BonkingAround
New member
I can hear and see the first track when I record. As soon as I play back I can hear nothing or barely be able to. Even in the loudest recordings I can barely hear it. I just don’t know what would be broken.
Further to what Mack has asked, presuming you've cleaned the heads and checked you get the same with a fresh tape - are all the other tracks recording ok? I had a similar problem on a 244 a while back which turned out to be a loose connector to the dbx board for track 1.
Just had another thought - worth trying before opening up. On the 244 there are jumpers on the back connecting the phono sockets for connecting accessories to each channel. I don't know if the 488 has anything like this but on the 244 if these aren't seated properly you can lose signals. On the 244 there is a tape cue setting on the output which is useful for checking signals - not sure if the 488 has this either!
Have you tried switching off the dbx and recording again? I guess you have tried flipping the tape over to see if track 8 plays back in reverse on track1 and playing back an old good recording to show if it a record or playback issue?