Tape Gear!

[fever606]

Oh, yes, we also added a recording function to be able to create our own mixed tapes… the most romantic Saint Valentine’s gift.

This may have been added after your email, but it’s there now. Nice looking design but I agree that I’d like to see more details on the components used (and more detail in general).

[pftjschute]

have any of them been released? seems kinda neat

I wonder how hard it would be to build one yourself– now that I look at the kickstarter, no varispeed = hard pass. But that’s a niche-ish feature I guess.

[stay_spooky]

I think all they have up is a prototype right now. Varispeed would definitely be nice but that probably isn’t a normal “consumer” feature. Ha.

[stay_spooky]

True, I figured for ~$100 it might be worth a shot. I have a few older Walkmans that need some belts and love. If you need one and feel like a project, lemme know and I’ll ship it to ya for free.

[shellfritsch]

i wonder if these new tape decks are all using the same internal mechanical unit. i remember hearing somewhere that there’s only 1 company manufacturing these and it’s pretty low quality…

[scttcmpbll]

I would imagine that’s the case

[mystasea]

Heya tape folks, I have a tascam 246 that I procured several years ago and I have out of fear of god knows what never recorded anything using it until recently…it all works fine but the levels between the tracks coming of the recorded tape are fairly mismatched and some require significant gain in post.

Could this just be an easy service/cleaning fix or a sign of more serious trouble with the head?

[Glitcher]

If you haven’t already give the heads a clean with Isopropyl alcohol and a q tip. If you get plenty brown residue on the q tip keep cleaning with a fresh q tip until no residue comes off. Also clean the capstan with iso. Take a look at the pinch roller and see if it’s hardened and/or shiny. Some people clean this also with Iso but others say this can dry up the rubber and so use a specialist cleaner.

It may solve your issues but even if not it’s a good thing to do and will improve things anyway.

[mystasea]

cheers will try this…i did clean it but maybe a few months before i did this test. Could it also potentially be a need to demagnetise ?

[Glitcher]

Demag is a matter of debate. I have one for some old reel to reel machines, but do also demag cassette tape heads with it.

You may need to try a Type 2 cassette such as a TDK SA with high bias. if you haven’t already. Four track cassette recordings can be overly noisy without these.

Best bet would be to try to make sure your input levels match before reaching the recorder.

It’s also possible a popular input socket is dirtier than the others. Try avoiding the possible bad socket to see if you can get levels to match or try a q tip in there gently to see if it can be cleaned up.

[pleasure_lily]

i love tape!!

[shellfritsch]

my trusty tascam 424 mk3 has a problem where sometimes channel 1 playback is not audible. i checked the direct out and the recording is there, so it makes me think the 3-way mic/line <–off–> tape switch is bugging out. has anyone here had this problem (and fixed it)?

[papernoise]

@Glitcher

Also clean the capstan with iso.

Just keep alcohol away from the pinch roller. I remember reading that you should not use alcohol on it because it makes rubber hard and brittle.

[kza]

so sad they don’t have 2 speeds right?

[cold_fashioned]

Yeah - even that would be a nice feature. Of course, this product doesn’t necessarily seem aimed at our niche. It looks to be more for the consumer, retromod folks.

[stay_spooky]

Yup, very much aimed at “I’d like a reliable hip Walkman” crowd.

[Coitmusic]

I don’t have one of these but since nobody else is chiming in…
It looks like you’d need to take the housing apart to get at those switches, but before you do: can you hear the track come in intermittently if you wiggle the switch? If it’s corroded or dusty, just moving it through it’s whole range of motion a couple dozen times might do it. If you can hear it come in when you press on the switch, it might have a broken solder joint. To get it apart, it looks like you’ll need to remove all the pot knobs and slider knobs which should all just pull off. Screws on the back might be underneath rubber feet as well.
I’m no expert, I’ve taken apart a lot of things and fixed a lot of them, be careful and take notes and pictures.

[Glitcher]

I don’t have this machine but what @Coitmusic says is good advice. Without taking a peek inside it’s difficult to know if a repair is possible. Old machines are much eaiser repaired than new ones though.
If it does look like a replacement switch is needed keep an eye on online sales of the tascam 424 mk3 going for ‘parts only’.

In that case you would desolder the faulty switch and solder the replacement in.

Some ‘chip quik’ or soldering heat gun can make part removal easier, it depends on the part though.

On a plastic part, heat gun is a bad idea.

If it’s just a wire that has come loose from the switch it’s a simple repair.

[pelang]

some late night prototyping:

[reallyok]

thought this might be a good place to ask…

i just got a tascam porta one, looked in great shape and supposedly worked fine - and it mostly does - but i keep having this problem where the play and record heads engage and won’t disengage. it happened just now - after i hit rewind. it’ll even do this when i’m not trying to play or record!

i fix it by opening the back and manually spinning the large wheel so the heads disengage and i can get my tape out. does anyone know what is causing this? or what i can do to fix it? opening it up isn’t the worst thing in the world but it’s happening way too often. i was messing around just recording some scratch stuff last night and it did it in the middle of my hour or so session! i can’t have this happening multiple times a day.

any thoughts?

edit - as i continue to google, i think when i had this issue last night, it was also while i was rewinding… if that helps! if i remember correctly i was going back to 0 to do another take when it happened.