Tascam 488 Portastudio

S

Stanbery

New member
Just snagged a 8-track cassette Tascam 488 Portastudio....lots of buttons and knobs on this thing. I've read the manual, played with it a bit, and seem to understand it enough to start recording. Any tips or tricks I need to know? Anything would help.

Thanks!

-Stan
 
Cool beans on the 488! :)

My tip: as you're tracking your parts, one by one, try skipping tracks by recording on 1-3-5-7 then recording on 2-4-6 and 8. Because this format is a skinny one, real estate-wise on the tape, you'll get less adjacent channel crosstalk, (leakage), by working that way and more-so if the levels are really hot, which with the dbx on, should not need to be. Try to keep the peaks around -5 to -3 on the meters. More then that and the leakage might become more audible.

Cheers! :)
 
I recommend a book by Peter McIan - "Using Your Portable Studio. it's very easy to understand and covers just about anything you could ask.
 
I have recently purchased a 488 mkii and the audio on the first and second channels cuts out every once in a while. The person who sold it to me said it could be fixed if I "cleaned/serviced the the toggles (mic/playback/multimix)"

Can anyone offer any insight as to whether or not this is true?
or
Does anyone have any experience with an issue like this?
 
Switch contacts can oxidize and become intermittent from age or non-use but when it's only one switch that's doing that, it might also be a case of previous liquid entry that caused the rust/oxidization or if the switch was impacted by accident, bent and then bent back to look normal, then there might be physical damage to the switch's mechanism which might require more then cleaning...perhaps replacement. The part should still be available from Tascam parts with any luck, if needed. Otherwise, try some De-oxit contact cleaner and exercise the switch back and forth several times to work in the cleaner and scrape off the oxide build up, if present.



Cheers! :)
 
hi,

you might try the easier things first, such as contact cleaner (such as Deoxit and suchlike) for the insert jacks (they have mechanical switching contacts that could be oxidized).
 
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