Tascam 388 Recording Troubleshooting!

J

jdonati17

New member
Hey guys, so I just drove 20 hours round trip and bought a Tascam 388 that’s in killer almost mint condition. Was the original owner, in the box, in the plastic with the Tascam 112 and some Other stuff. He hadn’t used it in 15 years or so...so I took a risk, I know...soo here’s my problem:

Channel 7 is dead. I think It has to be an input issue because I swapped the 5& 7 card and put it into card slot 1 and I could get The VU’s passing audio.

That’s the least of my issues...

My MAIN problem is that channels 1-4 are not recording at all. I swapped 1 & 3’s cards with channels 5/7 and it’s the same issue so it’s not the cards right? I’m getting sound in the monitors and the VU’s are bouncing but nothing is being recorded. I thought it could be the record head but it’s not scratched and looks really good too me. And When I put an old tape on it all channels besides 7 (dead channel) are playing back sound so for the life of me I can’t figure out how to get 1-4 recording. Any help would greatly APPRECIATED!!


(And yes I did every step too record properly. I have the Manual and have talked to others who own the 388)

Thank you!!
 
Greetings, welcome and congrats.

Your message is a little hard to follow as far as what the results of your card swapping is, so I’ll just start by advising you to re-seat ALL the cards in the cardbay including the bias cards, dbx cards, etc.
 
Thanks Sweetbeats! I’ve actually read a ton of your posts and one of them inspired me to find an old Soundtracs MRX (they’re awesome).

I re-seated all the channel cards and the 2 dbx cards but not the others. I’m not sure I saw those. Where are the bias cards located? Thanks!
 
Thanks!

All the cards are in the cardbay. Look in your manual in the service section...there is a picture with labels that indicate what each card is throughout the cardbay.
 
Alright, I pulled every card out gently and properly re seated them. Still no changes.

I found out that my channel 7 isn’t dead and records fine if you use the Line in input. I’m assuming something with the xlr input might be bad.
I got a much better look at my heads and I see a deep wear spot at the top. I’m no expert so maybe you could advise me on this.
 
And regarding channel 7 mic input, when you have a mic plugged in and the input source select switch set to mic, check to see if you have any signal at the insert SEND jack. And I’m assuming the same mic and cable works just fine on channels 1-6 and channel 8?
 
Thanks Sweetbeats, when I get home this evening I’ll check it out. And yes the mic input is getting signal and all the VU’s are responding on 1-6 & 8.
 
Stand it up on it's back.remove the bottom plate.Re-seat the Buss cards-the ones with the parallel traces on them the connect all the cards together. Also look for oxidation/corrosion on those buss cards. I had one years ago in for service that the owner's cat had peed on and corroded traces.
 
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