Steven Cole is president of Access Post Production Audio, Toronto.

When Access Post Production Audio decided to expand two years ago, we built a studio for voice-over, adr and music recording and with the potential for further expansion into mixing sometime down the road.

One piece of equipment we needed was a professional and reliable mixing console. Our goal was to find one that was not only digital, but was capable of automation and was priced within our budget.

After looking for several months, we still had not found anything that met all of that criteria. We had heard about a new board by Tascam coming into the marketplace within six months. We decided to bide our time until it was released.

The release date coincided with nab, so my partner Steve Shelski and I flew to nab for the sole purpose of getting a demonstration on the TM-D8000. After an hour demo at nab, we were so impressed with this console’s capabilities, the technical support provided by Andy Fong of Tascam and the incredible cost that we purchased it on the spot.

We have not been disappointed.

The simplicity of the hookup was remarkable. We had 48 hours to remove our old analog console, install the TM-D8000, then begin our first recording session with Nelvana on one of their new series, Flying Rhino Junior High.

Not only did the board surpass our expectations, but so did the assistance we received from Andy Fong. The Tascam TM-D8000 has greatly improved the sound quality of our studio, and due to the board’s automation and preset recall, our turnover time between sessions has become nil.

Some of the other projects we have done using the TM-D8000 with excellent results are Mythic Warriors for Nelvana, Britt Allcroft’s Magic Adventures of Mumfie for Phoenix Animation and Freaky Stories for Decode Entertainment.

The Tascam board is completely compatible with our existing equipment. We use two DA88 multitrack recorders and a DA60 timecode dat machine. For hard-disc audio recording, we use the Spectral Prisma and Digidesign Pro Tools.

The Tascam board allows us to communicate with all of these units digitally through the tdif protocol. The board has eight on-board compressor/limitors with noise gates and each channel has a fully parametric four-band Eq.

The processors are all patchable through software routing and assignable to presets, which allows us to have an instant recall of various different recording scenarios.

The board can accept up to 40 digital inputs, and can mix them in the digital domain to a stereo digital buss and eight digital output busses.

All of this allows for a high degree of flexibility, maximum control and high-quality output with extreme ease for our engineers.

Other great features which we find invaluable include the assignable remote control, with which we can assign the ‘master’ machine to be controlled through the Tascam dtrs protocol (for either DA88 machine), RS422 (for our Sony 3/4′ video player or DA60) or Midi control for our hard-disc recorders, and we can also assign which digital instrument runs the master clock.

As well, the assignable fader groups make ensemble recording simple. The easy-to-read meter bridge allows quick and accurate level displays, switchable from mtr returns, sends, channel inputs, aux send and stereo return.

We also found that the control room/studio monitoring via remote control is perfect for clients wishing to speak to the talent. When pressed, the mains are automatically dimmed, and the board’s mike can easily pick up any voice in the control room.

All in all, Tascam’s TM-D8000 has truly transformed our studio into what we had originally intended and designed it to be: a fully digital recording mixing studio, capable of further expansion down the road, and compatible with all of our existing studio equipment, which resulted in time and cost-efficient installation.

This in turn allowed our studio to be up and running quickly with minimal ramp-up time for engineers.

We strive to give our clients exceptional sound quality from preproduction right through to post-production. The TM-D8000 delivers. This is one of the best investments in equipment we have ever made.