Mixing Console

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tongenerator

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Messages
65
Location
Frankfurt / Germany
Hello,

i have some little question please.

Which mixing console would you use or do you think is better, the TAC Scorpion oder the Tascam M3500?
I know that there is a supliere in england wich can provide pots and faders for the TAC and AMEK Boards.
Does someone knows wich kind of pots are used within the Tascam M3500?

Thank you very much, kind regards from Germany Mark
 
It pretty much comes down to what you need. Does the split design of the Scorp fit or is inline better? Do you need many channels? How is the state of each desk??? Are you aware that the Scorpion needs special wiring?
I had a M3700 for homerecording/mixing and still use a highly modified Scorpion for livesound. If I had to chose for recording I´d go with my(!) Scorp (not to speak about the ruggedness for live use). The Tascam did not make it at all for me. I´d rather mix ITB than on the Tascam and I bloody hate ITB. Whatever that has to say.
 
haima said:

it looks realy nice

jensenmann said:
It pretty much comes down to what you need. Does the split design of the Scorp fit or is inline better?

of course it woul be nice to have the inline concept mixing board, but it would also be OK for me to use a patchbay. modding is what i am looking forward to. in the meantime i could find some photos of the pcb`s. i could see that the scorpion uses better components and the shematic looks more complicatet then the tascam. hopefully i can find a tac scorpion with 32 channels and meterbridge for homerecording my analog synthesizers  ;D You are probably right ITB you also have full parametric EQ or compression on each channel, but i love to have such a big tank in my room.

thank you guys
 
You misunderstood my post, I got rid of the M3700 and bought something better and larger. I do absolutely not mix in the box and hope that it will not be necessary this life.
 
I made several albums on a Tac Scorpion. Back in the 80's. And also used A couple tascam boards a few times. The Scorpion is more aggressive sounding. And will easily destroy any board that Tascam ever made. There is NO comparison.

The Tascams were more of a home recording thing. NOT A Scorpion. 2 different levels of performance. I still enjoy listening to what I mixed on the TAC 20 years later. :)
Hope I helped.

The console never broke so I don't know if they had separate cards for each channel. But you can do a search and find out for sure. I think on gearslutz you can check. I also used a Mackie 8 buss back then and believe it was one big unfixable board. And that sucker DID break...

John
 
in reference to the insides of a tascam board?

tongenerator said:
it looks realy nice

not really to me.... it looks like a pain to service, LOTS of switches and pots in this design, sure it has lots of "features" but these days do you need them all? there's a lot to go wrong.

you might be better off buying a simpler board OR saving for a better sounding "big board" that will reward you for all the service hours and cash they cost to bring them up to spec. the bottom line is almost any analog console is going to need upkeep - you want something that will sound so good it is worth it.

and RCA i/o? eck.

if you already owned a tascam then i'd say go for it, work/mod that thing into the best it can be - but i don't know if i'd want to willingly buy into that kind of upkeep on a reportedly average sounding board.

but that's just my opinion. there's a lot of factors in play here.

 
I have to say the same. Tascam is not the best sounding desk compare to TAC scorpion. I've worked on few in my life and didn't like them at all. If you have to chose, go for Scorpion
 
+1

We restored a Scorpion (given to us for free  :) ) with two of my friends. Not a real hard work, as it was fairly easy to service the individual channels, or just leave out the ones we could'nt fix. It's in use today and is helpfull in some situation; obviously, we're very happy for the price. In my opinion, a much better value...

Laurent.
 
Stagefright13 said:
The Scorpion is more aggressive sounding. And will easily destroy any board that Tascam ever made. There is NO comparison.


Well, not ANY. The Tascam M700, was/is a nice console.
But other than that, you're absolutely right.
 
Hi,

  I have used both boards on various projects about 15 years ago. You can get a basic non motorized automation option from tascam for the 3500 which I've only used once before I know ease of using an SSL 9000j or even mouse mixing with pro tools or better yet an 8 fader controller. The Tac has a much better sound and better vca's stock. I don't remember if the Tascam has individaul modular strips but the Tac is really easy to upgrade and mod sections. you could probably get a flying fader package added but if you're going to spend that kind of money then you can afford better than either the Tac or the Tascam. When I went to school way back when I our school studio had a Tascam M3500 and to date myself an MS-16 1" and 3 blackface adats were "state of the art at the time. My buddy who had gone through the same program picked up an MS-16 from a studio that was upgrading and we had it calibrated to match the school deck. We would take a class that was just 10 hours of studio time and you handed in one mix of something for the low price of 1 community college credit hour at $38. So we tracked everything at my buddy's place and mixed at school. My buddy didn't have any outboard gear just the deck and an old Tascam M320B mixer. The stuff thta was tracked on the M320B was way better sounding than anything we did on the M3500. Later that year I started working at studio with Tac Master board and I learned a new level of console sound and performance. The upgrade to 2" 16 track MC! JH-16 wasn't bad either.

I would definitely go with Tac or Amek any day. in my opinion Tascam hasn't made a decent sounding board since the early 1980's and most likely you will be using your board as a DAW front end and mixing eq in this day and age. Your automation will come from your DAW which you probably by a fader control surface to automate the occasional fader riding, grouping and copying scenes. Even those of use who still own and love our 2" reel to reel decks still end up transferring to pro tools and finishing the project in a what sometimes ends up and entirely digital domain.

As for that old M320B, I'm doing a side project at my buddy's old place using it for the mic pre amps and bringing over my outboard compressors and tracking to pro tools as the MS-16 is having serious capstan issues and due to not being regularly maintained.
 
An M3500 never had an option to retrofit Automation. There was the M3700 with preinstalled ugly sounding VCAs and auto, giving the desk a ridiculous S/N ratio.
TAC Scorpions never had VCAs.
 
i had a tascam console, mXXXX something, it really revealed to me what bad audio equipment sounded like - it was one of the best things I got out of my life. you'd probably be better off with the TAC
 
Hi All,
From the start the Tascam 3500 was plagued with a bad audio ground bus design, there were several ground loops on the boards and wiring of the console, and you had hum all over the place...  :'(
Shame on Tascam...may be too much sake at night for the intern of the R&D Dpt....
Later they released a Service Bulletin to modify the ground bus path, after the mods the console was useable.
At this time I did the job on several units.
Guy
 
My first post in this section of the forum,  anyhow

Since your all talking about scorpions , has anyone tried the Langley SSM2015 replacement retrofit card
I'm interested in any opinions, if any ? AML sells these for replacing the elusive and now rare and overpriced
SSM2015 IC in the mic preamp section of the Scorpion console. A really odd ball IC I might add.
 
Hi Frank
I did install them in my now former Matchless. It´s the same circuit as for the Scorpion. That was a great improvement. The price is a joke compared to how good these preamps sound. The new owner of this particular Matchless had me install 12 more channels of these preamps since he liked them so much. He even sold some of his formerly used outboard preamps because he found them to be much worse then the new console pres.
 
Back
Top