View Single Post
  #24  
Old October 21st, 2007, 08:21 PM
Gary Boggess Gary Boggess is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: North Tampa, Florida
Posts: 28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich LePage View Post
You're right of course about the op amps and the rest.

Amazed though you'd mod a Tascam Model 5 in terms
of the cost of the mods versus the rest of the parts, like
faders, switches, and so much else. But if it works for you,
that's great.
.
Well... the faders, pots and switches aren't causing issues.
BTW... I've got the 12 channel Expander, for 20 channels total.
Since I don't actually mix or eq very with it very often, it's
mostly a monitoring mixer, sub mixer for MIDI, and 90% of the
time, I use one channel with an AKG 414 for the vocal booth.
I have a couple tube mic pre's but since using the OP2604's,
op-amps I have found the modified mixer to be cleaner!

I will admit that I chose to mod the Model 5 instead of buy
a new board... due to cost and time. Remaking 20 or more
channels of harness to the patchday, with inserts, direct outs,
tape in, monitoring outs, effects returns and all... I was looking
at spending approx $5500 in closts plus a month or so down time,
verses piece meal caps, IC's and metal film resistors,
one channel at a time.

The upgrade costs total approx. $245. And since I don't use the
board to MIX, (doing that on the MicroEditor) it was the easier
road to improvement. And fortunately, the improvement was
stellar. Along with a religiously implemented start grounding scheme,
I have no noise, hum, or buz.

When I worked at Electric Melody Studios, on the 2nd floor of
the Lantana Center in Santa Monica overtop Lucas' Skywalker Sound...
we had a 48 channel Neve with flying faders in our main mixing stage.

In the pre-lay room where I was set up, I had a 32 channel
Soundcraft board that maybe needed overhauled.
It was noisier than my TEAC Model 5B BEFORE my recent mods!
It really had some major hiss. I was amazed how our $$$ Neve console
was so under used! We barely had time to employ the flying faders.
I remember we rarely bother to use to EQ. With two to three session
per day, for movie trailers, TV commercials and general voice overs,
we didn't have time to LOG eq's and etc. Even with flying faders,
we hardly had time tap the Neve's offerings. There was always
the fear that today's project may come back for a change,
and if we had used eq, we wouldn't be able to match.
We used a 32 track Mitsubishi, a 24 track MCI, and a 16 track Post Pro.

Paying for all of this stuff was also a major burden...
pushing us to take on as much work as possible.
We had nearly $3M in leased audio gear! So although we were
well equipt, we really didn't use it to the fullest benefit.
However, it looked impressive as heck!!

So, when I look at my modified TEAC Model 5 mixer, I see a tool
that does what I need it to do, and it's paid for. And since the mods...
I wonder if this piece of crap thing isn't BETTER than some of the newer
stuff. I get plenty of tracks in here from other studios. Tracks recorded
through Mackies, SSL's, Yamaha's and others... and just recently, drum tracks
recorded into PT HD3. All I can say is, track to track,
I'm recording tracks CLEANER with my old antique.
__________________
G. Boggess
Reply With Quote