Question on M-30 mixer

[BeatleFred]

I had a little time over the holiday weekend and just wanted to use the 1982 Tascam M-30 I have, rather than let it sit inactive too long.
I have a few other Tascam boards, but anyhow... I just connected a cd player, tuner and cassette deck to it for now, its not being utilized for multitrack recording
as it was designed for, hopefully I can get to that in the near future...

I wanted to go thru a bunch of old cassettes I have, I used to tape alot of music from FM radio. I figured I might dub some music from either the cd player
or the tuner onto the cass-deck as well via the M-30 and listen thru headphones or thru the Roland power amp and Samson PA speakers that I have in my collection of various equipment.

The M-30 has a monitor out, thus I connected to amp/speakers, and a Submix out which I connected to the cass-deck Tape Play Input so that I could
dub music onto it from cd or tuner.

My question is: It does not seem like the headphones are independent from the amp-speakers. Did I overlook something simple?

I turned the headphone level to max and its too soft, but if I turn the fader and other controls up to make it louder, it ALSO makes the amp-speaker
level louder, which is NOT what I want. I thought I could control the volume of them independently. ??

The Roland power amp does not have a volume control, but it has a 1/4 jack/cable which is what the Samson PA speakers accept.

I could try to replace the Roland with a hi fi stereo receiver integrated amp that has a volume knob, so that if I wanted to hear music louder on the M-30
connected headphones, I could then turn the volume down on the hi fi amp, but the issue is, unlike a power amp, a receiver or integrated would preamp the
signal a 2nd time, as the first preamp is the M-30. The other issue is the hi fi amp is not a pa amp, it does not use 1/4" jack/cable as the Samson speakers do.

But to summarize, and get to the point, in the setup I have, I cant get operate the headphones and amp-speakers independently?

 

[sweetbeats]

Correct.

The M-30 headphone amplier input is fed by the monitor select switch, which is fed by the MONITOR level pot and the SUBMIX MASTER pot…the source select switch determines which feed is love to the MONITOR OUT jacks and headphone amp…so, in other words, the headphone level pot is post MONITOR or SUBMIX MASTER pot. So step 1 is to adjust the MONITOR and/or SUBMIX MASTER level pots for the correct level at your monitor speakers, and then adjust the headphone level pot for the desired level in the cans. Any adjustments made after that to the MONITOR or SUBMIX MASTER level pots will need to be addressed by subsequent adjustments to the headphone level control.

 

[BeatleFred]

Hi SB,

I can see when a mixer is used with home stereo equipment, there are several more level settings to be made thru the mixer path as compared
to just connecting a tape deck and headphones to a stereo amp for recording or playback. I was looking at the M-30 op manual which has good info, though its explanations are focused more on how someone would actually use it to record their band, with a bunch of instruments and mics hooked up,
and ensuring each musician can hear themselves properly during overdubs and so forth. That is understandable, though it can make some things harder to grasp for someone who is just using the board by themself and not needing to utilize all those functions, and just wants to use some hi fi components, and give the M-30 a little exercise, so that the board's controls get some use and dont sit there to let them deteriotate until its needs servicing. And once the signal routing is better understood, then of course, the board can always be used for what it was designed to do for home musicians and their recording projects.

Of course, its understood that when connecting equipment, its always preferred to have the signal paths between in & outs be as direct as possible.
Thus, given the setup: cd player, cassette deck, and tuner, what would be the preferred way to connect them to the M-30 for the purpose of playing all three of those sources, and to record onto the deck at times. Listening would be done via headphones- convenient jack in front on the M-30 or thru an amp and pa speakers. In this case, as I described previously, it just so happens the Roland power amp has no volume control, and the Samson speakers are not self powered, so no volume control on that either- thus, how I came to wonder with these two components, about the M-30's ability or not to have the volume level of the 'phones, and the amp-speakers be heard at separate levels from each other. With no volume knobs on the power amp, it seems that the speakers will be heard loud thus have to keep the mixer's knob down, but in doing so, it ALSO keeps the headphones down too low. I will look into what you mentioned and see if I can further adjust, otherwise, the other option to fix it would be to replace the amp with another one with a volume knob that can be shut off, or if replace the speakers too, shut the speaker selector switch off on the amp.

I was also giving some thought to the hookup: basically, the cd player, tuner and cass-deck are line level devices, so no mics involved, thus can use the line inputs which are rca jacks that match to the devices, no rca to 1/4" cables needed, but I was wondering if it would make any difference as far as the signal path goes to the monitoring section if the Tape inputs were used instead (also rca's) when it comes to recording onto the deck and playing it back.

I suppose the tape deck can be thought of as the 2 track mastering recorder, so I connected to the M-30 via the Submix out. (dont know if the amp-speaker volume issue would change if I swapped them- submix out for amp-speakers, and Mon out for tape deck? Or, could the tape deck be thought of a four track machine and connect it to the M-30 in the same way, except just using two tracks (left & right sides of audio) instead of four?

Going back to shorter-preferred signal paths, I was thinking if M-30 Direct outs would be beneficial, but I then realized, several devices and several of their direct outs wont all fit to the tape deck inputs, its not a multitrack, the cass-deck only has one (Playback) input.

Eventually, I did get it to work the tape deck recording output (left and right) was connected back to two line's (or tape in's) on the M-30. Finally, I noticed the submix knob had to be turned up and I think a few others controls to see the meters levels come on on the tape deck when put into record-ready mode.

Another idea I was pondering: putting the M1B line mixer to use. It has all rca jacks, so an option might be to connect the cd player, tape deck, and tuner to the M1B and run it out to the M-30, and let the M1B switch between those three devices if it makes things more straightforward. (if so, would the M1B outputs go to the Buss In of the M-30)?

If you still have enough much appreciated patience to keep reading this far, you might recall in my collection of mixers, I have the 2A/MB-20, M-106, M-30 and M-1516. Thus, I was wondering how these other models would compare in their functionality if I configured the cd, tuner and deck to them instead vs M-30.

Since the 2A is connected to the MB-20 per the MB-20 op manual hookup diagram, it only leaves the E & F inputs on the 2A to connect just one device to, not three, so I guess that would be a good use for the M1B, and use M1B to 2a/MB-20.

I know you have experience with the M-106 and like that unit. I know the 106 was made about three years after the M-30, but I was thinking the M-30 would be more advanced, however just taking a quick glance, the 106 has four slider groups on the right side vs just one master fader on the M-30, and 106 has aux send/return controls vs none on M-30 (I guess just Send/Rcv on them). Just curious, I will take a look, wondering if the headphone vs amp-speakers volume settings work the same way on M-106 as it does with M-30 in terms of how independently they can be made from each other. When all is said and done, atleast my brain is getting a good workout from all these thought experiments, lol

Ps: even with all the writing (as I drink my coffee), another thought flashed in my mind- if I were to use the M1B line mixer with the cd, tuner and deck, the 1B has level controls and headphones jacks (not on the MX-80 for example), so I imagine I could listen thru the M1B 'phones instead of M-30 without needing to worry about matching levels to the amp-speakers.