FINALLY got a working mixdown reel!

FALKEN

FALKEN

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woo!

after getting a f'd up tascam 42 and a f'ed up mx50, I finally landed a decent tascam 32, for $250. tested it out and everything runs fine. no hiss, no flutter. I am stoked! The heads look great too. this is odd though, because there is some good wear on one of the rollers. its the stationary one that comes after the pinch/capstan. there is a good scratch on it, nice and jagged. I think I need to rotate that sucker or its going to scrape the tape. Anybody know how to do this?
 
and also where are the adjustment controls on the tascam 32? remove the front cover or the back?
 
hey I know the roller thing has been discussed here before but I couldn't imagine what search keys to use considering I dont even know the proper name of that roller. sorry if this looks lazy. any help?? dave??
 
There should be a screw on the back of that stationary roller. :)

How do the tape lifters look? Since they engage in FFW/RW they absorb a lot of the wear you see on the rollers rather than the heads alone.
 
Beck said:
How do the tape lifters look? Since they engage in FFW/RW they absorb a lot of the wear you see on the rollers rather than the heads alone.
Click to expand...

I know you already know that.
 
the lifters look fine. its unbelievable. I dont know what this guy did to the roller but whatever. the only other wear on the machine is a brown stripe on the pinch roller, and dirt on all the knobs, and theres a good amount of gunk in the mic inputs. like i've never seen before. it looks like they scraped resin out of a bowl and put it in the mic inputs. and this one supposedly came from a "working studio". how do I get at that screw? from the back? thanks for the help.
 
FALKEN said:
the lifters look fine. its unbelievable. I dont know what this guy did to the roller but whatever. the only other wear on the machine is a brown stripe on the pinch roller, and dirt on all the knobs, and theres a good amount of gunk in the mic inputs. like i've never seen before. it looks like they scraped resin out of a bowl and put it in the mic inputs. and this one supposedly came from a "working studio". how do I get at that screw? from the back? thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

(checks manual to refresh memory)
It's ugly. That guide is attached to the lever that connects the pinch roller to its solenoid. The lever is attached to the support for the headblocks, so you have to remove it. The capstan is attached to the same frame, so when you do this, the belt comes off the capstan drive.
You then have to lift out the whole subassembly (which is relatively heavy as it has the flywheel) and then you can turn or replace the guide. (I did this with mine too but that was about two years ago).

As for the tape lifters, that is even uglier, but not that much worse. I suspect the previous owner may have replaced the lifters recently, or possibly placed some kind of shim over them to protect it.
 
It’s a little bit of a pain. That roller is also the pivot point for the pinch roller. You have to remove the front panel and then the headblock assembly plate. The screw is behind it. :(
 
I see JP beat me to it.

Yeah, the lifters are especially bad as they are stamped with a punch on the backside.

I learned this the hard way on my TSR-8. I tried to turn them the quick and dirty way, by force with pliers (protected with a piece of rubber). It worked just fine on the first one but I twisted the second one out. So I had to remove the whole thing (which Tascam Parts doesn't have anymore, by the way). I had to reattach it using a center punch, all without bending the lifter.

There were a few tense moments. I could have used a good stiff drink after, or even during, but I don't drink so I have to suffer through these events fully aware. :D
 
aw crap are you kidding me???

the reel has a 6 day guarantee on it.

I think this repair is over my head.

so, tell me, really.

was I spoiled by the fostex e-16 I got that ran like a dream out of the box and hasn't given me a single issue?

am I ever going to find a useable machine that doesn't need any major adjustments???

this is really dissapointing.

maybe the scratch on the roller won't take the tap-backing off like it looks like it would?

it almost seems like the "studio" this machine was in kept it in great condition, maybe even replaced the heads at some point, but when this scratch happened, they said "screw this" and sold the machine off. is this being paranoid?

all I want to do is make and record some good music....what a drag...
 
FALKEN said:
aw crap are you kidding me???
I think this repair is over my head.

it almost seems like the "studio" this machine was in kept it in great condition, maybe even replaced the heads at some point, but when this scratch happened, they said "screw this" and sold the machine off. is this being paranoid?
Click to expand...

Yes, it is being paranoid. ;-) Changing the heads is worse.
When I first got my cheap-but-knackered model 32, I replaced one head, swapped the other one over, replaced the lifter assembly and that guide. The entire operation took about three hours, most of which was spent figuring out how to disassemble the machine (since I had not found the exploded diagrams in the manual). The only thing that went wrong was the head swapping, because I wired the left and right channels in reverse and had to do it all again.
 
so..

I gave this machine a thorough cleaning...and guess what?

that "scratch" was actually GUNK!!!

holy crap!!

I got loads and loads of black and orange and brown crap outta this machine, demagged the heads, soldiered some cables, and...

oh my god.

on first listen, this has to be the single best piece of gear I have ever acquired.

I can not believe it sounds this good!!!

this was the "missing link".

jeebus I can't get over this.
 
Good to hear!

Congrats on the success. I was just about to write up a detailed post on getting to that screw... and on a Sunday. :)

From your description of the heads and tape lifters its just possible they replaced the head block at some point, or didn’t use the machine all that much. Sounds like you found a good one.

-Tim
 
FALKEN said:
I can not believe it sounds this good!!!...
Click to expand...
I had this sort of painful shocking hyper-reaction year-some-plus ago :) ..and could not get over it for a long time.
The painfulness of my reaction was not due to "discovery" of the fact that the r-t-r machine sounds this good, but rather was inflicted by realization of the fact, that over the years of voluntary accepted brainwash about digital "heaven" we have lost a sense of what sounds good is.

/respects
 
hey, i'm not sure if I remember reading something about this or not...but is it bad to pin the needles (when u slam the tape) ? I seem to remember you could damage them?
 
Dr ZEE said:
I had this sort of painful shocking hyper-reaction year-some-plus ago :) ..and could not get over it for a long time.
The painfulness of my reaction was not due to "discovery" of the fact that the r-t-r machine sounds this good, but rather was inflicted by realization of the fact, that over the years of voluntary accepted brainwash about digital "heaven" we have lost a sense of what sounds good is.

/respects
Click to expand...

100% my thoughts exactly! :eek:

I recall when I first got my hands on a TASCAM 34B (a couple of years ago) and could not believe what I was hearing! I completely fell in love with it. I actually thought it'd be damn near impossible to find something which sounded this sweet. Fuck it that it had only 4 tracks. I didn't even mind for one second. There was just somethin' totally appealing by this whole concept.

~Daniel
 
FALKEN said:
that "scratch" was actually GUNK!!!
Click to expand...


Same thing happened to me when I got my 22-2. :) Looked at the heads and flipped out... but decided to clean anyway. Turns out, my heads are near perfect. What a scare though...
 
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