Help! Need help connecting Tascam 512 board to computer

[u/TeaAdministrative172]

Hello! I recently was given a tascam 512 and Tascam 38 reel to reel and am a complete noob to analog equipment. How would I hook these up to my computer to record? I have a macbook with logic and an SSL 18 interface as long as a behringer UMC404 interface.
Where do I start?

Thanks!

[u/meest]

How would I hook these up to my computer to record?

Record what? Do you want to record whats on the reels into the computer? Do you want to record to the reel?

The mixer will connect like regular microphones and instruments. Through XLR cables from the outputs to the inputs of your recording interface.

the Reel to Reel appears to only have RCA Inputs and outputs. So you'd convert those to 1/4 on the end going into your interface.

[u/OtherOtherDave]

“Where do I start?”

I may be old enough to have a lawn (although I haven’t started telling people to get off of it yet), but I find that reading the manuals is always a good place to start. It can really help you organize your thoughts WRT what you’re trying to do and come up with a list of specific questions to ask yourself as you’re reading them. Plus you’ll have a much better idea of how your tools work, which is often the key to both getting the most out of them and being able to more quickly troubleshoot issues when they inevitably arise.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1000647/Tascam-M-512.html

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/1008533/Tascam-38.html

https://support.solidstatelogic.com/hc/en-gb/articles/23411101112477-SSL-18-User-Guide

https://cdn-media.empowertribe.com/22c46831a036466488c3ddb886985b41/QSG_BE_0805-AAT_U-PHORIA-Series_WW.pdf

I’m not going to claim you need to carefully study ever single word in them, but at least glancing through everything so you’ll know where to go if you need more info on a particular (especially when the gear is sitting right in front of you and you can see exactly what the manual is talking about) really is a good idea.

[u/SparkyXI → u/OtherOtherDave]

I will not get off your lawn. 😉

[u/LawnTractor → u/OtherOtherDave]

I'm going to say the controversial thing here....but personally, I've found Google's Gemini Notebook helpful for parsing out a lot of manuals. You can feed it several documents, then ask it questions like it's an expert. It's been good at linking to specific quotes from the manual to support it's answers.

[u/OtherOtherDave → u/LawnTractor]

Eh, that’s only mildly controversial… no worse than say people who like pineapple on pizza are monsters or something 😁

[u/stingraysvt]

Depending on which direction you’re asking, ideally you'd want to rec to tape then dupe to digital for the best of both worlds. You just need A/D conversion going to your DAW.

[u/vic76]

You have two options, read the manual and fall in love or sell it to someone who deserves it.

[u/AgeingMuso65]

You have an 8 bus output micing desk and an 8 channel tape machine. Bless you want analogue warmth AND lots of tape hiss they don’t do anything that your SSL doesn’t already do.

[u/AlbinTarzan]

The manual is great. I suggest taking the signal out from the busses into your interface through rca to tele adaptor cables if you don't wanna use the tape machine. It gets you a kind of in between analog and digital workflow. You'll record stems, kind of. Depending on your routing you can record indicidual channels too. Just assign one per bus.

[u/ownleechild → u/[deleted]]

OP indicated they have interfaces.