Tascam 388 record head.

[wiggins]

Hi everybody -

Just this weekend during a "session" I ran into this problem:

Track 1 will not print to tape. Signal is getting to the channel, the meter is working, yes, and it will play back just fine, but nothing's getting to tape.

I'm in a real tough spot until this gets fixed, I've got bands waiting to record...

Can anyone help me at all? Is the record head screwed? Do you know where I can find a replacement?

I'm freaking out! as if 8 tracks was too much, now I only have 7!

[curtiswyant]

Sometimes the cards need to be "reseated." Try that...

[tguncle]

Did you try a different input channel to print onto channel one (i.e. input 3 bussed to track one)? if that's it you'd at least only be down to 7 inputs rather than 7 tracks. Did you check your fuses? I use a 388 and something didn't work on mine a few yearsback (I cna't even remember what it was) and it ended up just being a fuse; you could try cracking it open and checkign that. But really, I have no real idea what I'm talking about, I just thought I'd throw out a couple trouble shooting ideas that came to mind, good luck... -Jason

[wiggins]

Thanks fellas. I'll give it a shot.

[brianroth]

Off hand, I don't recall any specifics on that Tascam deck. However, many/most of those machines used plug-in circuit boards, one per channel (and each card has all of the analog tweakers...bias, EQ, etc) ... mounted on the cards.

If, that's the case here, power the machine "off" and swap, say, channel 1 and 2 cards to see if the "no record" moves to channel 2.

WARNING...many Tascams used funky little connectors to mate the channel cards to the internal motherboard. It is VERY easy to mess up the connectors if you are not VERY careful.

Bri