Tascam DM-3200/4800 in the Modern Age

[djd2thaj]

This, now almost 20-year old console series, is long in the tooth...makes one realize their age in contrast. However, jokes aside, it's still a great desk, and while it's been discontinued and parts are slowly becoming less available on the used market, there are those of us that still love the desk and want to continue to use it until it is physically impossible to, be it connectivity or spare parts.

I've posted on a few threads, regarding various aspects, and thought here would be a great place to join them all for those in and around the same boat.

The DM series has had a mix of connectivity and I/o hurdles to get around, now more than when it was brought to the market...similar to the age old format wars (VHS vs BetaMax, or HD-DVD vs BluRay) and how what was once a great choice for connectivity is now obsolete, especially when the product has been discontinued. Myself, having once had the DM-4800 back around 2011/2012 (including creating the Aux Send tutorial that is referenced in the Stickies of this forum), moved on to other consoles and control-surfaces, etc...found myself over the past year jumping back into a pair of 3200s as my new centerpiece in my upcoming build. Below is a take on my journey bringing the DM-3200 up to today's standards.


Connectivity:
This has probably been the largest hurdle we will all face in today's time. Using the DM as a control surface isn't one of them...HUI and Mackie Control isn't going away, and USB will probably be around for a long while. However, despite the DM's vast routing capability, its shortcomings are it's I/o. They chose the TDIF format, which at the time, made sense for 24-channels of I/o dedicated on the console...TDIF was still a relevant format...ish. The 3200s had two expansion slots and the 4800 had four. Outside of the firewire card, your max I/o from them could be 16-channels on the 3200 and 32-channels on the 4800 using the expansion slots only. If you were like me back in 2012...one of those slots was taken by the surround option card, so that took another 8-channels out of that figure. That's one of the things that made the firewire card great, as it gave you 32x32 on one card with the Mk2 version.

Jump to now...the cards are less available (dare I say, rare, for a working one), and in the latest round of Mac OS moves, firewire has seen it's last days in the modern world of operating systems. You might be able to hack/modify the OS to provide firewire format support, but that's still half the battle...you need the audio drivers to still be usable, which being discontinued...how much further can it be taken in today's world. There's always keeping older computers around to just run the desk, record, etc...that's nothing new. Those of us, myself included, have kept obsolete computers to run obsolete hardware just to maximize the ROI...still, that does have a time of change at the end.

Today's' world has moved a bit into the AoIP realm, be it AVB, Soundgrid, or Dante...and I've ventured down all of them.

TDIF is the driving format here, because it brings the largest availability in I/o from the console, in addition to still allowing the use of the expansion slots for other things, should you want or need to. That also is the biggest elephant in the room today besides the problems mentioned with firewire...modern interfaces and hardware have moved past TDIF. That's where this journey starts:

- Soundgrid.
Here's where I was originally excited about jumping back into the DMs...because I already had the 'solution'...Soundgrid. After getting the DM-4800 originally, I had also moved into ProTools|HD and had a set of 192i/os, etc. Fast forward some time...my work in audio post-production moved past the ability for ProTools|HD 9 on a maxed out Accel system to handle and I was forced by necessity to upgrade computers, which also meant that that HD rig was no longer usable. However, Waves and DigiCo came out with Soundgrid and Digigrid interfaces, specifically, the DLI and DLS (which had a sound grid server in the same chassis). Both had an SGP mode that would switch the interface from looking like a 192i/o to ProTools to being able to bridge existing 192i/o hardware as Soundgrid I/o. That meant, one could have 192s bring analog or digital into a sound grid network, extending the life of them.
I used this format for a while to bring 48-ch in and out of an old 40-ch 1980s Wheatstone MTX console, which I didn't bring with me when we relocated...the desk was nearly 9ft long.
The good thing about the 192s are that the digital cards on them had AES/EBU, ADAT, and TDIF on them. Hense the solution...I can run TDIF between the DM-3200s and sound grid...and it works!
Until, the format in the sense of the studio world became obsolete. Waves, in their brilliant minds, decided that DSP support no longer makes sense in the studio environment given the power of Apple Silicon and modern processors. I don't disagree, outside of the obvious aspect, tracking with plugins, and the StudioRack/Soundgrid Studio world. Waves V15 no longer supports SoundGrid Studio, which means one has to use QRec as a soudgrid driver to use the AoIP format and sound grid interfaces. It works, but can only connect to four sound grid devices at a time, which kills the ability to scale out, or have multiple rooms with multiple end-device interfaces per room.

Hence the need to go a different route. For me, I plan to have multiple rooms connected, be it an office that's an editing suite with its own computer, so being able to share resources was a draw for AoIP.

 

[djd2thaj]

- End of TDIF as a direct bridge.
The 192s had TDIF onboard... and with the 192-D variant, you had two digital cards, so 16-ch per 192. However, the only other interface with TDIF is the MOTU 2408 series, which works if you use the PCI or PCIe card...or standalone. Standalone can get you single-direction of up to 24-ch to ADAT, or ADAT-TDIF. It has weird clocking constraints, and you have to split a single TDIF cable to two different interfaces to get 8-in/8-out. However, that basically becomes the start of the rest of this journey in concept. Use other interfaces as format bridge converters. Make TDIF become another format that is still relevant, such as ADAT, AES, or MADI.

- Euphonix/Avid FC-726.
There are a few TDIF format converters out there...mostly in 8ch at a time boxes, by Tascam, RME, etc. There's also two models by Otari that will do multiple sets of 8. In my case, I also read someone mentioning using a Euphonix/AVID FC-726 (or FC-727). The FC-726 is a format converter that is part of the Euphonix System5 console hardware. It natively bridges AES/EBU and MADI, which MADI is the native interchange format of the System5 (and other large format digital desks). The FC-726 also has a slew of third-party formats including TDIF. It supports what is now considered 'legacy' MADI, which is 56-channel MADI, or otherwise known as Vari-Speed, MADI-56, or Short-Frame.
The FC-726 is quirky, but phenomenal. By quirky, I mean, it supports AES, but not by the two main-line pin-out formats (Tascam and Yamaha). Euphonix has its own AES pin-out, which you must use for it to work. The third-party formats are supported by a single DB-50 connector per block of 8 channels. The wiring of the DB-50 connector decides which format it will use. They rightly suggest creating pigtail harnesses to provide a usable TDIF connector...ie short cable with a male DB-50 on one end, and a female DB-25 on the other. There is a manual online that has the pinout, and while it looks weird, or somewhat wrong...it is not. TDIF is not run balanced or differential per pair, it's rather signal and ground, which is tied to chassis on both ends...so in the cable, just the signal lines are used with the others (clock, etc).
The FC-726 also provides Sample Rate Conversion per block of 8, which while it probably isn't a necessary thing in a studio environment, it's definitely useful in post or broadcast style worlds.
In my case, this gave me 48-channels of TDIF conversion into MADI and the other 8 were converting AES off an expansion card to round out the 56-channels. In reality, I am looking for 64-channels for 32 on each console cascaded. In this case, 56 is the max of the FC-726 and legacy MADI...But MADI is still current, despite being around since 1991.

- AVB.
I also have a set of MOTU 24Ai/Ao AVB interfaces, which I had in my office...because the 192s are mini-heaters and in the Atlanta, GA summers...it's toasty with A/C. In my world before this year, the MOTU interfaces were great, because it got me 24 channels I/o to use either with an analog desk as a front-end or the hybrid ITB style approach. AVB is another AoIP format similar to SoundGrid or Dante. There are other resources available on the details on it, etc...so I'll save jumping into that.
MOTU also developed two AVB interfaces that support MADI, the 112D and newer M64. The 112D gives you 112x112 over thunderbolt and AVB with 64channels of MADI, 24 channels of AES, and 24 channels of ADAT on one interface. The M64 is just MADI into AVB. This was my next 'solution'. I already had the other AVB interfaces, and either of those would get me the I/o from MADI and also the additional 8-channels by ADAT or AES from the DM-3200 as I wanted.
Until... the 112D and M64 are on infinite backorder, or otherwise referred to as 'unobtainum' from my reps at both Sweetwater and VintageKing. You can find them every now and then on eBay or Reverb, but they are usually gone as quick as they show up. I actually had found and purchased one off eBay from what should have been a reputable seller, to find out their system was flawed and posted an item they didn't have. Unfortunately, there was another at the time, but it took too long for them to realize it was an error on their end, and the other one was sold.

-RME MADIface
As a stop-gap, I purchased a used RME MADIface that was one of the ExpressCard versions, with a Sonnet thunderbolt to ExpressCard adapters. Still current, and works...with extremely low latency. It supports both 56-channel and 64-channel versions, and has the benefits of RME's TotalMix. Mine had a weird quirk, but that's most likely the age and the fact that it's being bridged. It provides digital noise until the driver is loaded and locked.

 

[djd2thaj]

- Move into Dante.
With no luck sourcing a 112D or M64, I made the move to venture into Dante. It has similar scalability as SoundGrid and AVB, but different system infrastructure despite being provided on 1GBe network topography. There's several Dante-MADI devices on the market including FerroFish, RME, AppSys and Focusrite to name a few. There are also other bridge converters out there, such as Dante-Soundgrid and Dante-AVB (more on that later).
I decided to get a FerroFish VertoMX, which stated support for both 56 and 64-channel versions of MADI. I sadly found out that out of the box, it didn't. It took 56-channel MADI all day long, but only output 64-channel MADI regardless of input format, and there is no control over this inside of Dante Controller. Mine might have just been a one-off case, since mine had the Brooklyn 3 Dante card inside it, which previous Vertos have the Brooklyn 2. Regardless, after a bit of time back and forth with FerroFish, they got a new corrected firmware out which allows the output channel format to be set externally.
That's only one side of what's needed as far as Dante goes...you also need the computer side of things. There's DVS (Dante Virtual Soundcard) which allows you to use your 1GBe LAN port to interface into the Dante network. The downside is latency and it's not the most reliable driver. The other way is to use physical Dante interfaces that either bridge into Dante, or have Dante as part of their i/o. There's some PCIe cards out, but the older ones don't work on Apple Silicon. I elected to get an RME HDSPe AoX-D PCIe card and thunderbolt-3 expansion chassis. This gave me the ability to achieve 512x512 from that card. I'll never use that much, but the pricing was around the same and RME has insanely great driver support.

-Dante and AVB
I'm still not done here... I still have those MOTU 24Ai/Ao interfaces. PreSonus makes an AVB-Dante adapter that will give you 16 channels bi-directionally. Unfortunately, MOTU's version of AVB is the older version that isn't Milian compatable, so for the PreSonus to work, it has to be on the factory firmware. This also means that other AVB interfaces that support Milian or channel blocks larger that 8 per stream, are also not compatable with MOTU's line. Newer MOTU AVB interfaces may get support down the line but not likely for the 112D, 24Ai, 24Ao, etc based on the hardware itself.
Then there's Biamp and the Tesira line of installed sound processors. They use AVB (and more recently Dante). There is also their Tesira TC-5D network switch that has a 32-channel Dante interface onboard. I picked one up thinking it would do what I want given that it supports the AVB format that the MOTU interfaces do. I was only partially correct. It doesn't host any of the control blocks on the switch, so you have to have at least one Biamp Tesira AVB device to host the AVB blocks. There is luck there, because the Tesira Forte processors are relatively inexpensive on eBay. The TC-5D is pricy, but around the cost of a MOTU or PreSounus AVB switch. The Forte can be configured to not use any of it's i/o and just host the AVB blocks. With Riedel's AVB-Manager, the Forte's AVB blocks can be tied to the MOTU's AVB blocks....success.
Another win with the Forte VI or VT is that you can also interface with VoIP or Telephone and use a set of channels as an Auto-Hybrid. I haven't done this yet...but it would remove the need for the physical Hybrids I have from the days of doing pre-taped radio shows at my facility.
With the AVB interfaces setup, I was able to get not just the additional 24-channels of analog from the 24Ai/Ao, AND 8-channels of ADAT into the DM to finish out the i/o.

This is how I've managed to get the DM-3200s current.

In a condensed nutshell, possible formats one could choose from:
- Firewire...as long as your computer and OS support it, and drivers are good...should work.
- ADAT...plenty of interfaces, but your limiting factors are the available slots you have for ADAT cards and ports on the interface.
- SoundGrid...Waves/DigiGrid DLI paired with 192i/o or 192-D interfaces....can use Soundgrid Studio with Waves V14 and lower. V15 needs to use QRec without DSP server processing.
- Format Conversion...FC-726 or Otari FS-96 to bring TDIF into another format, such as MADI....used with other formats.
- AVB...MADI into AVB by using MOTU 112D or M64 interfaces...can either use onboard USB or Thunderbolt depending on which interface is used, or expand out to other MOTU AVB interfaces. Hard to find 112D or M64 interfaces, used or new.
- MADI-USB or MADI-Thunderbolt...RME MADIface USB or ExpressCard...or PCIe card options. If using RME, TotalMix can control multiple interfaces, but multiple interfaces cannot be tied outside of using methods such as aggregates in CoreAudio.
- DANTE...most expensive out of them, but has options combined with format conversion (FC-726), Dante host card (AoX-D), and MADI-Dante bridge (VertoMx).

With all of these, clocking is important as all digital devices need to be on the same clock...which is master/leader differs depending on which.

That's it. Apologies on the length here. I'll add pictures if desired. I hope this post might be of help to someone in the same place.

 

[djd2thaj]

I also forgot to touch on Soundgrid to Dante or AVB. There are a few devices out there. One is the SoundGrid BR1, which is discontinued, and expensive if found, but bridges SoundGrid and AVB, including the MOTU line.
- There is also the Hear Technologies WSG Bridge, which will bridge Dante and Soundgrid.
- The issue with Soundgrid as an interchange format is that it requires independent control over both networks...meaning one computer to control the soundgrid network directly, while the other can manage/configure the Dante network. It's not an impossibility, just added hardware, especially if you want to have an older soundgrid network and host DSP processing on it.
- The cost for the Hear WSG Bridge, is expensive, and likely around the cost of getting MADI into Dante and the Dante host card depending on where/how you source them from.

- As well...there are also Dante-Soundgrid devices, such as the Focusrite RedNet 5...however, it only functions in one way, which is to provide Dante to a hardware based ProTools DSP system. The RedNet 5 appears as 192i/o interfaces to ProTools, and then brings that i/o into Dante. In the scenario mentioned above, we want the opposite...we want the RedNet to appear as ProTools DSP cards, to then interface with 192i/os, which it doesn't do, but the DLI or DLS does do.

- Along the same vein, should someone be on a hardware based TDM or HDX system, then this entire thread is practically irrelevant...just go TDIF into the 192 or HDi/o and call it a day...or if you wanted, bridge TDIF into MADI and then us a MADI|HD interface.


- Lastly...if anyone happens to have a surround option card laying around, I might be interested in it...haven't quite seen one of them pop up online in a few years.