388 sounds great thru the tape, but the preamps on the M30 sound better straight in…You need to hook the M30 up to a tape machine and see how that sounds. Great vids on this stuff, man! Super helpful
M30 Preamps have less bandwidth and dynamic range. They are probably the exact same IC chips (TL07X if I remember) running on lower voltage rails. Tascams M series (M308, 312, 320 and B variants, M388 ) were at the time the most professional mixers they had on the market. I believer they have 15volt rails, but it has been a while since I was inside one. The M30 Looked like the other M series boards but were the lower end of the line and more similar to some of the earlier TEAC branded (like Teac 5) small boards in design. I have owned every board I have mentioned aside from a M88, but they are the same as a M308 in design. Haven't used one in a long time but I DO remember that you could hit the front end of the M308/12/20 a lot harder than the smaller Tascam boards and the noise floor was a lot lower too. I actually really love the EQ on the M series boards and if you recap them with high quality caps and do a little improvement to the ground buss, they are very cool and quiet boards. Weirdly the Tascam 520 than the 320!
M30 Preamp sounds warmer and rounder. more natural sound bass I would say. The 388 give more push and brightness to the signal, making it cut through the mix a little bit more. It is really subjective but in the context of that song I prefer the M30 sound. Anyway both sounds nice.
Just got a perfect working Tascam 234. It sounds great, but I agree with what you said about removing reverb from the room. It kind of automatically does that. Not the best on acoustic guitar, cuz it's rough capturing those higher airy frequencies..but on electric, bass, synth, vocals sounds really sweet
Haha the stank. I haven’t listened on headphones for the actual audio comparisons yet but I really enjoyed watching you in your Narnia studio and everything just sounded great anyway! Will be interesting to listen back in more detail.
Another great video. Glad I stumbled onto your Channel! I recently upgraded from a portastudio 424 to an m30 with a Tascam 38. So it's been great to see you messing around with the m30.
Bought a Tascam M30 new in the early 80's to link up with my Teac A3340S 4 track. Just the best of times with that rig. I'm in the process of transferring all those 10" tapes to DAW. Really surprising how good they sound!
Tascam/teac have quite a mad circuit , The EQ's are quite unique design, I tried to build them once as I had got hold of the design , never worked though, strange design. Loved all the models they made with Teac. They can lack warmth compared with more transformer based pre amps.
I don't know as I never had different models to test at the same time. They all used similar designs though until late 90's when it changed with the porta one 4 tracks etc. The desks that had the frequency pot and gain pot combined had these designs. The frequency pot was 2 pots wired in series , it wasn't the usual standard tone circuits. My electronic tutor at the time was very puzzled by it. I guess the best desk I used was the M320 connected to a Tascam 1" 16 track. Was very cool. Miss it very much. @@travisraab PS , love your channel, good work.
Mmmm30 drums... au natural... Deluxe! I'd sleep with that open hi-hat (in my humble opinion, of course). I would really like to hear what would you do with them in a "proper" mix...
The thing I love about the 388 is how it works with it's tape. It's got a touch more brightness and it works perfectly with the tape. I did prefer the kick and bass sound of the M30 but think this is easily remedied. But the clarity the 388 still get's even after tape is what makes it a killer machine.
the m30 can do clean also, I just drove it accidentally. I was pretty impressed with driving it though. kills anything in the box. the 388 is crazy clean i was amazed when I bypassed the tape!
@@travisraab I'd love an M30 or something like it to go with my 388. PS: here's a piece I did on the 388. Totally different vibe, but maybe you find it interesting.. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tJoTxUIIDNc.html
I also just checked m30 and 464mkii (ver BBE) with Vsti 808 Roland ! and also surprised with "Kick" from M30! very compact and full like a little Comp! Thank you The video is worth listening to!
Jus saw the prices on those Tascam's, wow...I remember when those would sit on pawn shop shelves for months at a few hundred bucks sometimes around 100bux and they still wouldn't sell lol
The highs sounded better on the 388, the bass definitely cut through with the m30.I'm currently using an m35 mixer into a digital da38 tape recorder and it sounds pretty good, not as sterile as in the box.
@@saren6538 I think the 88 has more features, you can go to any tascam recorder chat groups and find out for sure. If my memory serves me right there were 4 diffferent models over the years
Hey I also use a M-35 Mixer. Mine distorts way early. at about -7 dB it begins to overdrive. Normally with other mixers it's at about 0 dB. Does your Mixer also distort early? Maybe I need to calibrate that thing or something. But besides that it sounds amazing.
I notice that both preamps sound amazing despite this being youtube. The M30 was more rounded sounding. Try the Aquarian head on your kick, they have a ring around them. Could have been a gimmick but it sure wasn't. edit: the exact model was aquarian super kick II.
@@travisraab I don't know if this will help but although one might fantasize about a long release on a kick and it might work in really sparse recordings or electro, I found that whatever you need to do to shorten the release as much as possible helps, and focus on the sound of the attack part. And then obviously try to get rid of any ringing/spurious sounds. Getting the drum set to sound awesome outright is best but then you can also EQ a bass drum into something nice, maybe more so than other instruments. I'm sure you know all this stuff better than I do. I don't know what they did in Erykah Badu's Soldier but that's quite the kick if you like that particular sound. Sort of "dusty" and you can almost feel the air it moves.
8 may be wrong but don't they have the same pres? My under standing was the m30 was a 388 without the tape deck. I have an m520 which is dope and I've been using it for everything since I got it. Go Tascam!
Great playing and niche comparison! So how would you feel about me running my Two Tascam 244's into a standalone 1/4" 8-track reel-to-reel? I think I can finagle it as a way to upgrade to open reels while using these portastudios as 2 mix banks without having to get something like that nice M30. Just gotta see if dbx in the signal path will mess anything up. Happy recording.
Are you referring to micing the drums through the desk that gives you the impression of a collapsed room width? If that's what you refering to, maybe the channels crosstalk comes to play here.
Hey Travis, definitely the Tascam 388 (on tape) has the best sound. It was fat and clean, full spectrum man... I could smell it from over here!! Another fab vid and you're layin down a solid on the \m/
@@travisraab put a front head on that kick... get a good dedicated kick drum mic (Beta52, AKG D112, Audio D1, EV etc there are many). I wasn't hearing any definition on the kick... but your guitar sound is excellent!
Makes me wanna find myself one of these bad boys but it's seems kinda difficult. What do you think about a Teac Mb 20/2A as an option to pass my frustration ? Ever heard about those preamps ? Great videos by the way and your studio seems awesome to work in !
@@travisraab Thanks for the reply! Every channel peaks when the att is set to 0 I tap the mic and I tap the mic. The only time I can hear anything thru my headphones or see the needles move is when headphones and monitor are set to submix. Idk. I plan on getting my hands on a copy of the manual. Thanks for your time. And again, the content is great! I hope you keep it up!
@@michaelleko1894 first of all set the att to the next notch nor beyond so it stops peeking. It's not in front of me but submix out should at least get you an aggregate signal. This is a super non intuitive machine and the manual is a necessity
Not at all Nerdy when you happen to have both gems, but I almost forgot about the M-30 since Vu meters were out for ages and just did not get it. due to your video , which was ehm...rather confusing, I grabbed the M30 again, and wow , it is fully functioning. simply magic. do not remember doing any work with it last 10 years...so I am starting dubbing on this again. the Tascam have the best workflow and layout in the business. Reel Workhorses. Roll it!!!thanks man, for the messy comparison. after all, they do not differ that much, but can not compare going to tape in the end. that will diffuse everything. nothing like tape compression.
Yes I could hear that little tape hiss once I put headphones on. It's worth it though! I track bands live on mine sometimes so I have to roll with the dbx if we don't have time to mess with levels between takes. Even with DBX on it still rounds off all those transients and adds some sub frequencies that makes the digital versions some how dull and harsh at the same time@@travisraab
Picking up the m30 in two weeks - I might need an assist with getting set up. Any videos you can recommend for going into a focusrite and plugging guitars straight into the board? Cheers!
The reduction in ambience / increase in tightness you're hearing may be a result of crosstalk. The signal bleeding into the adjacent channels can make emphasize the mono part of the source. It's kind of weird! (or it could simply be the tapered off high end of tape, de-emphasizing the high end of the reverb, who knows!)
@@travisraab damn I recently got a 144 but the motor is frozen. The mixer side works great but idk if it’s worth keeping it or just selling it for parts:/
I have a Model 24 and it's awesome. I know nothing about home recording, but I'm having fun learning. The Model 24 sounds good. I'd love to hear some comparisons to the older school Tascams. I'd send ya mine, but I use it too much lol. Love this channel!!!!
The $2 Tascam preamps always sound thin no matter which unit you’re using. I lived in the Tascam world for years and one API preamp changed everything for me.
Come on Scott you can’t compare an api fully fledged pre amp to to a mixer that just happens to have preamps .. but we hear you What api pre amp model are you referring to ? Thanks
How do you set levels for recording?, I’ve got my hands on and m-30, do you use the monitor output?, do you pull the monitor knob all the way up or the fader below?, aahhhhh so many question. 😂 You should make a video for dummies about “How to set gain and record with an analog tascam mixer”. 🤣
M30 is prob one that confuses the most people out there! I should prob make some more videos on basic recording. Not sure if enough people are interested though
@@travisraab You couldn't record them because of the interface preamp ("sound bad") or because of some physical configuration aspect the m30 now caters too? Apologies if I'm missing sumthng seemingly obvious!
@@travisraab Now that I have my cheap koss headphones on and I can hear a difference! 388 vs m30 there is a difference no question about it. The first comparsion the m30 sound tighter than 388 - the 388 sounds more open, more space, more presence! m30 more base and more punch to it and hum, if I'm not mistaken. The second case where you isolate the guitars it's opposite! Weird.. 388 to tape you have hiss (naturally) and it has less space in sound but that's the nature of tape at that speed (7.5 ips). Don't know if the 'reverb' feeling to the sound would increase if you overdrive the guitars when recording to tape.
I'm not a super fan, but I got really into one of his albums in like 2015 or 16. he's got some great tunes, and also gets cool sounding recordings. he's great.
@@travisraab Yeah! I think you said in another vid, M50 pre amps are about the same as 388 but this shows M50 are beefier and round it out better. Also - I getting a little lost when you talk about routing the pre amps through your daw. Are you saying you mic the drums through m50/388 and then put it thru clarrett w out any of the clarrett pre amp? Thanks for the great content!
@@littlevibetown yeah my clarett has 8 channels. only 4 of them have preamps. so when i use an external preamp I use the preampless inputs on my clarett. I think something to consider regarding the differences are that this just how the kick sounded without any eq on the pres. it's not clear if after applying eq they would sound identical, or which preamp has greater dynamic range. i would need to go a lot deeper before making that call. but right off the bat yeah m30 seems to have more low end on the kick
same same but different, who cares, they really sound like an early 80s mixer with bunch of hiss and so called "analoginess" that i see all over this channel... idk.... both can print a record or sound like trash. Like always.
