Help! Why won't my faders work?

M

midnight-to-six

New member
So I scored an old TSR-8 from work, and a Tascam M-1516 board. I finally got around to messing with the setup, and for whatever reason, the faders on the board have absolutely no effect on the individual track volume when playing back tape. The machine came with a number of Q456 reels that have stuff recorded on them. The EQ portion of the board works, and I can record onto the tapes, but I have no control over the playback volume of the individual tracks. If anyone had any advice or suggestions as to what might be the problem, I'd really appreciate your input. Thanks in advance!
 
Also check your monitor assign buttons. I made this mistake yesterday during a mix. :rolleyes:
 
On the M1516, the first 8 tracks each have a tape in RCA jack--that's where the signal from the machine is going. I can hear all of the tracks with the pre-fade on, but not with it disengaged.

If it isn't already painfully obvious, I'm pretty new to this--all I've ever had to record on is an 4-track cassette machine. COuld the fact that I'm only listening through headphones have anything to do with my problem? I haven't splurged for monitors yet because I wanted to make sure the machine worked first.

I should note, too, that the faders work, in that I can see the levels change on the output display when I mess with them. I just can't *hear* anything change.

Thanks again for your help!
 
I don't know how old the m1516 is but my m-512 headphone jack is very unreliable - probably because of age. I would think you should try to go out from the board to a amp, boom box - anything to see if you can get sound there. If the meters are moving then you should be getting sound. I am a novice but I've owned and set-up several different reel to reels and boards and I have found that trying a number of scenarios without changing the set-up helps eliminates possible problems (especially if you know the set-up is correct via manual recommendations) - this way I can focus on one problem at a time instead of creating new ones. Don't know if your tape has sound on it from before or if you've just recorded but when i set-up an old 38 I used a reel someone gave me and for whatever reason the tapes were bad - it took me a while to figue out that the set-up was right and so was the board but the tape was the problem.

Good luck!
 
I'm not familiar with this board but, does it have an assign button or switch for the headphones function? Maybe it's not assigned correctly and will only monitor the pre-fader levels??????
 
Cue Mix vs. Main Out

Hello Everyone who responded to this post you all really gave good advice I just wanted to spread a little light for the one that mentioned faders wasn't affecting his sound; if you started to moving faders and with no changes in volume then you are not listening to your main out or stereo buss your phone jack just could be for a cue mix only therefore only works when the pre-fade button is pressed. Try listening to your master by finding your main stereo path is my advice. :)
 
Yes, thanks for the helpful advice. I'm pretty sure that my problem is that I don't have any moniotrs, other than the headphones, and that I simply need to hook something up to the stereo outs. I'm gonna give it a shot tomorrow with my stereo amp and speakers. Again, thanks! I'm a noob!
 
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