Tascam

TEAC Corporation's professional audio division launched the Tascam brand in 1971 with a singular mission: to make multi-track recording accessible outside the major commercial studio. While Neve and SSL were engineering for rooms that cost thousands of dollars a day to hire, Tascam was engineering for the band rehearsal space, the university recording programme, the musician's home.

The M-700 professional console — Tascam's most ambitious studio desk — punched significantly above its price bracket, offering a level of performance that allowed serious recording to happen in budgets that a Neve or SSL would have made impossible. It was found in B-rooms, project studios, and educational facilities worldwide.

Tascam's real legacy, however, is the democratisation of the entire recording process. Their cassette multi-track recorders, their affordable reel-to-reel machines, and their accessible consoles created an entire generation of recording engineers who could not otherwise have learned their craft. Many of the most successful producers working today first touched tape on a Tascam.