Tascam DM-4800 can it be used as a Front of House board?

I recently spec'd two Tascam DM-4800s for a system install. One for recording and one for the FOH. After some fine tuning on the budget the church decided to drop one the the boards. We decided to use the remaining board as the FOH board and the church will get the other board later.

Now does it work for FOH? Yes, we used it last sunday for the first time with only a little bit of "up close a personal time" with the board, and Julius Ezeb (Director of Media Ministry) and the Tascam did a great job. The board is well laid out and things were easy to get to. The only thing that is lacking in the board for FOH duties is the number of outputs from the main mix. We had to use the assignable aux outs for the recording, nursery and lobby feeds. Not a great set-up because of the time it takes to create the separate mixes. The other outs provided (studio, control room large and small monitors) are not useful in a live situation.

The other complaint is the false advertising - Tascam claims that this is a 48 channel board, not true!. It comes with 24 mic pres and the capability to add more (8 channel) input cards to bring the channel count up to 48. I am assuming that once you get the cards installed you will have the same dynamics, gate, EQ and effects available on every channel as well. If that is the case then this is way better than the Mackie TT24. If the "Line Inputs" 1-24 where capable of being split and assignable to the 25-48 channels then it would be a true 48 channel board. Even if you add the X-48 track recorder to DM you still need to have some kind of interface to get the analog signal into either the X-48 or the DM. So if you bought the DM and the X-48 without any additional optional cards you would only be a 24 track setup. They do come with the 48 TDIF I/O channels on each machine but they are useless until you get the some kind of interface to bring the audio in.

What really matters, sound quality

Yes it does sound pretty good. Its digital and its Tascam. The sound quality is clean with good definition but I wouldn't call it warm.

Tascam DM-4800

Sound Quality ✹✹✹
Ease of use ✹✹✹
Bang for buck ✹✹✹✹
Build Quality ✹✹✹✹
Manufacturer Claims ✹✹✹

(Rating: scale ✹= poor ✹✹✹✹✹=excellent)

Test conditions : Channels used - 8 vocals, 1 wireless handheld, drums (4 ch), Keys (1 ch), Guitar (1 ch), Horns (1 ch), Pulpit (1 ch), outboard effects (2 ch) in this church

Live Recording & Audio Recording/Video Capture-Editing Studio

We are installing a complete Live Recording - Tracking studio for Christ Life Church in Tacoma, WA. They are upgrading their existing live sound system to accommodate live audio recording and live video recording.

This church is blessed with remarkable musical talent. They have produced and recorded their own CD's (in a recording studio) already and now they what to capture their live performance.

We are installing a new 32 x 8 split snake from Radial Engineering and 2 of the new Tascam DM-4800 digital boards. One for the live and one for the studio. To record and track in the studio we are installing a Tascam X-48 (48 track hard-disk recorder) which gives them the ability to record the live performance to individual tracks as well as another 16 tracks available for tracking in the studio.

For the video capture we are starting with 2 Panasonic HVX200 HD camera's, a third camera will be added later. The editing bay consists of a new 8 core Mac Pro setup with 8 gigs of RAM 2 x 750 gig hard-drives and 2 x 24" Monitors that can handle 1080p HD. Software to edit video Final Cut Pro Studio 2, and Logic Studio to handle the audio.

The great thing about the Tascam board is that it is also a controller for the most popular DAW software (pro tools, logic, sonar, etc.)

We will be dealing with the acoustics of the sanctuary as part of phase 2 of this project. For now the church will be honing their skills on the new equipment.

Live Recording - analog, digital, with computer, harddisk recorder?

What are the pros using for live recording (bands)?
Things have changed rapidly in the way that we record live. We used to use a separate mixer and get a feed from the direct outs of the FOH mixer to record the performance. That practice for a long time only changed slightly when digital multi-track recorders became available. Pro-Tools has become the digital recording program of choice for many years, only because it established a foot hold early. Now things have got real interesting as far as new things to come along.

Digidesign has released the live/recording consoles (The Venue Series) which give Pro-Tools users a real good way to mix and record live, of course this would be at the high end.

Muddy Sound from a Sound System with Active Sub Woofers?

Are you having issues with muddy sound from your subs?

Here is a tip:
If possible wire up your subwoofers from a post fader aux send on the board to a graphic EQ then to the subs. See diagram below:



This gives you the ability to send only the channels that you want to the subs. It will clean up your muddy sound and it will give you the ability to dial in your subs with a lot more control.

When you are mixing you don't want any vocals going to the subs or cymbals. All you want is the bass, kick drum, floor tom and possibly some guitar.

This will drastically improve your sound.

Note: The graphic EQ is an option. You don't need it for the subs, but it will help you dial out a frequency that tends to come alive in your room.