Tascam mx80 mix mixer

xxmangoosexx

New member
I just picked a clean one up really cheap at a surplus auction. Anyone here ever use one? What are they good for? I thought it might be fun to record drums through them.

How the heck to you get phantom power into these things? (if it's still possible)
 
Mx-80

The MX-80 is an excellent 8x2 mic mixer. The many patch points enable it to be used in numerous configurations, either as standalone preamp modules or mixed 8x2 to stereo, & any combination thereof. In a pinch the preamps could be bypassed & the unit be used as a line level mixer. The phantom power has to be supplied by an external unit that plugs into the MX-80.
 

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wow, thanks ARP. I'm pretty excited about having so many extra preamps at such a cheap price.

As for phantom power, I don't see anything on the market that would fit the bill. The mixer has this weird 2-prong XLR phantom in that I know nothing about. Is there a unit that Tascam used to pair with the mx80?
 
I've never seen one.

A compatible rackmount phantom power supply may have been scoped as a "future" Tascam product that never got implemented, or it may have been scoped to adapt to "off-the-shelf" phantom power supplies of the day,... though I've never seen one except one single rack unit that looked to be home made.

As far as the 2-prong XLR, it was probably more standard back in the day, but you'd have to go-deep at some esoteric electronics stores to find one today. A super sleuth like sweetbeats could probably dig one up for you online in about an hour. Heh.:eek:;)

The 2-prong XLR phantom power input was an obvious attempt to differentiate it from the standard XLR mic inputs or XLR line outputs,... for obvious reasons.:eek::eek:;)
 
still waiting on it to arive. pretty excited. it's my first piece of tascam home recording gear.

well maybe not. I bought an Ampex Reel to Reel a few years ago, it was actually designed by TEAC. It's a mono deck (i was told it was stereo when i bought it), and needs some work.

I've given up (for now) doing the reel to reel thing, but im a little fed up with digital. I've spent thousands of dollars on software and DSP cards, and im sick of it. Not the sound, mind you, i like digital for some things... I've got a few decent pieces of outboard, some pretty decent mics, and it all sounds great for home recording...

it's the process im sick of. the 'endless revisions' (as lou reed would put it), the 48 track mixes, the constant tweaking, everything running in realtime, doing 20 takes and 'comping' to form that uber-take, the software instruments...

so im taking a sabbatical from all out digital recording. going to do 4 track stuff, or maybe 8-track stuff, on cassette. the mx80 is great, i can record a whole drumkit with it, mix it down to two tracks (or one) and print that to tape.

i could probably do a whole band with it. anyway yah, im excited.
 
finally got my mx80 patched into my studio. i dont have a patch bay, and only 8 analog outs/ins on my soundcard. still, im using 3 of the channels as standalone preamps, and the other 5 as a lo-fi "summing" box, or line level mixer. I've had great fun so far mixing simple home demos through it. What's interesting is that it has a balanced out, (-40dbu) and an unbalanced out (0dbu)...the balanced one can be patched into another outboard preamp for added gain/color. Neat!

the noise floor isn't all that bad either. really need to boost things out of control to make any kind of noise apparent.

what's fantastic is now i have 8 usable pres for demo/location purposes in one little box, and i can sum them to two tracks and output that to a stereo recorder. For 40$!

damn.
 
ARP,

You ever use the MX-80 as a front end for tracking to Portastudios? I just picked up an original 144. I know it's quite limited as far as portas go, but it was in such great condition i couldn't turn it down.

The balanced outputs on the MX-80 are very low in level though...these aren't "line" level outs are they? Do the balanced outs bypass the final gain stage? Or is there some attenuation going on?

I wish I had a manual. Anyone out there with a PDF?
 
Congrats on the 144!

I don't know specifically about the balanced line outs, except they should be line level. Balanced and unbalanced will not read the same levels, but I'm not sure if that speaks directly to your problem.

The way I see the MX-80 interfacing to the 144 would be to use the 8x2 mic/line mixing to stereo, then feed the UNbalanced line outs from the MX-80 to the 144's main inputs with RCA-1/4" adapter cables (or plugs).

An alternate to this would be to bring the 8x2 MX-80 mix into the 144's stereo buss on RCA/RCA cables into the Aux-Rcv patch points.

I'm not sure if I have an MX-80 manual, or where it would be ATM.

Hope that helps.

/DA:eek:;)
 
finally got my mx80 patched into my studio. i dont have a patch bay, and only 8 analog outs/ins on my soundcard. still, im using 3 of the channels as standalone preamps, and the other 5 as a lo-fi "summing" box, or line level mixer. I've had great fun so far mixing simple home demos through it. What's interesting is that it has a balanced out, (-40dbu) and an unbalanced out (0dbu)...the balanced one can be patched into another outboard preamp for added gain/color. Neat!

the noise floor isn't all that bad either. really need to boost things out of control to make any kind of noise apparent.

what's fantastic is now i have 8 usable pres for demo/location purposes in one little box, and i can sum them to two tracks and output that to a stereo recorder. For 40$!

damn.

The MX-80 (I just received mine a couple of days ago!) is a true discrete dual FET preamp design. We shall find out this afternoon if the WAYYYY-TOO-DEEP mic in jacks have the typical Tamura transformers in them. These are a big step up in design from the excellent pres in the M-35. I don't know how they sound yet, we are going to completely mod this thing top to bottom, and I also got mine for $40!! Neve and SSL used FET gain stage. I've counted 4 chips in the whole box, probably for the line amps. Price out fully discrete mic pres today...then price out summing amps...:) If you're tracking drums to submix to tape, consider throwing a compressor on those XLR outs...make your mixing way easier and "safer" THEN you got a NICE 2-track drum mix...you could even throw a TPSII or MPAII after it for crunch, then the compressor...just awesome...simple always best!!!!!!
 
It's a very cool unit!

You could even break the Access SND/RCV loops on each channel and use them as 8 discrete preamp Direct-Outs to something.
:spank::eek:;)
 
The MX-80 (I just received mine a couple of days ago!) is a true discrete dual FET preamp design. We shall find out this afternoon if the WAYYYY-TOO-DEEP mic in jacks have the typical Tamura transformers in them. These are a big step up in design from the excellent pres in the M-35. I don't know how they sound yet, we are going to completely mod this thing top to bottom, and I also got mine for $40!! Neve and SSL used FET gain stage. I've counted 4 chips in the whole box, probably for the line amps. Price out fully discrete mic pres today...then price out summing amps...:) If you're tracking drums to submix to tape, consider throwing a compressor on those XLR outs...make your mixing way easier and "safer" THEN you got a NICE 2-track drum mix...you could even throw a TPSII or MPAII after it for crunch, then the compressor...just awesome...simple always best!!!!!!



Hey, sorry for reviving the mx80 thread with my first post in the forum. Hello btw!

I would like to know what happened after you delved into the unit... Did it have transformers in it, or it is a transformerless design?
Did you managed to apply any succesful mod to it, or just recapped?

I dig that vintage tascam tone, i was thinking of giving my MX80 a little love.
Please let me know, thanks :)
 
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