Akai MG1212 Story...

[sweetbeats]

Heh. Take a look at an M-wrap or Omega-wrap VCR sometime. This is comparatively simple.
A Baird VHS deck I had in the 1990s had a gear with a groove cut into the bottom with an eccentric path in it. This controlled a lot of the load/unload process mechanically. It was pretty mind-boggling stuff, that someone had designed all this.

Oh I hear ya...video always seems to have some additional layer of complexity, even quad video with its vacuum systems! I'm comparing to most other analog audio transports.

---------- Update ----------

It's a custom bass that I had made for me a while ago. It's just a Jazz bass clone. It's real nice, but I just don't play that one at all anymore. I have 15 bass guitars so I won't really miss that one if the deal goes through.

Well that makes sense.

 

[SteveAlton]

My first recorder was the baby brother to this unit the Akai MG 614 cassette. Loved that puppy

 

[sweetbeats]

Just want to link another MG1212 thread here...forum member j.harv recently picked one up also and he already has some very valuable information in his thread...at this time this thread and his are close to each other in the list of threads, but over time they will drift and be buried...if anybody pulls up this thread in the future I don't want them to miss getting the info from his thread as well, which is here:

https://homerecording.com/bbs/general-discussions/analog-recording-and-mixing-tape-and-gear/another-akai-mg1212-392873/

 

[sweetbeats]

I got 'em...and they're bonafide...10 NOS sealed in plastic MK20J tapes for the MG1212/MG1214/MG14D machines. Will I ever use these? I have no idea...but...they are relatively rare oddities of the vintage analog multitrack world, and they're in good hands.

 

[deslog]

.

 

[sweetbeats]

I downloaded my purchased copy of the Service Manual this morning.

If anybody ever needs a hard-to-find manual, or a manual in general you can't get as a freebie or in as high a quality as you need as a freebie, I highly recommend Whirlpool service manual, Maytag service manual, Samsung service manual and more. They digitize from original copies, and without breaking up larger pages (they have a large-bed scanner). The scans are high quality, complete, the price was 1/3 everybody else, they were prompt and friendly...very happy with the service and the product.

I've only had a chance to skim the manual so far...I usually go right for the schematics starting with the power supply...interesting...the MG1212 uses only +/-12V power rails for audio...that means lower headroom than we see with most of the equipment we banter about here which typically have at least +/-15V power rails for audio. Not a big deal, I'm just surprised...but its an integrated system we have here with the mixer and tape machine in one unit, so the design would effectively reflect that integration.

 

[JRSIV]

Sweet you putting that cassette on the top of one the MG1212's certainly gives some perspective on how huge they are. I love oddities like these, any kind of mixer-recorder combo really fascinates me, probably the kinship of learning on, and then using, cassette multitrack Tascam units for so long in my teens & 20's.

These Akai units are rarer than 388's but they had their proponents as was mentioned. I hope you can get one up into full operation and have the second for parts as planned. Good luck brother, as these other Story threads have shown over the years, if theres anyone who can do it it's you...

Be cool.

 

[sweetbeats]

Well whaddaya know...I thought neither transport worked on the two MG1212s I have...one of them seems to work pretty well! Now, granted, there are all sorts of funky little logic things going on with both of these units. Don't know if simply opening them up and reseating connections would help...but at least one of the *transports* works...

Here's a short vid of the working transport recording the control track...but then when I play back the control track doesn't change...like it's not reading the control track or the control track didn't actually record. And the end-of-tape sensor doesn't seem to be working at either end of the cassette. Oh well...fun to see the little reels spin:

YouTube