Tascam 388 one track not recording

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Dandna
audio school graduate
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 6:04 am

Tascam 388 one track not recording

Post by Dandna » Sun Jun 09, 2019 4:51 pm

Hi all, I'm a n00b here.
I have been given a Tascam 388 by a very generous friend and have been cleaning it up and testing it with the old man, who loves taking things apart and putting them back together.
We have replaced the belt which had stretched, and made some adjustments to some bits on the tape side of things but now we have moved onto checking all the channels and tracks, which is where we have encountered an issue.
All the channels work, and all the tracks record - except track 4. Track 4 plays back (we have an old tape with some music on it), and the VU meter works in this case. Channel 4 takes an input signal and can be assigned to any track to record, when the rec. function buttons are enabled (again, except track 4). The VU meter for track 4 doesn't work in this case. We've also swapped the PCB for channels 2&4 with the PCB for channels 1&3 but this hasn't made any difference.
When you arm the rec function for track 4 and press record it records hiss to the tape and there is a very faint sound of the recording, although I'm not sure if this is bleeding over from the adjacent tracks (I'm using a 1khz tone to record to tape).
We're both stumped. Has anyone else encountered anything like this with the 388, or have any idea where we can go next with solving this problem? I really want to get it working again, and hopefully it's only this one issue that is preventing us from fully reviving this great bit of kit. Thanks for any help or advice!!

kslight
mixes from purgatory
Posts: 2968
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:40 pm

Re: Tascam 388 one track not recording

Post by kslight » Sun Jun 09, 2019 6:55 pm

I’ve had similar symptoms with a bad/broken/disconnected fader on multiple machines I’ve owned. An easy test would be to take the fader from an adjacent channel and swap with channel 4 and see if it makes any difference.

Can other channels record to track 4?

Dandna
audio school graduate
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 6:04 am

Re: Tascam 388 one track not recording

Post by Dandna » Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:01 am

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Everything on channel 4 works fine. I can use channel 4 to record to any of the tracks, but none of the channels can record to track 4. So we know it's not at the input stage. My guess is that it's somewhere between the track assign and the tape, as the VU meter doesnt work when monitoring what's going to track 4, but it does work on playback.

kslight
mixes from purgatory
Posts: 2968
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2009 7:40 pm

Re: Tascam 388 one track not recording

Post by kslight » Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:58 am

Dandna wrote:
Mon Jun 10, 2019 12:01 am
Hi, thanks for your reply.
Everything on channel 4 works fine. I can use channel 4 to record to any of the tracks, but none of the channels can record to track 4. So we know it's not at the input stage. My guess is that it's somewhere between the track assign and the tape, as the VU meter doesnt work when monitoring what's going to track 4, but it does work on playback.
Did you try swapping the fader? I'm not saying that I'm 100% sure that's the problem, but its real easy to try to eliminate possibilities...I've had two machines with a similar problem and fixed them with a fader.

Dandna
audio school graduate
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Jun 07, 2019 6:04 am

Re: Tascam 388 one track not recording

Post by Dandna » Fri Nov 01, 2019 3:59 am

Hi all. Ive made a short video to show the actual problem im having with my Tascam 388, as it wasnt easy to describe. if anyone has any ideas of what the problem might be please let me know.

https://youtu.be/_hqf8H-V6vY

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