Issue with Edge tracks - Tascam Ms 16

AllenM

Member
Hello!

I'm experiencing a few issues with tracks 1 & 16 on my MS16. I usually print a SYNC tone from my Linn on track 1 at +3 level. Everything seems fine but my linn will get a hickup. I thought it was the linn but upon further recording a different sound source I noticed some of the audio on playback sounds distorted and has a dropout for half a second or so. I have cleaned & demag heads, tape seems ok. Not a lot of tape shed on heads.

Would love some feedback on this. I haven't aligned in a few years.. but im not sure it would help.
 
Check the tape alignment on the guides, and if the tape is edge lifting as it runs across the heads. The guides could be out of alignment with the heads.

Alan.
 
What the others say make sense.

However it could be more simple than that. I sometimes had problems with the edge tracks on my G16 after mixing or dubbing on the same song for a long while, especially when using Quantegy 456 and recent SM911. The high speed FF and RW can get the tape to sit less than perfectly straight and my solution have often been to just play it all the way through at normal playback speed. Worth a shot.

Has to do with the slitting of the tape combined with the narrow tracks on our machines. Older SM911 and 468 tape rarely has this problem unless the reel are bendy.
 
Different tapes have the same problem?The linn drops out at the same physical spot on the tape,or does it move around if you re-track the SYNC tone?If you put an equal amount of tape on both reels,then rock the tape back and forth using the FF and RWD buttons.Watch the tape as it switches from FWD to RWD.If the tape shifts up or down in any of the guides,then you have a tape skewing problem,which MAY be causing it, due to edge damage caused by the skewing.
 
All good points, and that last test ^^^^ is a particularly good one to check.

I’m still dying to know if you switched tape brands. If the machine is used to Ampex/Quantegy tape, their slitters weren’t as precise as the competition, so their tape tends to run slightly more narrow than the correct standard. They did this to avoid the potential of a batch ending up too wide. I obtained this information from people who were “there”, not interweb lore. So your wear path, if you’ve been running Ampex/Quantegy tape will be right if you switch to EMTECH/BASF/RMGI/RTM/Scotch/3M, etc. and the result is the tape edges will rise up and curl ever so slightly. Enough to cause edge track deficits.

Do your heads have edge slots cut in them? Probably. I think that was factory standard on the 1/2” 8-track and 1” 16-track machines. If so that should mitigate this issue and you can ignore me, but it’s worth double checking. It can still be an issue if tape edges are rubbing in the guides in the headblock making crud at the edges which can build up on the heads.

I’ve experienced this issue first-hand with a 388. No edge slots, wear path was cut with Ampex/Quantegy tape, I switched to BASF LPR35 and lost track 1. I could gently press my finger against the tape at the head and get it back. Solution? Relap.
 
The ms-16 has the "relief cuts in the heads.Interestingly enough I had a client send me a EMTEC tape years ago that was slit way too wide and it would jam in the tape guides and stop the machine- Tascam 38.
 
+3 is extremely hot for a sync tone. Back in the day, we printed those @ -10 to avoid it leaking on to the adjacent track.
 
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