#514

No, it hasn’t. Your question made me wonder so I googled, but I imagine 3-head walkmans would have been rare or maybe weren’t made.

#515

Look at that packaging! That’s in amazing condition, given how old it must be. Really nice find. I’m going to have to see if I can scoop one up.

1 Like
#516

But is it possible to manipulate the pitch while recording and feeding that out the headphone jack? (Confused by VOR)

Bc in that case a simple blending/mixing with source sound gives simple echo

#517

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the possibility of monitoring the sound captured on tape is I think only possible on 3-head machines. On this “walkman” while recording, the headphones are only giving you the incoming sound. Adjusting the speed has no effect on the sound in the headphones when recording. Funnily enough it seems the speed control has no effect whatsoever in recording mode, only in playback mode.

#518

Ah damn, i was kinda hopeful. When seeing a yt vid and thought vor kinda seperates signals enough for kind of monitoring
Yes many speed controls arent full implemented into rec.

With the marantz pmd theres a mod to overcome this. Anyone know if the sony tcm 5000ev has live pitch ability from stock, or does that needs to be modded too?

And any tricks to make delayish or other interesting things with any 2-head machine besides later playback?

#519

Sadly no pitch control on the 5000ev and variable speed is only possible in playback mode.
I would be interested in modding mine though, so far they seem to be the most affordable (and portable) 3 head recorders out there.

#520

I wonder if modding a 2 head r2r with a third repo head, if it would be enough to send the wires of that head to external amplification to have work 3-head for delay purposes, skipping the internal. Or to a 3,5mm jack and from there to preamp.

#521

Maybe it’s already been posted in this thread, but this guy putting an extra head in the cassette is an interesting approach.

7 Likes
#522

@Hlp @optiminimal i am happy to report that the Sony tcm-5000 ev is indeed modable in regards to speed control during recording. If you were to simply record that wouldn’t really lead to any immediate effects though. However, using it for tape delay it plays out beautifully!!
The mod is as simple as soldering a jumper wire onto two pads of a massive switch…

I assume the speed control is usually bypassed during recording mode of most tape recorders to minimise the potential of faulty recordings because of arbitrary speed parameters.

2 Likes
#523

I would think there would be some court reporter or steno recorders that at least have switches to record in a slower speed to conserve tape.

#524

Yes indeed, that does exist. Also, most of the reel-to-reel tape recorders are having switches for speed control as well. But switches which set one specific speed value are not creating arbitrary parameters most of the time (especially not if they are calibrated).

I do have a walkman-style portable tape recorder from Panasonic which allows arbitrary speed control to be enabled though. That’s quite something…

1 Like
#525

Hey y’all.

I’m trying to cover up the erase head on my Marantz PMD 430, but not having any luck. Can anyone help me point it out? I thought it was the one circled, but still got a silent gap in my tape loop after covering it with scotch tape. Any help would be appreciated.

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#526

Yes, there are. There are some cassette players made for this purpose with variable speed controls. With some of them you can even operate the varispeed with a foot pedal. The sound quality is not as good as a high end walkman, but you don’t have to do any mods. I think of these things as lofi filters and analog time stretchers.

#527

That looks right to me. I usually use painters masking tape. Maybe the thickness is important? Hainbach uses a piece of Aluminium foil.

There’s also the chance that you’re recording exactly a fraction of a second less than the length of the loop and that’s why the gap is there, but I don’t think that’s likely.

2 Likes
#528

Damn, don’t know how I missed that Hainbach vid, but it totally demystified the process. Think I was only covering it partially, as I wasn’t hip to the “record engage and the head pops up” trick. Thanks!

1 Like
#529

Could you hint to a resource? Didnt find anything

1 Like
#530

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Finding these pretty inspiring/pleasing even tho I don’t actually need one: “TZXDuino” ZX Spectrum tape loader built into a cassette :slight_smile:

from https://www.facebook.com/groups/spectrumforeveryone/permalink/1266480733698395/

13 Likes
#531

@Hlp sorry for the delay responding but yes, i can help a little more on this one. you can find the service manual of the machine in question here. included therein are also the complete schematics.

modifying this machine is not the most straight forward thing in the world but i have been able to extract some information which led me to a few successful mods. i needed to do a few more mods on mine because i’m using tape loops with it (and it is so technically advanced that it is not playing them back without hick-ups when not modded but that’s another topic entirely).

on the attached picture i highlighted the mods necessary for the speed control to function during playback and recording. this is quite simple to implement.

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make sure you isolate the purple cable on the desoldered end or remove the whole cable entirely to not create any unwanted short circuits or other unexpected behaviour.

hope this helps and good luck with your modification:)

3 Likes
#532

Could you also post the screw-autostop mod?

#533

Do you mean the Auto-Stop in VOR (voice operated recording) mode? The problem with all other mods on this machine is that they seem to all entail some kind of compromise because the VOR functionality is too deeply embedded into the circuits to completely disengage. Except you disable it completely. That’s what I opted for because the speed control mod does not seem to be compatible with other mods as changes in speed during recording seem to trigger certain other events.
I tried quite a few other ways of bypassing VOR without disabling it but one way or another some unwanted functionality got re-triggered when changing the speed during recording.