New m308 help and a manual

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eeieeio

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Hello everyone, I've found this site a few days ago and what a great place! Ok, here goes, I last recorded on a little Fostex 4 track cassette recorder (forget the model) ohhh, about 20 years ago! I've recently got the bug again and after searching for and comparing digital recorders for weeks I'm happy to say I found a great deal (I think?) on a trs 8 track and m308 mixer. I paid $400 for both along with a bunch of various patch cables. The down side is the seller didn't have the manual for the 308 mixer so I'm in a pickle.

I set everything up as best I could having no real experience with this stuff and I was even actually able to put down a few tracks! However, I can't find the manual anywhere and need it BAD!

I've done research online and combined with my tinkering am now more confused than ever! All the ins and outs are confusing the heck out of me and I don't know which buttons do what! Busses? I have the tsr connected to the 8 tracks on the mixer, I'm told they sould be connected to the busses instead? I have some effects connected to the inserts on each track but read you should run reverb and the like through the effects sends. There are so many jacks on back I have no idea where to connect what and then how to access those connections via the mixers controls.

I would love some free advice! and even more would love the manual for the m308. Does anyone have one for sale or for download?

Thanks a lot guy!

Jodi
 
I sell and ship the manuals for $35. Let me know if you want one.
There are some guys around here that can vouch for the quality of the copies.
 
If you look at the back of the mixer, on the left you'll see a group of rca connections labled 1-4. with 2 ins and 2 outs for each number. Those are your ins and outs for you're busses. Basically, buss 1 is for 1&5, buss 2 for 2&6, 3 for 3&7, 4 for 4&8. When you connect your tape player up to them, starting from the right is #1 , your cables go in 1,5 - 2,6, - 3,7, - 4,8. Now buss #1 will send to either 1 or 5. Whichever track you have in rec ready mode on the TSR8. It'll will go to both if you have them both selected. When you plug your mic into a channel strip you select channel one on the buttons and pan to the left. Pan to the right for an even number, left for an odd. Slide your buss slider 1 up to around seven and you're ready to rec.
 
There are DOZENS of ways to hook up and configure your ins and outs with this mixer. It all depends on what you've got in the way of outboard gear, and how you want to integrate it into your setup.

Do you have a patch bay?

A solid way to get signal TO TAPE, is to use the 4 PGM-outs on the buss-side of the console. HOWEVER, there's only four of them. If you choose to use this method, run your mics into the mic inputs, and your line-level signals into the line-inputs, (adjusting your top gain knob appropriately), and do whatever you want to do with the EQ, blah blah blah....... The set of 5 push-buttons at the bottom of each channel strip are your buss sends. Pushing the L-R button sends the signal to the STEREO buss. Buss 1 sends it to buss 1, buss 2 sends it to buss 2......blah blah blah. You can send one signal to one, all, or none busses. But the point I'm trying to get across is that if you only need to record onto 4 channels of tape at a time, you can assign a channel to the appropriate buss. Then, connect the appropriate tape-input cable into the PGM-outs..............But this way kinda sucks if you don't have a patch bay.........plus this is only a 4-buss mixer, and you have an 8 channel recorder so,........

use an 8-track male RCA to male quarter-inch snake, and run DIRECT OUTS 1-8 to TAPE IN 1-8 on your recorder. The direct outs are connected to the signal flow of your console POST FADER!! So, if you move the fader while recording, it will affect the volume of htat channel while recording. Be sure to NOT press any buss switches down while doing this. You now have 2 options for LISTENING to what you're recording. You can run the tape-outs to the tape-return 1-8 connectors on the Buss-section of your console, which allows you to listen to the raw output of your tape machine. If you do that, you must make sure that each buss is turned ON, panned approprately, and the volume of each tape return is turned up, and the buss fader turned up. The mix of all this output will be heard from the STEREO OUTPUT. (SO turn up your stereo master fader, and make sure to select STEREO from your monitoring selector on the far right center of the console, and on the metering option. You can hook up headphones to the headphone jack, er, WHATEVER.) SO say you're through recording on a given channel, then you can move the tape-output cable from the tape-return connector, to a line-in connector on that number of channel strip on the left side of the console, and depress the L-R buss button to hear it on your stereo buss. Essentially, what you are doing is using channels 1-8 as a pre-tape device, and using the right section of the console (tape returns) as your monitoring section. One-by-one, as you finish a certain channel, and you just want to mix it down, you move the tape-out connector to the channel line-in and listen to it from there.

A THIRD option is to utilize the insert send-return connector. What you can do is find a snake, or set of snakes, that has 8 Tip-Ring-Sleeve (TRS) male jacks on one end, and 16 RCA jacks on the other end. Each of these 8 cables has a SEND rca jack, and a RETURN rca jack. Hook the TRS connectors to the INSERT JACKS. You can hook the SEND jacks into TAPE-IN, and the RETURN jacks into the TAPE-OUT. To make this method work, you have to find JUST the right level on the top knob of each channel, which doesn't clip the mic preamp, and gives healthy tape levels at the same time. The point of signal sending is right after the EQ section of the board, and BEFORE the buss/fader section of the board. SO, you have control of the gain and EQ pre-tape, but the fader/buss and pan knob only control the signal coming OUT of the tape machine. The only downside to this is that you cannot use the EQ post-tape while mixing. This may not be practical, so it may be desireable to just hook the tape-outputs to the line-in connectors of each channel when you are through recording, so that you have full mixing capabilities.

Now, all this moving-connectors-around can be made MUCH EASIER with a properly configured patch bay. Lemme know if you're interested ;)

-callie-
 
As stated above,...

the M-308 has 4-busses, but each of the 4-busses has two outputs, which enables you to connect to the 8-track recorder's Inputs, in 1/5, 2/6, 3/7, 4/8 configuration. Also as stated above, this limits you to recording up to 4-tracks simultaneously, (in Buss mode). For any time you want to record more than 4-tracks simultaneously, you then use Direct-mode and patch to the Direct-Outs of the mixer.

Seems really clear, huh?? :eek: ;)

/DA
 
Thank you to everyone.

There's a lot here for me to take in as I'm not familiar with much of the technical jargon. Things that are common sense to you guys are all "huh?" to me, lol. Simple words like buss and pre-post fade and ax send, etc., are all new to me and I need to soak it in. I'm going to print out read and reread these helpful responses so far, attempt to understand and then try to implement some of the advice. So for starters ..

Busses (in this case four) can enable you to record up to four tracks at once from a single source? So for example I can record a single guitar take to one two three or four tracks in one take?

I located a manual but won't be getting it for over a week. Thanks again and please keep the advice coming .. just go slow and take it easy on me :)
 
eeieeio said:
Busses (in this case four) can enable you to record up to four tracks at once from a single source? So for example I can record a single guitar take to one two three or four tracks in one take?

:)
Click to expand...

The busses allow you to mix several mics onto one track as opposed to going direct out from a single channel strip where you could only mix one mic per track. So, if you were recording drums say, you could use four channel strips with 4 different mics all bussed to buss #1 going to track #1 on your recorder. If you plan on recording more than 4 tracks at once, which is unusual for a solo recordist you would need to go direct out.

I know it's confusing to read without being hands on. It's kinda confusing to write too.
 
Indeed, the mixing of multiple sources to one output ONLY OCCURS THROUGH A BUSS. Whether that's the STEREO BUSS, or Busses 1 through 4. Hooking your recorder up to your PGM OUTS and using the buss system to record with is the most practical way to set everything up.

You can think of signal
 
So what if I want to record one mono source to two or more tracks in one take?
 
eeieeio said:
So what if I want to record one mono source to two or more tracks in one take?
Click to expand...

If you use the busses you could put the channel pan control in the middle it'll go to any of the busses you assign it to. 1-4. Or you could pan it to either side and record on 1&5, or 2&6,or 3&7 or 4&8 at the same time. Because those pairs use the same buss.
 
As I was saying, you can think of your mixer and your signal flow as a gardening hose, or pipe, with various valves and stuff to send water to different locations.

Your sources are your line in's, and your mic in's. Now, these two types of signals have different levels of pressure, so you have to pick one, and use the appropriate valve, set the appropriate pressure to get it going into your board. So think from the top down. Your mic pre/line level knob is where it all starts. Find the sweet spot on that bad boy, and you can go on to step 2.

Your EQ is where you can alter the signal's frequency spectrum. I don't know how this applies to water. I guess you can add food coloring here, or something.

You have your two aux sends, and an effects send knob. These come next, and are kind of like faucets on the side of your master pipe. You can send your water down these if you wish.

You've got your insert send and return hoses, which you can choose to use, or not to use. If you hook something into the insert send-return connector in the back of the console, then the main output of that channel will only output what was RETURNED on the return side.

Then you've got your on/off switch. duh. Nothing happens unless these are on.

Pan controls. ok.

Fader. Your master faucet/pressure control.

BUSS SECTION: Where do you want this water to go from here? It's automatically gonna go to the direct out, and/or to the inserts, and/or to the AUX's if you choose so. But from here, you can pick the L-R (stereo) buss, or Buss 1, or Buss 2, or Buss 3, or Buss 4, or any combination of these.

The busses are like pipes that run left and right on your console. They are the perpendicular cross-sectional highways for your signal. They are the only way that mixing of signals occurs. You can take several different signals from different channels, and mix them onto one buss.

Kinda thought I'd throw that analogy.

-callie-
 
I'm starting to understand a little more. Still confusing but the hose/water example is helping, but then you starting talking about highways, is the highway flooded with water? Ok, that was a lame joke. I'm going to do a little recording today and see where I end up. I'll have lots more questions and need for clarification once I'm more hands on. You guys have been a big help and I look forward to learning a lot more in the following weeks and months.

Thanks
 
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