Tape Gear!

[Hlp]

Ah so you still cant play loops bc it auto stops after a while?

[pulplogic]

To use a loop tape you need to disable the End Detection circuit. The lack of rotation on the RM sensor will trigger the alarm and send a signal to pause. I found some old notes from the last time I did this mod, hopefully this helps.

[marcus_fischer]

that loud alarm kills me.
were you able to stop it?

[pulplogic]

Yes, once the end detection is disabled.

[fourhoarder]

edit: 20 chars found them

[pulplogic]

I did these mods several years ago so I can’t remember all the details but because of Sony’s awesome documentation everything is pretty doable. This note better shows how the pause control operates.

[Cryptohelix]

I found this one this year for a few dollars and used it recently to play bits from the cassettes into my laptop. I scraped some battery acid crust off the battery leads and it works. No mods, just scrolling through looking for material:

[Cryptohelix]

This ls a mini reel-to-reel I think I thrifted in the early 90s. It has a mild speed control. I made one caveman mod on it, of sawing slits on the outer edge of the case so tape loops of any length can go out and circle back. Have I used it in the last ten years? NO! Funner to post to Instagram and think about using, lol

[synthetivv]

Pocket Rockers - 1980s endless loop tapes for kids

Endless loop micro-carts… great format for a nice ambient single.

[cold_fashioned]

Oh wow, I just had a moment of recall. I remember the ads for this one. Talk about hitting the nostalgia button.

[reallyok]

hey all, this is somewhat related to tape gear but has more to do with power. apologies if this is the wrong place!

i have a tascam porta one that i love. i bought it on ebay and it came with an aftermarket power supply.

it has a really short cord, and i was ordering another power supply for another piece of gear and realized that this one would fit the requirements needed to power my porta one - so i grabbed two, being that they had much longer cords.

the new supply doesn’t work, and - i noticed on the side of my porta one that the unit is looking for a tip negative plug. my new supply - as well as the old one - are tip positive. my questions are:

1 - will continuing to use my old power supply eventually damage my porta one?
2 - are there any reasons my new power supply might not be working? the old one is 12V 2A, the new one is 12V 1A - but i think it’s a 700mA minimum.

thanks!

[rvense]

Power supply polarity is as important as voltage. If you get it wrong only for a split-second, you risk permanently damaging the equipment. It’s one of the things you should double check every time you plug something in, really.

[Shiftr]

Same as above. But if you use wrong polarity the device doesn’t work. I understand from your story that your tascam works fine on your wrong polarity adapter. In that case the polarity might actually be reversed from what it says on the adapter.
Good designed equipment is protected against reverse polarity so it shouldn’t damage it. But some pieces aren’t and then are often broken by using wrong polarity.

[Cementimental]

is it possible the original PSU is AC and not actually polarised at all? weird things can happen in that case. EG the earliest DOD pedals require an 9v AC psu, unless you are powering them on a daisychain with 9v some DC pedals in which case they work fine off DC

[Shiftr]

If the porta says it uses tip negative it’s not AC but DC.

[0wlie]

Help, i fried my Revox A77 ;-;

I bought it at a garagesale and it worked effortlessly until yesterday, where i left it powered on unsupervised to return to the smell of burnt electronics and a rapidly spinning tape deck. quickly turned it off and i don´t think it´s ruined yet, haven´t opened up yet. Any advice for someone who has no experience repairing electronics?

[pelang]

I am not an expert at all, but as I understand, this is quite common that the old capacitors explode/burn off. It’s a matter of time. Most service providers for restoring old Revox are changing all the capacitors and trimmers. I would do a search on google for servicing A77. Replacing the capacitors shouldn’t be too complicated if you know how to solder.

[Shiftr]

@dennisvantilburgmusic

Got this cheap and broken, replaced the belt and spliced my first micro cassette loop.

[sonictape]

I sold off some gear to grab a Uher Report Monitor AV from Ulrich at SDS in Germany. Awesome service and hopefully won’t need any servicing for a few years. I’ve been mainly using it as a tape delay thanks to the tape monitor out.

Studies for APC 1.5 - Pt 1 // Drone // Ambient // Atari Punk Console

[cold_fashioned]

I’ve been contacting them about a unit as well. How was the ordering process? They seem to get back to me two weeks after every email.