Tascam Model 3
Three mixers in one box, built for the musician who had more talent than money.
Overview
The pitch, printed in DB Magazine (June 1976, p.51), was unusually blunt: "Three mixers. For three jobs. One Model 3. Less than $900.00." That single line explains more about what Tascam was trying to do with this console than any spec sheet could. The Model 3 was conceived as a small-format mixer that could follow a working musician from the rehearsal room to the PA gig to the disco floor and back into the home studio — a rare thing in the mid-to-late 1970s, when most small mixers were happy to do exactly one job well.
Tascam's own manual opens by framing the design around that same idea, describing the Model 3 as "versatile as possible" and pitched at "people with more talent than money." The manual also notes that the Model 3 was built in Tascam's professional products division and shares design philosophy, parts, and production procedures with the larger Model 10 console — a useful detail, because it places the Model 3 not as a toy but as a cost-conscious sibling of a professional desk. Tascam is candid about the trade: the company claims the design alternatives chosen for cost were "exhaustively researched and tested to avoid any compromise in performance."
The core architecture is an eight-input, four-bus mixer that can also be run as a simple 8-into-2 stereo desk. Inputs 1 through 4 accept mic (low-impedance) or line sources, with the center position of the input selector being OFF. Inputs 5 and 6 switch between mic (low-Z), phono, and line; inputs 7 and 8 switch between high-impedance mic, phono, and line. That phono capability on four of the eight channels is the detail that makes the "disco" claim in Tascam's advertising more than marketing — a magnetic turntable plugs straight into the rear-panel PHONO jacks, no external preamp required.
Each input channel carries a three-position mic attenuator offering 0, 20, or 40 dB of padding ahead of the transformer and preamp — a genuinely thoughtful placement, since the pad sits before the electronics that would otherwise be driven into distortion by a hot mic signal. Equalization is a peak-and-dip design with ±15 dB of continuously variable boost or cut, switchable between 3 kHz and 10 kHz on the high band and between 75 Hz and 200 Hz on the low band. The equalizer center position is OFF, which is worth knowing when setting up a channel from scratch.
Routing is flexible in a way that small consoles of the era often weren't. Every input can be assigned to any or all of the four output busses via color-coded numbered buttons, and there's a dedicated "D" position that routes the signal to a direct output taken post-EQ and post-fader — bypassing the summing amplifiers entirely. That direct out is a real convenience for anyone tracking to a multitrack machine, and it's the kind of feature that separates a proper recording mixer from a PA board. Pan engages automatically whenever more than one bus is assigned. Tascam's manual is specific about the pan law: centered, the level drops about 3 dB to compensate for what would otherwise be an audible peak in the center, giving a smooth sweep from hard left to hard right.
The master section is where the "three mixers" idea really lives. There's a 4×2 monitor-select mixer tied into the four output busses, letting any bus-assigned signal be sent to the left, right, or both control-room monitors. A 4-ganged master fader controls overall program line output. Separately, there's an 8×2 submix section with its own pan, gain, and 2-ganged submix master — which is how the console provides a discrete submix for, say, a monitor feed or a remote recording send while the main four-bus mix runs the show. A three-position headphone switch selects between OFF, the monitor-select signal, and the submix, with its own level control.
The spec sheet's numbers tell you what kind of console this is. Frequency response is quoted at 30 Hz to 20 kHz, ±2 dB, measured at nominal input levels — respectable for the price. Signal-to-noise is channel-dependent and worth reading carefully: a single high-Z mic input is rated greater than 65 dB weighted, while a low-Z mic input is rated greater than 75 dB weighted; the eight-mic-input figure drops to greater than 60 dB weighted, and the eight-line-input figure sits at greater than 73 dB weighted. Crosstalk is greater than 60 dB at 1 kHz, overall distortion from mic input to output is 0.3% THD maximum, and fader attenuation is greater than 60 dB. Input and output levels run from −66 dB minimum on the mic input up to +24 dB maximum on the line input, with a nominal line output level of −10 dB (0.3 V) into 10 kΩ or higher. The headphone amp is rated 1 W into 8 ohms on the rear panel and 100 mW on the front panel. Power draw is modest at 40 W, and the console was offered in 117 V, 200 V, 220–240 V, and 250 V versions at 50/60 Hz.
A few practical notes from the manual are worth passing along. The submix inputs on the rear panel are normally strapped with a short cable to the corresponding cue-out jacks, so a new owner who can't figure out why the submix section seems "already wired" isn't imagining things. Tascam also documents a serial-number break at approximately 4000 for the power supply — models up to serial --4000 use one supply board, and units from --4001 onward use a different one, with the later schematic inserted at pages 42–45 of the manual. Anyone servicing a Model 3 should check the serial number before ordering parts or tracing a fault.
The Model 3 shows up in period dealer listings alongside the rest of the Tascam line. A Modern Recording (December 1977, p.98) dealer ad for Barclay Recording & Electronics lists the Model 3 on demo alongside the 80-8, Model 5, and Model 1, which is a fair snapshot of where the console sat in the range — a small-format mixer in a lineup built around the 80-8 eight-track recorder. The DB Magazine ad's sub-$900 price is the number most collectors will anchor on, though it's a 1976 figure and should be treated as an advertised list price rather than a street price.
Collectors should temper expectations. The Model 3 is a working tool, not a fetish object, and it was built to a price. The channel count is modest by later standards, the EQ is fixed-frequency rather than sweepable, and the console predates the era of the quiet, serviceable small-format desks that came later. Its appeal today is narrower and more specific: it's a compact, genuinely flexible eight-input mixer with real direct outs and a usable submix section, and it shares enough DNA with the Model 10 that it can serve as an affordable entry point into Tascam's early console lineage. The manual's own framing — "the same design philosophy as the highly successful TEAC Tascam Series Model 10 mixing console" — is the most useful thing a buyer can know going in. Expect to find them with scratchy faders and dirty switches; the design is straightforward enough that a patient owner can bring one back. Whether it earns a permanent spot in a studio is a different question than whether it was a smart buy in 1979. For a musician with more talent than money, it very much was.
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