hello

new here,

purchased a vintage tascam 688, wanted a step up from my digital tascam 4 track and I think I bit off more than I can chew. I paid premium price and shipping from netherland to USA and the tape deck isn't working.

a few months ago seemed like there were tons of these for sale and then right before my birthday noticed this one for sale on reverb.com and couldn't find any other ones anywhere.

the tape deck isn't working.

any idea on how to get this thing working? the seller said it was fullyfunctional when they put it up for sale but I can't get it working. found some well done youtube videos on it and I have a signal and the track armed I think but the tape deck won't record, play or fastward or rewind! It works for a split second and then stops. It is also eating the tape a little bit.:mad::eek::facepalm:
 
Do you have some sort of operator manual? It could be a very simple issue. Is your tape loaded properly?
 
Transport problems seem to be common. There may be something here to help :

TASCAM 688 Midistudio Tape Transport Repair - Gearslutz

I owned one up until 2009. When it was about 6 months old, I spilled a beer directly onto the tape section. Locked up instantly - no functionality in that area at all. Quickly, I hit it with a hair dryer for 10 minutes and let it sit overnight. Next morning everything worked perfectly and remained that way.
 
Ive narrowed it down to belt problems I am pretty sure, I got a refund of 100 euros supposedly, got to wait 5 days. I took it apart and the belt came loose but the screws holding in the tapedeck are stripped. I'm working to save money and quit my job and go to this lambda tech bootcamp and if I buy a bunch of instruments and gear my time window keeps getting pushed back, thinking of just putting it in the box that it got shipped with and putting it in my closet and forget about it until I get a tech job.

I get disability money and was just going to live off that and try for the decent paying tech job. I just want a good job and pursuing this music stuff is making me weak and old, if I can have some degree and success I will return to it for a hobby.
 
Ive narrowed it down to belt problems I am pretty sure, I got a refund of 100 euros supposedly, got to wait 5 days. I took it apart and the belt came loose but the screws holding in the tapedeck are stripped. I'm working to save money and quit my job and go to this lambda tech bootcamp and if I buy a bunch of instruments and gear my time window keeps getting pushed back, thinking of just putting it in the box that it got shipped with and putting it in my closet and forget about it until I get a tech job.

I get disability money and was just going to live off that and try for the decent paying tech job. I just want a good job and pursuing this music stuff is making me weak and old, if I can have some degree and success I will return to it for a hobby.

Also I am now learning of ping ponging techniques or even swapping to computer and back for more track from 424 recording youtube. I feel I made a bad purchase, made the wrong choice for cassette recording.
 
what do you think I should do? The screws holding the tapedeck in are stripped.
I have the option to find somone local willing to work on it (first guy closest to me refused to work on it and he is listed on tascam website) or I can ship it to california to be worked on or I can get some powertools and get some new screws in there myself and try to fix my transport issues.
 
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