Help me be a good parent to my newly adopted Tascam-38!

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daikw
audio school
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Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:30 am

Help me be a good parent to my newly adopted Tascam-38!

Post by daikw » Tue Apr 10, 2012 2:48 pm

I was lucky enough to pick up a tascam 38 a while back in near perfect condition!

Image

It seems to be working smoothly: It came with a tape of pink floyd backing tracks that seem to play fine. I have also recorded audio into it and that seems to work too, although there is a lot of HF loss (yes, I know tape carries less HF information than digital, but there's quite a lot more than I expected - it sounds quite muffled.)


I have little experience using a fine piece of old analogue gear with many moving parts that need to be maintained

I was wondering if there was a simple setup, maintenance and calibration checklist to keeping the Tascam 38 running in tip-top order. The manual is pretty dense: What I'm really looking for is a beginner's guide!

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks

daikw
audio school
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2008 9:30 am

Post by daikw » Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:14 am

I just found these guide which seem pretty useful, although more specific advice on which parts to clean would be helpful - as well as specific info for the tascam 38

Cleaning and Demagnetizing

Tascam 388 Maintenance, Repair and FAQ thread

strdsk
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Post by strdsk » Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:16 pm

It came with a tape of Pink Floyd track? Those reels may be worth more than the machine!!
Working on music with Pete from Porno for Pyros...

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A.David.MacKinnon
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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Thu Apr 19, 2012 2:45 pm

I ran a 38 for years and years. Many fond and fewer not so fond memories. I wish I still had it.

Things to look out for -

The transport is pretty crappy and it will miss the mark considerably when you hit zero return. I used to leave 30 seconds to a minute at the head of each reel so that it wouldn't wind past the beginning of the reel and unspool itself.

Go easy on your input levels if you're using the DBX. DBX is compression on the way in and expansion on the way out. If you hit it hard it will start to pump and/or get really muffled sounding. This is what people complain about when they say they hate DBX. If you go easy on your input levels it can and will sound quite good. If you want tape compression you should bypass the noise reduction. I only used it on quieter sources like vocals and acoustic instruments.

Every now and then you'll lose channel functions - ie: a channel will record but not play back, playback but not record or it won't show anything on the meter in one or more input modes. You may also have issues with transport functions not working. These are almost all card related problems. The 38 circuit boards are on cards that slot into the main frame of the machine. Sometimes the cards work themselves loose or the contacts get dirty. Pulling them out, spraying with some de-oxit and reseating them usually solves the problem.

If you're bouncing down you can't bounce the the adjacent track, you need to skip one and bounce to the track next to the adjacent track. That means you cant bounce 1-7 to track 8. You can bounce 1-6 to track 8. If you're like me this will lead to lots and lots of notes and diagrams while you plan to get everything you want onto those 8 tracks.

It goes without saying that you should get yourself an alignment tape and de-mag tool. The 38 can be biased for high output tapes but it generally does better with 456 or equivalent formulas.

Enjoy, it's a great machine.

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