SONY reel to reel

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joninc
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SONY reel to reel

Post by joninc » Thu Jan 10, 2019 7:19 pm

I won an auction for an old Sony TC399 - my thought was if I could get it cheap it might be fun for messing around with - effecting stuff by running tracks through it - maybe drum submixes etc.

I got it for $45 with a pile of tapes. No takeup reel was included so I am trying to just use one of the spools that had tape on in (with tape removed) - but it doesn't have the indents to snap the reel in securely - and the transport won't engage :roll:

Is that likely because I can't secure the tape in properly and it's not tight enough?
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A.David.MacKinnon
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Re: SONY reel to reel

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Thu Jan 10, 2019 7:36 pm

Some of the old Sony’s have an auto stop feature triggered by a spring loaded metal wire in the tape path. If the tape isn’t threaded correctly it won’t play. Might be that?

If the take up reel won’t catch and the tape is too slack then there might not be enough tape tension to get the auto stop wire into the play position.

kslight
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Re: SONY reel to reel

Post by kslight » Fri Jan 11, 2019 3:37 am

Even without indentations, should be able to create enough tension. There should be enough tension for you to manually advance the tape, if that makes sense...otherwise it won’t work when you hit play.

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Re: SONY reel to reel

Post by drumsound » Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:10 pm

wrap the tape around the hub of the take up reel with at least one overlap and you should be able to make it have enough tension to run.

Then, go watch some youtube videos and do real tape flanging!

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