Newb owner of 424MkIII! Question...

D

Doug

New member
Ok, I've just bought myself a second hand Portastudio, and I have a quick question.

I have one mic attached, as the only input source, to input one.

I turn the pan on input 1 to the full left position, and set track 1 to "Buss L". This should now record input 1 to track 1, and it does so.

However, when I also set track 2 to "Buss R", I also get input 1 being fed through to track 2! Even though I have the input fully panned to left! However it isn't sent through at full volume. If I pan input 1 all the way to right, it's sent though at full volume to track 2, but still gets though to track one at a lower volume.

This behaviour somewhat defies my understanding of recording from left or right buss. Could someone please explain this behaviour, is the machine behaving as it should?

Please excuse my probably stupidity, I'm probably missing something or miss-understanding really obvious!

Many thanks in advance,

Doug
 
I can't really answer that as I've never used that model.

Here are some suggestions.

I would make sure that if you want nothing on track two of the tape that it is placed in safe mode if you have such a setting on your model.

Make sure your buss assignment for the right channel is off if you have that capability.

If your input levels are at the saturation point or above you may be experiencing track bleed, also called crosstalk. Whereas the magnetic charge on the head is so strong it's causing the adjacent tape track to start aligning magnetic particles in the oxide. Back off your input level to 0VU. Check your manual to see what your crosstalk specs are at 0VU.

You may want to check out the TASCAM website. There are a lot of analog heads over there that will be able to answer your question more precisely.
 
As described, there could be a maladjustment of the mixer circuit,...

based on what you've described, which would be a service issue.

On the other hand, it could be some procedural error, which would be next to impossible to determine, sight unseen.

You're right anyway, that if you enable track 1 and 2 for buss record, and use a single input on any channel 1-4,... when you pan hard left you should get your input level all on track 1, and when you pan hard right, you should get the input level on track 2. That's pretty basic.

Good luck.
 
What you describe sounds like when you try to pan a track "all the way to the left," you are instead succeeding in panning the track "most of the way to the left." (Same with the right).

Dumb question: are you turning the pan pot all the way? Nine o'clock and 3:00 are not all the way. All the way is where the pot stops, usually somewhere around 7:00 and 5:00 (or even 6:30 and 5:30).

Other than that, I suppose something could be wrong with the pan pot. Sort of seems unlikely to me -- that a pan pot could go bad that way -- but I guess it could happen.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top