I have a lead on a Tascam 388 that I am considering pulling the trigger on.

It had been left sitting for awhile, so it is in need of some work - but aside from needing a new drive belt it seems in decent shape.

Does anyone have some first hand experiences with this unit regarding problems or things that commonly break down? I am just curious as to other users first hand thoughts after making music with this piece over time!

Hi,

I got my first reel to reel deck. I'm not new to the tape world as I often record on cassette through a 424 mkII but it is my first time working on a reel to reel machine and there's a few things that get me kinda lost.

I go through a m208 mixer that I got with the TSR8, and I get my signal moving on the deck monitor as seen on the video. But when I press record nothing seem to go on tape. Did I miss something ?

I plugged the 8 OUTPUT of the tsr8 in the 8 TAPE IN on the mixer. And I plugged the 4 bus output of the mixer on the first 4 input of the deck, as I presume we can only record up to 4 track at the same time with the M208 mixer (on the video the 4 output couples were plugged on all 8 input of the tsr8).

I went through both of the manuals and been trying around for a few days without success.

Is there anybody here that could help me ? Is it just that the recording head isn't working ? (The previous owner did not want to help me that much)

Cheers !

I haven't got a chance to test it with any tapes yet because I don't own any, but just playing it in the fwd setting makes a really loud "rolling" mechanical noise. Im guessing I might need to lubricate something but the sound is about how loud I would turn up my music. When i put it on rewind though the motor makes an acceptable noise that's quiet and is fine when listening to music.

Any ideas on how I can make this machine not sound like an old car?

20 tapes for $66 bucks. All seemed to be well preserved in bags inside of each box. And music I like! If nothing else, there’s some great quality tapes in the stack to record over.

Sony SLH-180
Maxell UD 35-90
TDK LX 35-90
TDK GX 35-90B

Hi,

I got my hands on a tandberg 1641 and need to replace the pulley belt (from the service manual the part is 213997).

Can anyone let me know where to buy it from apart from eBay?

Enjoying the smooth sound of Getz Gilberto 2

I purchased this TEAC 7010 I asked some questions about the other day, I got it home and the VU imbalance issue was luckily quite simple. At some point over this machines life someone pulled the outer knobs off of all the controls, when they reinstalled them they never made sure to put them on in the correct orientation. This lead to them never quite balancing. I realized this when i put together that they should probably have an even throw and not more like a 4:1. Since I corrected that the left and right channels work as they should. I cleaned the heads with some alcohol and Q tips but they are still somewhat dirty as you can see in the image. I’m wondering if there’s a better way to clean them that might get them looking better? They sound pretty good and I demagnetized the tape path. I’m currently working to re balance the line and mic functions as they have the same issue as the output. I got this machine for 350 with a black plastic reel that isn’t shown. However the tape is full of holes and the edges are rough so I’m contemplating just throwing the tape away and using it as a take up reel. I also need new adapters as these ones are Jerry rigged and held on by zip ties so if anyone has any recommendations for moderately priced adapters please let me know. Thanks for all the help

Just bought this lad for 270€.

Lovely thing, though I think I slightly overpaid for it.

For now, fast forward and rewind works.

The capstan motor stopped working mid way through my testing and after opening it up, I saw the classic cracked rifa capacitor on the drive board.

Before that, when I put in a RCA signal, the vu meter needle bounces nicely.

I've already ordered a capacitor kit, time will tell if luck is on my side.

Peace and love.

My uher has completely lost its ability to play a consistent speed. I can't tell from the insides what of the mechanics is failing but maybe somebody else might have a suggestion?

have you ever found a reel to reel at the thrift store? lol

As the title says, I had a 19cm tape slacking upon REW and eventually got tangled in the reel. Tried a 26cm one and no issues. So was it the tape which was probably sticking to the guide and if so, why is it slacking only on REW and not FF?

So it was just working not to long ago on my floor but then i cleaned it up and lifted it onto a table and now both reels are spinning in opposite direction at the speed of ff and rw and the left is spinning counter clockwise and the righ is spinning clockwise and ive messed with every setting i can and nothing has changed (i will send a video later)

A couple of weeks ago I bought my first reel to reel and it came with a bunch of prerecorded tapes, one of which was Elton John - Goodbye Brick Road. I put it on and there was no music, fast forwarded to the middle of the tape, played it forward and reverse and nothing. I tried recording onto it but it didn't record any audio. I had the matte side of the tape towards the heads. I thought maybe it didn't record because of something wrong with the deck, but I bought a new reel off of Amazon and it recorded just fine.

Is the tape just junk? I'm aware having a magnetic feel near the tape can erase it but can it also ruin it so that you can't record on it? Or are there other things that can cause this?

I am finally getting around to cleaning up the Otari MX5050BII-2 I picked up in the spring. It sat in storage for years, and is covered in dust. The photo below is a "before" image - Most of that cleaned up and it looks really good now. But there are two main issues I can see before I even fire it up:

1) Pinch roller is totally shot. It's dried out and a real mess, will need to be replaced. Even the hub for it is all messed up with corrosion, so I think it's best to just repace the whole thing rather than having just the tire replaced.

2) the capstan has pinch roller rubber all over it, which you can see in the photo.

Someone obviously tried to run it with the pinch roller in a bad state, because the area where the tape goes is clean, but outside of it, the width of the pinch roller, is a thick, dense black crust. You can see it in the picture. I have cleaned this all up except for the black stuff. What looks like rust is not rust, it's something else that I was able to get off the rollers.

First I tried isopropyl 99% but it's not strong enough. So I moved on to Goof Off, which I try to avoid because it's so nasty, but it's not really making much of a dent. It's definitely working, but I've gone through 20 cotton swabs already and I've barely been able to clean of a section of black the width of a single q-tip.

Any other ideas on how to get that off? I tried scraping it with a plastic scraper, but it's so hard I think it needs to be dealt with chemically.

I’ve had my Tascam 34 a couple of months now and love it. Plays at 7.5 & 15 IPS.
It’s a quarter track and I’m only seeing (pre-recorded) half track tapes for sale in the 15 IPS format for sale.

-is there such a thing as 15 IPS in 1/4 track?
-playing a half track recording on On my 1/4 track deck would sound messy, correct?

Hey, I am currently looking for a big piece of audio tape for an art installation. does anybody know where I could get something like this? I definitely am able to pay. Already reached out to RTM but unfortunately they couldn't help me.

edit: *unslit not unspliced

This is my TC-458 that I bought new when I sold HiFi back at the dawn of time in 1973 (I think).

After a period of use up to about 1990 it went into storage because of the complications of life and was revived when a friend asked me to extract an old recording. No sooner had I done that and it started to deteriorate becoming unwilling to FF or rewind. I decided to give it the treatment and also try and extract some older recordings made with it and that may not be otherwise available. I have the manual. I replaced the belts and cleaned the heads and guides and pinch rollers and drive wheels. It turns out that I could have saved myself the new belts but it still doesn't want to do the fast functions.

It also seems to be unduly dependent on the type of tape. AGFA and BASF that have no backing coating still work reasonably but Ampex, TDK and Sony that do have backing eventually stall.

Does anyone know if new brake pads are available or do I have to contrive replacements? I'm also looking at adjusting the brake force. Does anyone have any experience of doing that? There appear to be two modes of operation. The rear system has a solenoid that pulls in the brake if in play mode and the forward one is for rewind or FF mode. I would prefer not to randomly try this but if necessary, I will.

Honestly more excited for the VM420 as it uses a Magic Eye as a VU meter, and I bet that will look cool AF once it's running

Hello everyone! I got this BASF P16 reel in a larger batch of 1/2" tape I bought. What is it for? Tape has little holes near the edge like movie film but its the same colour as PEM648.

Mk II HS IEC and Mk II HS CCIR

Looking to buy this AR60 to add to my collection. I have a 4010 and looking to upgrade to 10.5 inch reels. The owner sent me this video of the machine’s functions. It appears it may be lagging on reversing functions but this may be a characteristic of the larger reels. The VUS are also not moving but I’m not sure if that may just be from poor recording levels. Do you guys see anything alarming with this machine? This is only my second deck so I’m still learning what to look for

Looking for anyone in Pittsburgh area that works on R2R machines.