The Tascam 388

[shedshrine]

caveat emptor,

The good: The heads are indeed perfect, all the vu meters lit up, the motors whirred up to speed when I lifted the tension rollers. The pinchroller cleaned up with qtips and is again tacky.

The bad: Mr. Seller is/was a copious smoker! Yellow tar smoke corrosion on connectors. It's coming off with alcohol, qtips and LOTS of scrubbing.

..got a blank take up reel on order.

PS-Gunshyboy. Thanks. The manual (which I now have in it's entirety) is really detailed!
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________



Tascam 388 DIY REPAIR MAINTENANCE

According to Jimmy in Analog Support at the Montebello Tascam Repair Service Center,
the most common reasons for 388 issues are:

blown fuses,
capstan belts and
motor failure


CAPSTAN BELT REPLACEMENT

Lay the deck face down and take off the back.

Take out a screw on one leg of the large wheel bracket, and loosen its other one, then slide the new belt under the free leg and put the belt around both wheels like this.

While we're at it, another issue I had with mine was that the tape counter wheel wouldn't spin, so the readout wasn't working. Two things fixed this.


One was to scrub the rubber that contacts the tape with a damp qtip until it was nice and grabby.
(the black screw top cover on the left in this picture threads into the shaft the wheel rotates on and should come off easily with a good twist)


The second was to coat a little light machine oil on the shaft to allow the wheel to spin freely.

One of the things I read about that can also cause poor readout accuracy is if these little sensors get dusty.
They optically read the little stripes turning on the bottom of the wheel. Pretty cool.


_____________________________________________________________________
Fuse replacement



Well summed up by this uTube quote:

"I hope you didnt take it to a repair shop yet. Mine was having the same issue.
Pop the top panel off , youll see a set of 5 fuses. One or more of them are bad.
I just replaced all five of mine cause they were like a total of 6 bucks anyways.
Some are 3A 250V slowblow fuses, one is a 4A 250V slowblow. So be sure to buy the correct ones. Its all clearly marked inside.
Any electronics store will have them . Good luck. -john "

Link to video of 388 transport problem due to bad fuse

_______________________________________________________________________
If the above don't clear up your transport issues, you might try:

Reel Servo Tension Roller Adjustment (courtesy of ?Erockrazor?-homerecording)

The following process CAN help/cure playback, fast forward, and rewind issues on your Tascam 388. A simple adjustment to the Reel Servo trim pots can adjust how your tape machine does these functions.

Step 1: First, power on your 388. Take off top cover of 388, behind the VU meters and above the in's and out's. Do it gently as to not harm your pride and joy.

Step 2: After cover removal, find the section of 7 trim pots (see photos below). They are above the tape window in a vertical orientation.

Step 3: Press play on your tape recorder.

Step 4: While tape is in motion, find the trim pots R 112 and R 212. These are the adjusters for the Tension Rollers.

A Reel Person's suggested Tension Roller orientation.
Quote:
"The centers of the tension rollers should be even with an imaginary line that's drawn and extends from the BOTTOM EDGE of the capstan and idler rollers."
For me, my tension rollers worked best a little lower than A Reel Person's suggestion.

Step 5: Watch the adjustments made to your rollers. Try playback fast forward and rewind. Work until you find an adjustment where everything is working well.

Step 6: Feel great about yourself because; no, it's not a dead motor, no, it's not the end of your 388, and yes, you just fixed your most prized recording possession.

The beauty of this DIY fix up, is that you can't really screw up your 388 in the process if you just stick to the aforementioned process. It's all mechanical and you can fiddle until it works up to your standard. Another positive thing, is that none of this altered my play/record speed and that's the most important thing on this board!

Now go record something!!!!!!

(Further clarification below from ?technoplayer ?-homerecording
Erock....Thanks for chiming in.
Here are a few snapshots from the manual which may help locate the necessary trim pots.

R112 adjusts the left hand tension arm.
R212 adjusts the right hand tension arm.

Before you adjust ANYTHING>>>>>> if you can
1) use a PLASTIC flat blade scewdriver or cover a metal one with tape. This will minimize you chances of shorting something out if your hand slips. Remember you are working on equipment with power applied!!!
2) Note the position of each pot BEFORE you make any adjustment.
3) adjust SLOWLY and in small increments. No need to crank the adjustment like you are screwing it in. A very small turn ought to do it.

*

Sweetbeats said:
What I want fellow 388 owners to know is that there is a typo in the manual in the tape tension settings regarding the REW/FFWD tensions...the manual on page 1-9 in section 1-3-7 sub-sections A & B states that trimmer R105 on the reel servo PCB is used to adjust the tape tension in FFWD, and that R206 is used in REW. THAT IS BACKWARDS. R105 is used for REW mode, and R206 is used for FFWD.

*

photos courtesy "technoplayer"
[/quote]

[Mark]

When you say "tacky" do you mean "sticky"?

Because, I'm almost 200% certain that that isn't right

[shedshrine]

Hey, I was just thinking. When a gear specific thread like this comes up, with several pages of ooo and ahhh, and the people already interested are potentially whipped into a frenzy, and potentially ebay and craigslist prices spike, and those who already have 388s are thinking "dude, shut up about em already. Just wait til you need parts for the thing". I recall a time (cue music) when all I had was my first four track. I didn't know a damn thing except I wanted to make some music. This was before the internet forums, so it was way back in the day You ever listen to your first recorded stuff (well, maybe not your FIRST first recorded stuff...) and wonder how the hell you came up with it. The exitement of pressing record, and listening back and going, woah, I did that. And then recording alongside it, like you were jamming with yourself. Double woah. As it's been said soooomany times on this site, it's not so much about the gear as what you do with it. I remember reading about stuff I couldn't afford, and wishing and pining, because I just knew that stuff would improve my, um, songwriting?. Then going back to my four track and running vocals through my little tube amp and korg effect box and getting killer huge rock vocals. Lately I've been on a remastering kick of all the stuff over the years: home stereo cassette, 4 track cassette, 8 track cassette, adats, minidiscs, DAW tracks,band practice, gigs, experimental stuff. Aint it cool to put all that stuff on the ol' iPod and fall asleep to all the imagery, people, times and places that go by. May your mileage never vary.

[shedshrine]

When you say "tacky" do you mean "sticky"?

Because, I'm almost 200% certain that that isn't right

My bad, wrong adjective. I meant tacky as in it has good traction, it grips well, but it's not sticky.

[creature.of.habit]

"dude, shut up about em already."

that's what i said in my first post

[shedshrine]

"dude, shut up about em already."

that's what i said in my first post

(bumper brought to you by fauxtoshop elements..)

[jckinnick]

Is it hard to find tape for these I would love to get one of these units

[Mark]

These days it'd be harder to find a 388 than to find the tape

[ThunderFaceWizardHead]

Tape still seems to be plentiful. But more importantly, when are people going to start tricking out their 388's?

I'm thinking about a snakeskin wrist rest, birdseye maple sides, and all ivory knobs. Maybe some neon blue underlighting as well.

[jckinnick]

There are 3 of them on Ebay does anybody know where to get the tape for them

[shedshrine]

457 or 407. (1800' 1 mil thick)

407 is the equivalent to the Maxell tape the 388 was factory calibrated for. It's an earlier +3 formulation with lower headroom. 457 is a newer +6 formulation (and from what I've read won't require recalibration), that runs "hotter" meaning it lets you get better headroom, higher clean signal levels before clipping from saturation.

Tascam support as well as the tech who worked on my 388 say it should run 457.
I've got one reel of 407 I have yet to try out..

[jckinnick]

Cool thanks

[eh91311]

There are 3 of them on Ebay does anybody know where to get the tape for them

musiciansfriend has 7" 456 1/4" wide tape in stock.

tapes.com has it for less $.

tapestockonline.com has stock, I buy from there as I'm in L.A.

tapeworkstexas.com has stock but their shipping/handling costs are high.

projectone.com in North Hollywood, CA is phasing out their tape supplies and accessories; I bought some 7" plastic take-up reels for about $0.75 each. They also have splicing tape, blank 7" boxes and other accessories. They'll ship to you.

You can also buy direct from Quantegy.com at high prices.

Just buy a few reels at a time, keep up your own inventory so you're OK if tape cannot be found locally to you.

[the velour fog]

Say, can anybody in the audience speak to the calibration question a few posts back there aways, before we were all overcome by annahydrous fumes?

from the 388 bible:

There is no need for head height and tilt adjustments because the record/reproduce head of the 388 is a semi-fixed type (erase head fully fixed.)

Ahmen!

I'm actually referring to calibration of bias, trim pots and such. I'm out of my depth, but isn't there some adjustment needed beyond the head alignment to make sure your maximizing what the tape is formulated for. All the talk of 0vu, +3, +6 . The manual is extensive and all, but I have no idea what i'm reading about in terms of actual application. Any leads on a video or detailed book explaining the process?

yes there's still alot you can calibrate. azimuth of the heads. bias. and such. but it's not 'necessary' unless it's really out of whack and it stays in shape pretty good on it's own. one simple test i would do is to record the same thing to all 8 channels, and make sure all the channels are recording and playing back at the same level. if something is audibly/obviously differing, then you can try and fix the problem. if it's good, then toss that maintainence section aside for now and get cracking.

[the velour fog]

Tape still seems to be plentiful. But more importantly, when are people going to start tricking out their 388's?

I'm thinking about a snakeskin wrist rest, birdseye maple sides, and all ivory knobs. Maybe some neon blue underlighting as well.

well, both my wood sides are messed up now...so i've been thinking about totally tricking it out....or just making new sides. not sure.