Bought a 38 !!!

M

morte sicura

New member
Yeah, so I did it!! Bought a 38. Supposed to have only 50 hours on new (not relapped) heads. Owner claims to have used it as recently as a couple weeks ago... It'll be a couple weeks before I have it here but I will post again when it arrives. Owner has also promised to double box it, as it's basically going from one coast to the other.

In the mean time, any tips on what to inspect / test upon arrival are most welcome! At least I can use my laptop to generate test tones.......

andrew
 
Gotta love those 38's. They just keep soldiering on. Congrats, hope it arrives safely and in one piece. If he hasn't shipped it yet, make certain he packs it on its back with a lot of peanuts or bubbles on top. You don't want anything knocking the reel table height out of adjustment. Better yet would be small, stiff cardboard boxes covering the reel tables and taped to the front of the deck.

1.) When you get it unpacked, clean the entire tape path with a good head cleaner. Do not use "rubbing alcohol". it contains lubricants and water that will damage your heads.

2.) Check the pinch roller for shrinking and/or cracking. Also check for it being hard or shiney. It may need a new one. $40 from TASCAM.

3.) Whip out that manual for the deck that would cost a fortune if you had to buy it separately and read the procedure for changing out your channel cards. They are located on the bottom of the machine and are plugged into a motherboard much like ISA cards in a computer. Make sure these are seated all the way into their sockets. You will save yourself much grief later if you do this now rather than wait untill your deck is wired into your system only to find you have a bad channel because the card is loose from transport.

4.) Stock up on Quantegy 456 and have fun.:D
 
Sennheiser, thanks for the tips. The shipper and I agreed that the small boxes would be great to protect the reel tables - he's either gonna do that or build a styrofoam wall around them. It's coming FedEx ground...

The deck was in service until I bought it so hopefully the rubber parts will be fine. I'm picking up the appropriate alcohol (or some head cleaner) and probably a demag tool as well - won't I need that after every few hours of operation anyway? Will a Radio Shack demag tool suffice?

Oh, any thoughts on used / one-pass 456? What's the shelf life of the tape? I'm definitely ordering a couple of new reels from Tape Warehouse to start out with, but in the future, slightly used and clearance reels would be nice if I can just figure out what will work and what to avoid. Is, say, a $20 reel still in the wrapper, stored for five years, listed on ebay still useable? These do pop up from time to time.....

ROCK!

Andrew
 
Somebody must have given the board a kick in the ass. It's actually running now.

Anyway, I bought some one pass tape. I recorded a couple of practice tunes on it and everything came out great. No shedding or drop-outs.

I thought I was having a drop-out problem with it at first, but that was due to some sticky relays.

I use new tape for serious recording though. You will get approximately 33 minutes of recording time on a 2500' reel.

That doesn't include space between songs or leader tape.
 
I'd [learn to use it/] test it really well before tearing into it,...

although sometimes channel cards may come partially loose, it would bear out in some functional testing.

Also check pinch roller for gooeyness. It should feel like the tire on your car, not a gummy bear.

You should be okay, especially with double boxing and special attention to shield the reel tables. That is an excellent idea, well worth mentioning, and you'd be sorry to overlook the issue of the reel tables.

Good posts above, and good luck with the near-mint 38, [I have 2!]
 
Deck will arrive sometime Tuesday. Since I am not really prepared to track yet, and since I might not hear any problems right away if I was, I am planning on cleaning the heads, and then recording (all or part of) several songs to a fresh reel of 456, two tracks at a time, and listening back. Material I am familiar with and that I've been listening to recently... The usual 'test material" that I'd use if I was shopping for monitors, for example.

Neil Young - Harvest
MMW - The Dropper
Tortoise - TNT
Amon Tobin - Permutations
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
Boston - Boston

And just listen back several times to each pair of tracks. It's the only way I can think of to check for everything (after I visually inspect the heads and thread the tape, and confirm that the reel tables are okay). Since the machine is coming out of recent use, I don't think I'd need an mrl right away though I'll probably order one in the next few weeks. Any other testing ideas are welcome.

Oh, the board seems faster. It's 12:30pm Friday, here in eastern time, are we running on the new server already?! nice!

Thanks!
Andrew
 
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