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.

 

[neurocharm]

Thanks both for your words and help. I have some decent studio experience but truth be told I've mostly used modern equipment, and audio interfaces rather then desks. Would using the desk without the firewire require an external audio interface then? Just trying to get my head around the signal flow.

 

[mixerizer]

Hey there! Great question, yes. it’s clear you understand the concept I was communicating.

You will need an external audio interface that either has a compatible digital or analog i/o to the i/o u want to use on the board. W a DM-3200 u have only 2 expansion slots, whereas I based my studio on a DM-4800, which has 4. Still, the principle applies.

Here is my example:

My room uses a DM-4800 with 4 AES-EBU cards, as well as a TDIF to AES-EBU converter. In total, this provides me 56ch of digital audio coming in and out via AES-EBU (24ch of which is converted to/from TDIF for the 3 TDIF ports on the board). One could also do a similar approach based on optical (24ch of optical to TDIF conversion + up to 32ch from 4 ADAT cards).

Many devices at various price points do the conversion for this sort of workflow. If there was a modern interface with TDIF, you could skip this step but using TDIF on the board, u can do a lot at a minimum cost I would suggest using the 24ch of onboard TDIF with two 24ch TDIF to optical/analog converters like the MOTU 2408 or Tascam IF-AE series to start. You need two because those units are unidirectional.

Then pair the two units with an interface or combo of interfaces with 4 optical i/o, and you have 32ch of bidirectional digital mixing (3 TDIF ports, 1 ADAT port, not counting the expansion slots and the 16 mic/line inputs). You can find MOTU interfaces used but not dirt cheap, they have been around over 10 years and still represent the lower tier of cost for home studios (and if you get MOTU devices with AVB, you can network them together as your studio grows, which made my workflow absolutely hum). With other platforms, Dante plays a similar role but at a generally higher price point.

I went with MOTU because it is inexpensive, stable in terms of rate of firmware updates, can be found on the used market, and because I tend to prefer older-generation gear. While expensive, an all-in-one box that does a lot which you might consider is the MOTU 112d, which has MADI I/o, AVB, as well as 24ch of AES and 24ch of ADAT optical. In my studio I have one 112d MADI stream for the board and I use the ADAT and optical to feed 48ch of tape direct/playback to and from the x-48.

For me, the 112d makes a robust companion to the DM series - but there are lots of platforms, brands and format alternatives that are much cheaper and accomplish similar results. Good luck!

 

[neurocharm]

Thanks again for your help. I'm away from the school until next week when I go back to do some more experimenting, but I also found a TASCAM US16x08. I assumed this was part of some long forgotten portable recording rack at the time, but is this capable of interfacing with the DM3200?

 

[mixerizer]

Absolutely. That will work - it will provide you with a way to get analog audio to and from the desk, as well as 2ch SPDIF digital audio to and from. However that interface won’t give you many channels out to the desk (as it has more inputs than outputs). Still, it’ll absolutely work to get started.