Mixer for Tascam 1/2" 8 track in 2022

J

James Tree

New member
Hello!

I have the blessing of my beautiful wife to get a 1/2" Tascam r2r to finish my project! (Yessssssss!) I've been working with a Tascam 424mkii for the past year, and since I am recording everything myself, 8 tracks would greatly improve my workflow. I have been reading about all the mixers that came out around the same time as the 38 and tsr8 (m208, 308, 30, etc) and just like the tape machine, the prices for those are up and up.

I just acquired an ART pro channel strip (first version), and since I record by myself, I am not sure how robust a mixer I really need. In other words: I have a 'decent' preamp, so I would just need to route signals. And since my experience is only with a portastudio, I am not too familiar with what I would need or don't need in a mixer. There will likely be internal bouncing happening to free up tracks for more layers.

I have the above mentioned preamp that has a built in compressor and eq, a dual channel compressor, and two dual channel FX processors at the moment. I can use my mackie 1202 for control room stuff. I would like at least the mid EQ to be sweepable since I am used to having that on the portastudio.

Maybe something not as vintage as the mixers I listed (or less trendy= cheaper)? I really should not be spending too much more money on everything, (less than $400) but I also don't want to buy something to regret.

Lay it on me (please :)
 
I like the Alesis studio 32. Not to be confused with 1622 a monolithic board. Studio 32 is 16 channels inline mixer. 6 sends 4 stereo returns. Decent mic pres. Pretty quiet at least mine are I’ve owned 5 of them still have four here, one for tracking to tape, two for mixing down and one as spare jic. Mid is sweepable decent high low eq’s. The routing on this board is best in its class for analog. Some ppl have power supply issues I’ve never run into that but never is a long time. $100-150. I have outboard mic pres I use too. Tape I use a 38 and also 2 238’s. I have other boards to use too but the 32’s are regular workhorses here.
 
James Tree said:
1202 vlz pro, 4 XLR ins, 4 stereo ins... Just a little guy
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Right, just a “little guy”, but just a thought, and you’ve already thought through this I suppose, but if you are just building a track at a time using your rack-mount channel strip, get yourself a $50 patchbay to handle patching the output of the channel strip to the different tape machine inputs during tracking and overdubs, and use the Mackie to monitor playback and handle mixdown. I know you want swept EQ, but if it’s just you and you only build a track at a time you have everything you need to track, overdub, monitor and mix your 8-track setup right there.
 
sweetbeats said:
Right, just a “little guy”, but just a thought, and you’ve already thought through this I suppose, but if you are just building a track at a time using your rack-mount channel strip, get yourself a $50 patchbay to handle patching the output of the channel strip to the different tape machine inputs during tracking and overdubs, and use the Mackie to monitor playback and handle mixdown. I know you want swept EQ, but if it’s just you and you only build a track at a time you have everything you need to track, overdub, monitor and mix your 8-track setup right there.
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Hmm, never thought of that... I do have a patchbay. I think I could give that a try before spending more $$. It would have limited options for routing, but maybe not too restrictive since its just myself--I'll just have to be more creative. I would likely have a few mics on drums, but I could just pull the cables off 1-3 on the mackie inputs for tracking, send those to tape from the L/R main or alt 3/4. This sorta lines up with my minimalist approach I try to maintain (sometimes unsuccessfully) and I could always get a mixer later, or wait for a good deal on one. The sweepable EQ isn't a huge deal, it was fun to 'whawha' some keys while bouncing, but I'm sure I can still use the mixer on the 424 to do that. Thanks sweetbeats!!
 
James Tree said:
Hmm, never thought of that... I do have a patchbay. I think I could give that a try before spending more $$. It would have limited options for routing, but maybe not too restrictive since its just myself--I'll just have to be more creative. I would likely have a few mics on drums, but I could just pull the cables off 1-3 on the mackie inputs for tracking, send those to tape from the L/R main or alt 3/4. This sorta lines up with my minimalist approach I try to maintain (sometimes unsuccessfully) and I could always get a mixer later, or wait for a good deal on one. The sweepable EQ isn't a huge deal, it was fun to 'whawha' some keys while bouncing, but I'm sure I can still use the mixer on the 424 to do that. Thanks sweetbeats!!
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Yeah and that’s all I was getting at…a more minimal approach that’s more simple and available right now. I don’t know what kind of patchbay you have but if it’s 48 points and can be configured as non-normalled, you could get all your channel strip, tape machine ins and outs, and mixing console line ins and outs (I wouldn’t put the mic inputs on the patchbay) on that one patchbay. Again, that little console has what you need to mix and monitor 8 tracks and like you said you can use the patchbay to group and route multiple channels simultaneously if you have multiple channels to track at once, and again the console has the facilities to monitor, print wet effects if ever needed…yes it would certainly be nice to have more control at your fingertips at the control surface…less patching. But that could be something you look ahead to and in the meantime use what you have and get used to it and likely learn more about what you really need.

As far as console options, yes prices are NUTS. I can’t believe what people are asking for vintage Teac/Tascam consoles. Typically smaller consoles command higher prices than larger format consoles…higher demand for the smaller consoles. Not sure where you are located, but I know I see some pretty amazing deals, albeit on larger consoles than what I suspect you are looking for, on Craigslist. I search in titles only in musical instruments category for “mixer | mixing | console”, which will search for each of those words in listing titles in the musical instruments category, and then I widen the search area to get more results. But some crazy cheap decent quality large consoles come up regularly. Another option for smaller footprint is to look for an Allen & Heath first gen MixWizard (like a WZ16:2DX). I had one for a short period that I got in a lot of gear I fixed and flipped…disassembled and cleaned it…these have individual channel PCBs (not monolithic), 100mm long throw faders, 4-band EQ with two swept mid band, 6 aux busses with some source switching options, physical backplane configuration options, nice accoutrement of master section monitoring features…decent sound…I operated and serviced a GL3300 40x8 console in a FOH setting for years and I saw lots of similarities in the build quality and design in the WZ16:2DX. There are other options of models in that generation as well…I think a 12x2, and a 16x4…I think. But they are reliable and might be in your price range.
 
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