Demagger

[Bobby Darko]

Hey guys,
Just bought my first demagger. it's the akai ah-9, same one as in the picture. Does anyone ever worked with this one. My goal is to demag my two tascam 688's (so cassette). I've seen/heard people saying to slightly touch the heads and others saying to not touch them. I've never heard my recorders lose the transients, but maybe it was a slow process and I just didn't notice.

[sweetbeats]

First of all (as you likely know), make sure the power is turned off to your 688's...as a safety measure I disconnect mine from the mains power when degaussing.

If the probe tips on the demag unit are metal, NO TOUCH heads. If they are coated with plastic its okay but be careful...it hums right? And that gets stronger as you get close to metal, so if the probe tips are exposed metal you will scratch or score your heads if you touch metal probe to soft metal head while its humming. If it is a metal tipped probe you can put some electrical tape around it/them as a safety. It'll be easier to control the probe on a cassette unit...its harder on a larger stack open-reel deck...more metal...stronger 'tractor beam'. That unit should do a good job on your 688's.

BTW...love the pic of your 14-track cassette setup over in the 'favorite kit' thread...I wish I could go back in time and show that pic to the folks at Philips when they were developing the Compact Cassette...

[Bobby Darko]

Hey Sweet B, thanks for the wise words!! Unfortunately my setup is still 8-track X 2. Haven't gotten around to sync them yet and it seems difficult. maybe in the future..

[sweetbeats]

Oh wow!

For some reason I thought you had them sync'ed...well, still impressive nonetheless.

So how do you utilize the two systems?

[Bobby Darko]

I mostly use one at a time, the other one is a backup really. Although it's currently in use as a live instrument. I mix fieldrecordings live in a band. If I need more tracks I bounce to cd and then back to tape (mostly drums).