Your thoughts on the flip-side (of a DM3200)

snafu

Veteran
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
230
Karma
89
From
Germany
Gear owned
Tascam DM 3200 + IF-FW_DMMK II
Hey everyone,

it's been a while. Recently I met another owner of the DM3200 who - as it turned out - bought his machine just recently on ebay. Of course he had many questions, and as always, when your confronted with things you think you know about like the back of your hand, some questions put me to my limits, and I'm here to ask some experts.

Outputs on the backside
One of the first questions was, how I would connect my DM with my studio speakers. I told him via balanced Monitor Outputs with the 1/4" jacks. He then asked me why I wouldn't use the stereo output - and I shrug my shoulders.
Honestly, for me the reason is
a) I always thought of them as outputs to another recording machine for summing or things like that
b) AFAIK there is no way to get a mono signal by hitting mono on the DM when your studio speakers are connected with these. I could be wrong though, maybe when I catch my signal on a bus, and go from there to the stereo outputs, but I am not sure.
I'd be very interested in your insight, and how you make use of the XLR-Stereo Outputs.

Studio L/R (cinch connectors)
Honestly, I never had use for them. But I think, they could be used for a second pair of monitors either as second listening devices or to connect any speakers in a recording room to communicate with musicians there.
What is your thought on these? How do you make use of them?

2 Trk In
OK, this one is obvious - I have em hooked up to my patchbay so that I can send in signals from different devices with cinch outputs. Maybe you have some better use / idea for them?

Sends and Returns
Oh, yeah, don't let me start with these! I learned here on the forum that the Inserts of every channel can open up hundreds of possibilities for connections. I, for example, have stereo jack all the time in my Insert, with the strands connected to my Patchbay - so I can grab the signal there, route it somewhere else, and it feed it back to the same channel.
Then there are the 4 asignable sends/returns. I told him, the difference between them comes down to: the assignable ones can be routed to any of the DMs channels, whereas the Inserts are hardwired to their relating channels. Anything to add to this?

OK, that's all. Hopefully I didn't tell too much crap to my pal - and if so, I promised him to give him an update (I really would have loved to add him here to the forum, but unfortunately he does not speak english)

Thanks for reading,
have a great week
snafu
 
  • Like
Reactions: Peter Batah
Snafu, I'd answer these but for me there's a never a 'Quote' link below the latest message in a topic. Maybe now I post this..
 
Okay, now I can quote myself, but still not your message. Anyway:

- Stereo Out. It is meant to be used as the connection for the master or stereo recorder. I use the same signal but digitally through the IFFW to record. The physical XLRs in my case go to a distribution box where I split it to go to a hardware CD-Audio recorder I stll have and even a MiniDisk recorder! So in fact, I hardly ever use these..
The functional difference with CR Out is mostly in the SOLO function AFAIK, and the dimming that takes place when using talkback to the Studio Outs. I think you're right about the MONO button as well, but not sure. So yeah there's real benefit in using these for your control room and not Stereo Out.

- Studio Out. Meant indeed for listening in the recording room - but also, this is where the Talkback signal automatically goes. I use them in the same way, but not for studio monitors but for my headphone distribution. So the result is the same: I can talk to the artists in the other room(s) (and the playback signal dims in their cans while I do).

- Aux send/return: Yeah what you said, but the crucial difference between inserts and send effects is ofcourse that the signal coming in is changed by what you put there (compression/EQ) and what you send out from each individual channel to the Aux send does not change the source signal. The returns can be used to get the effected signal back in, but also as extra inputs in a recording situation (as internal routing in this mixer is totally flexible). I did this a few times, they're good enough for keyboards, or a drum machine for instance.

- 2TR: Yeah, I got it connected to a multifunctional box, usually with a stereo mini jack to the phone or such. I also like the direct selection of it with monitor SEL3 button (which is the default that can be changed).
 
Last edited:
Hey Arjan, interestingly I could only quote your first post, but not the second. I also can't reply my own post - some maintenance on this site recently?

Anyway: I'm glad I'm not too far on the wrong side.
I use them in the same way, but not for studio monitors but for my headphone distribution.
Hm, this tempts me to aks where exactly you got your monitors ;-) Or do you work completely with headphones?

I must admit I never had use for the DM in live situations! So for the most part, my setting is "as is", and I'm good to go for the next few years to come.
Also I made never use to the returns for extra inputs! Thinking about this it seems so obvious! On the other hand, I remember a thread some time ago when either you or CMafia told me that you can "misuse" your Inserts as extra outputs if you put a stereo jack just half way in - or, as I tried: take a split cable, leading the send cable all the way to another device. 16 extra outputs. Well, they're not meant to be treated this way, but whatever works...

cheers,
snafu
 
No, the term 'Studio monitors' here is used for monitors that some studios have in their recording room(s), for playback to the artists there. Say, you have a live band all playing together and you want them to listen back without everyone getting into the control room.

My control room monitors are three sets: Tannoy System 12, Yamaha NS-10 and Avantones Active - and I do use headphones as well.

Yeah the inserts can be used to also route your incoming signals to a different device - after the gain pot. I have all 16 channels connected for insert with a half-normalled patch bay, so it's very easy to take these signals.
 
2TR - I have a Logitech Bluetooth receiver hooked up to this input if I or anyone else needs to play or record something from their phone or tablet.
 
Hi guys, here's another cool use for the Studio and Send outputs of a DM-3200 or DM-4800. I allow up to 6 different musicians to quickly create their own custom headphone mixes using an Oz Audio Q-Mix headphone mixer. The Q-Mix is an excellent, high quality, reliable, and affordable product that is unfortunately out of production, but you can still find them on eBay (one is for sale right now in fact). I connect the DM's Studio Out L/R to send the DM's Stereo L/R mix to the main L/R inputs of the Q-Mix. Then I connect the DM's four Sends to the four additional Source inputs on the Q-Mix. In the DM I can selectively assign any particular channel to any one of the Sends, for example, lead vocal would go to Send 1, guitar to Send 2, bass to Send 3, etc. In this way, a musician can bring up the main mix in their own headphone channel on the Q-Mix, using the Main level to set the overall main mix level, then add in any amount of each of the four Source signals, e.g. singer can increase level of the vocal, drummer can increase level of the bass, etc. It works perfectly! But it requires a headphone mixer with the capability of the Q-Mix, of which I have not found any other. Most other products have limited number of additional 'source' inputs you can feed to them.
PS. I also use the 2TK inputs for connecting the outputs of keyboards/synths, because those inputs are spec's at -10dB, and keys/synths typically provide a -10db level, not a pro +4dB level. I hope this is all useful. Finally, thanks to cmaffia and others on this forum... your help has been invaluable to me in using my DM-32oo over the years... especially in validating driver support for every iteration of OSX... just about to jump to Mojave, fingers crossed!
 
That Oz Q-mix is a great little device! I have in the past looked at the Behringer Powerplay P16 System which is a 16-channel network based system for personal monitoring - but couldn't justify the cost against the (limited) number of times I would use it. I would place a bid on that e-Bay one but shipping to EU is ridiculously expensive..
 

New posts

New threads

Members online