My Tascam M-35 Restoration Project

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**Quick edit: if this belongs in the Tascam forum please feel free to move it. I'm still orienting myself here, sorry if I made a mistake**

Hello everyone,

I'm new here but have learned quite a lot from looking around this forum. I figured that you all might be interested in seeing some photos of the Tascam M-35 mixer I'm restoring.

I bought this from a local Good will for a great price. I took it home and spent a few weekends cleaning out all of the pots and faders, and taking a look at the internals which all appear to be in good shape. Someone did a little soldering on one of the channels (looks like a minor repair) but other than that it's gorgeous inside.

Four channels work perfectly and the other four are extremely quiet (regardless of where they're slotted) All of the routing, bussing, and I/O work fine with the working channels. The meters work as do the clipping LEDs but the meter lights don't.

These mixers seem to be fairly rare or, at least information on them is pretty rare. I was able to find the user manual online but the service manual was nowhere to be found - not for free, not for purchase, no matter who I reached out to.

I spent the past 7+ months hunting down a service manual for this thing and *finally* got my hands on an original one just about two weeks ago so I'm looking forward to digging into this when I get some time. I'm going to recap the power section for sure and also track down where the issues are in the channels and meter lights, but I'm confident that I'll get it worked out eventually. I'm in no rush.

I have many more photos and, of course, the elusive service manual. If anyone needs any photos of the mixer or pages from the manual please let me know.

Here are a few photos:

Before cleanup - fizzy water can for reference:

tascam 1.webp


After cleanup (I did replace the missing knobs with a replacements):

tascam 6.webp


Modular channels makes this very easy to work on:

tascam 2.webp


Channel strip:

tascam 3.webp


I/O:

tascam 7.webp


tascam 8.webp


An idea of the grime that had to be removed:

tascam 5.webp


Manual:

tascam 9.webp
 
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Nice!

The M-35 is very similar to the Teac Model 5/5B. I’d almost call the M-35 the Model 5C.

The biggest cause I’ve found on this vintage an echelon of mixing consoles for poor signal continuity is corroded contacts in switches. Have you thoroughly exercised all the switches? Like flipped/pushed each one maybe 100 times?

On the meter lamps, look for 100mA 8V axial lead lamps. You have to desolder the old and solder in the new. They are polar. Make sure all lamps are in the same orientation when you solder them in.
 
Nice!

The M-35 is very similar to the Teac Model 5/5B. I’d almost call the M-35 the Model 5C.

The biggest cause I’ve found on this vintage an echelon of mixing consoles for poor signal continuity is corroded contacts in switches. Have you thoroughly exercised all the switches? Like flipped/pushed each one maybe 100 times?

On the meter lamps, look for 100mA 8V axial lead lamps. You have to desolder the old and solder in the new. They are polar. Make sure all lamps are in the same orientation when you solder them in.

Thank you for the tip on the type of lamps it uses, that's handy. The manual lists a part number for them but not the specs.

I've worked the switches pretty well but maybe only a few dozen times each. I'll try exercising them more and lubing them up again.

Originally I went through everything with a contact cleaner and then Deoxit D5 for the pots and switches and F5 for the faders (I didn't use contact cleaner on the faders). The switches and pots were pretty grimy so another pass will be good for it anyways. I'm hoping that it's something simple like that. I imagine it's nothing too wild as the four channels appear to have the same issue, and that's a great, easy step to take. Crossing my fingers it's that simple!

Once I manage to get it all in working order I have some African mahogany that I'm going to use to create new sides. I think this was installed in a desk somewhere because it's missing about 80% of the screws that hold the frame together as well as the wood panels. Luckily the manual has the exploded views and lists all of the screw sizes. I never thought I'd be so in love with a service manual.
 
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“Lubing them up again…” don’t use D5 on the pots or faders. Don’t use F5 on the switches. F5 is for pots and faders, D5 is for metal-to-metal contacts like connectors and switches.
 
“Lubing them up again…” don’t use D5 on the pots or faders. Don’t use F5 on the switches. F5 is for pots and faders, D5 is for metal-to-metal contacts like connectors and switches.

Thanks for the tip. I've read so much contradicting information on Deoxit.
 
I decided to take another look at this today and take @sweetbeats advice to give the switches a more thorough cleaning. After cleaning them I dragged the console inside to hook up to my monitors and test out.

I seemed to have the same issue as before: certain channels didn't work.

I decided to switch the channels into different slots to find a pattern. I attempted this before but not thoroughly and not multiple times.

I discovered that all of the channels always worked in slots 1, 4, 5, and 8. When I did this before I got something similar, but it was my first time with the machine, and that was after poking around in it for a few hours already and so I didn't pursue it. I also wasn't writing stuff down, which was a big mistake.

Today, I couldn't think of anything that would tie those channels together electronically.

After opening the machine the first time and going through it when everything looked in great shape, I was convinced that it had to be something simple and that I'd resist the urge to start pulling parts out of it until I discovered an actual problem. I'm glad I did, because the issue turned out to be..... the send/return jumpers on those channels :ROFLMAO:

I feel like a dummy not checking them as one of the first things, but what can you do - I found it eventually!

I'd like to get some period jumpers, but otherwise this machine now functions flawlessly. I still need to replace the lights in the VU meters, but other than that I don't believe it has any problems.

To finish this up all I think I'll need to do now is to get some new jumpers, replace all of the missing screws in the body, make up some wood sides, and replace the VU lamps and it'll be as good as new!

I'm pretty pumped about this, especially considering I spent less than $200 on this entire endeavor.

PXL_20241218_202834826.MP.webp
 
Screw "period correct" molded patch cables. There's a reason those things fail if you pull on them or bang against them to hard. Take a cheap guitar cable, cut it into 3 or 4 inch sections and buy a couple of dozen RCA jacks.

I don't even think they are shielded, since the grounds are tied together it's probably just a single piece of wire. Take a VOM and see if the ground is even connected. If not, you just need a piece of wire. You can get cheap RCAs for about 30 to 50 cents a pop. Something like this would probably be the same quality as the originals.

plugs.webp
 
Screw "period correct" molded patch cables. There's a reason those things fail if you pull on them or bang against them to hard. Take a cheap guitar cable, cut it into 3 or 4 inch sections and buy a couple of dozen RCA jacks.

I don't even think they are shielded, since the grounds are tied together it's probably just a single piece of wire. Take a VOM and see if the ground is even connected. If not, you just need a piece of wire. You can get cheap RCAs for about 30 to 50 cents a pop. Something like this would probably be the same quality as the originals.

View attachment 147872

After I typed this up I went and looked at what it'd cost and yeah - I'm not gonna pay what people are asking for these things, that's nuts. I paid out the nose for the missing knobs, but I'm not going to do the same for some RCA jumpers. And I believe that you're right about the ground not being connected on them.
 
I decided to take another look at this today and take @sweetbeats advice to give the switches a more thorough cleaning. After cleaning them I dragged the console inside to hook up to my monitors and test out.

I seemed to have the same issue as before: certain channels didn't work.

I decided to switch the channels into different slots to find a pattern. I attempted this before but not thoroughly and not multiple times.

I discovered that all of the channels always worked in slots 1, 4, 5, and 8. When I did this before I got something similar, but it was my first time with the machine, and that was after poking around in it for a few hours already and so I didn't pursue it. I also wasn't writing stuff down, which was a big mistake.

Today, I couldn't think of anything that would tie those channels together electronically.

After opening the machine the first time and going through it when everything looked in great shape, I was convinced that it had to be something simple and that I'd resist the urge to start pulling parts out of it until I discovered an actual problem. I'm glad I did, because the issue turned out to be..... the send/return jumpers on those channels :ROFLMAO:

I feel like a dummy not checking them as one of the first things, but what can you do - I found it eventually!

I'd like to get some period jumpers, but otherwise this machine now functions flawlessly. I still need to replace the lights in the VU meters, but other than that I don't believe it has any problems.

To finish this up all I think I'll need to do now is to get some new jumpers, replace all of the missing screws in the body, make up some wood sides, and replace the VU lamps and it'll be as good as new!

I'm pretty pumped about this, especially considering I spent less than $200 on this entire endeavor.

View attachment 147869
It’s nice when the fix is simple. :D
 
Nice pictures.
All that hand wiring looks dated now.
At least it is all simple, and easy to work on.
 
Nice pictures.
All that hand wiring looks dated now.
At least it is all simple, and easy to work on.

Yeah, it's dated looking for sure, but it's my speed. I have always liked being able to pull things apart and repair them. And seeing all of the attention to detail is something I find part of the overall beauty of this era of electronics. I know it's silly and romantic, but I have a real nostalgia for this kind of thing and the hand-made aesthetic in this machine is just gorgeous.

I record on a 4-track Tascam cassette machine and an ADAT, so I'm not going for the best and newest. It's mostly about what I find fun to use and work on.

Never mind that you can accomplish most what this thing does with a phone app :ROFLMAO:
 
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