'm going to have to bite the bullet and learn how to use the CRO I have here...........I'm scared, very scared.

Grotty switches........I have just found a company here that imports DeOxit (sp) plus rubber cleaner for my R2R's so that hopefully will solve that problem. New switches are cheap and easy to get from the S/craft distrubutor but I'll try the DeOxit first.

I have a new Master fader to install which I hope is the only issue in that side of things.


The SSL is a mix-buss comp (stereo) and so far I haven't heard a bad word about their sonic performance, they are easy and relatively cheap to make. The only thing is the traces on the PCB can be very close in places and it is wise to carefully check for any potential shorts before starting to stuff the board.

Good luck with the Tascam.

 

[tonypgl]

how about a m512 manual... Do you have something like that?

 

[kiira]

how about a m512 manual... Do you have something like that?

sure if you look up in this thread you'll see a link to it in pdf. I also have an M50 hardcopy. Cheap! Free 12 channel Tascam boat anchor included!

Kiira