Yamaha MT100

[DillonAd]

I just bought a Yamaha MT100 4-track cassette recorder today for pretty cheap. So far I am impressed how well it works. I still need to take some time to clean everything up. One malfunction I have noticed is it is recording heavily into the right side and hardly on the left. When I play back the recording I can hear it through both sides of the headphones but it doesn't pan to the left as much as it does on the right, only lightly, when I adjust the pan controls. This problem isn't exclusive to one track. Also, the LED peak meters don't show any signal for the left output. I'm new to the 4-track cassette so I may not be using it properly or it may need to be fixed. Does anyone have any general recommendations to cleaning and maintenance for this device and or a possible solution to the pan and LED peak meters malfunctioning?

 

[ecc83]

Firstly, this question properly belongs in the Analogue section. Next, I know nothing of that 4 track machine (but I shall look for a user manual, poss' schematics. Links? )

But your first step must be to obtain a known good cassette with 2x stereo tracks on it. Better would be if someone could supply a cassette with test tones on it. Best of all a 4 track test tape (yes! I jest.)

You see, diagnosing audio problems, especially recorder problems STARTS at the output/replay side. Once you know where you are with that you can proceed to the recording sections.

To repair/maintain any tape equipment you really need a battery of test gears but you can get by with computer generated tones and a decent "true rms" digital test meter (but don't trust it past about 2kHz!) . Absolutely mandatory is a bottle of ISPROAlcohol and some cotton buds.

Yamaha (bless 'em) make it easy to find a manual and page 19 stands some determined scrutiny as it gives the signal flows through the recorder. This is a technical old task you have started, in many ways a computer and AI is much simpler!

Dave.