TASCAM DM3200 in 2025

[neurocharm]

Hi,

I'm trying to help a local school get a studio up and running for recording kids coursework as cheaply as possible. They have a pretty old Tascam DM3200 that was archived away in a cupboard. Is this thing a paperweight in 2025? My preliminary research indicates it's a good desk (if not the most user friendly) but it just seems difficult to integrate in 2025 to me. It has the Firewire Card on the back, but I think you have to go through a lot of adaptors to get that working. Is it worth the headache? The school would probably be looking to buy a new studio computer. They need at like 12 channels to record drums and the other options for this channel count in the budget would be low-quality. If using the pre-amps isn't an option, could it work as a control surface any easier? Would really appreciate any help, I know RTFM but I'm doing this on my own time to help out and I thought someone might be able to point me in the right direction or just warn me if I'm wasting my time.

 

[shredd]

Good on you for your efforts/interest in providing such an opportunity for the local school and the kids interested in recording.
I've also considered this as a 'destination' for my well-equipped studio's gear when I'm not recording any more (or not able to?!?).
Yet I found that even with modestly modern gear (hardware based) - schools aren't interested in it - even in my far-flung rural location. They want computers w/DAWs, interfaces, sequencers and other programmers, control surfaces, yada...all the stuff that a "current"/"modern" studio uses...and reject my "old-school"/hardware-based gear on the premise that it won't teach anything to those kids that "they can use".
Never mind that they'd be learning the building blocks/basics of studio gear & techniques, on user-friendly/easier-to-use (than DAWs) gear...concepts which they would apply in later/professional endeavors...I couldn't beLEEV they expected high-schoolers to learn/master complicated things like Logic/ProTools/etc, rather than learn the basics of routing, signal processing, tracking/dubbing/mixing etc...
Oh well. Just another example of the "new" school giving the 'old school" the fudgy finger - even if the old-school way is just as good (and certainly more accessible...).

In any case: my reaction to YOUR dilemma was that the school (and whoever teaches/administrates the program) is probably going to want gear that isn't going to need a lot of (or ANY) configuring or other messin' around with...so you'd have to provide it ready-to-go, "out of the box"...maybe even offer some tech-like support?

 

[mixerizer]

give it a try, its an immensely flexible desk. Dont feel like you have to use Firewire - there are conversion options for the TDIF ports, such as optical or AES-EBU if u need digital i/o beyond than the built in options (2 2ch stereo AES i/o, 1 8ch ADAT i/o). The preamps are good. And the ‘REMOTE’ layer, properly configured, gives u DAW control.

IMHO, its the Firewire protocol that’s past its expiration date, but the board can still shine without it.