DA-38 anyone???

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TASCAM MAN

TASCAM MAN

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Just pulled out one of my 3 DA-38s that's been stored for around 4 yrs. now. A while back the first one I put a tape in ate it !! Ok so I took another one out last nite put a blank tape in it first and formatted it. Couldn't get it to playback, a little red light under "PB condition" kept lighting up?? Anyways I put a tape in that I had recorded on it yrs. back that not only played perfectly(without the PB Condition light on) but I recorded a little pc. of music on it with no problems and sounded great. I was hoping someone here could tell me why and what is this "PB Condition" light in red means? It is screened in white ink with a red light (that turns off/on) under it right above the record button......anyone?
 
Its supposed to tell you when the heads are dirty or the tape isn't tracking right. That is one of the problems with those machines, if you don't use them, the mechanism gets all goobed up and doesn't work very well. Unfortunately, it costs 4 times as much to fix it as it's worth...Assuming anyone still has the parts to do it with.

I had two 88's and three 38's that I got rid of a couple years ago. I would run them every couple months just to keep everything moving, but I haven't really used them in about ten years for anything other than doing transfers for people who recorded on those machines in the 90's.
 
Farview said:
Its supposed to tell you when the heads are dirty or the tape isn't tracking right. That is one of the problems with those machines, if you don't use them, the mechanism gets all goobed up and doesn't work very well. Unfortunately, it costs 4 times as much to fix it as it's worth...Assuming anyone still has the parts to do it with.

I had two 88's and three 38's that I got rid of a couple years ago. I would run them every couple months just to keep everything moving, but I haven't really used them in about ten years for anything other than doing transfers for people who recorded on those machines in the 90's.
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Yeah that's so true, its ashame though how good they sound and look :( Im just gonna keep this one to play around with every once an a while I reckon....:o If it wouldn't be for the eating tape part I would use it sometimes for more serious work but just cant take the chance anymore....:(
 
If you use it often, it might not eat the tapes. The mechanism in there is like a miniature vcr, with its complicated moving parts that gum up and get sticky if you don't use them. Dat machines and adat recorders suffer the same problems. Its one of the many reasons why vintage digital isn't worth any money.
 
arcaxis said:
You sound a bit like me that I've kept gear around thinking I'm going to tinker with it every once in a while. Now I'm at an age where I've resolved that a lot of that tinkering with the old gear just ain't gonna happen and I've got a butt load of stuff that needs to go. Unless you're seriously going to use it give some serious thought about ebay or Craigslist.
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Ive just about come to that conclusion arcaxis and definitely have quite a few pcs. of dead weight to get rid of !!!
 
The 1st things I'd consider is moisture, dirt, and/or a dried out pinch roller.
 
RRuskin said:
The 1st things I'd consider is moisture, dirt, and/or a dried out pinch roller.
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Its running good, with no problems now. I opened it before and cleaned the helitical heads but no pinch roller like normal tape machines. I think if I do anything important on it I will immediately back up the tracks to my 2488 via analog, RCA to 1/4 cables. ;)
 
Don't get rid of it, if you have the space for it.. They make good ad/da converters, altho the dig in's/outs are not so common. Too bad those units din't have Lightpipe, as well as the TDIF. They'd be more in demand for ad/da use.. Have fun, I've got one too, saw it on a shelf at a local studio, and I said, 'so is the DA38 working?' He said, 'yeah, Tascam recently went thru the whole thing' I sad 'fifty bucks?' he said 'okay' I also keep it around in case I just want to throw it in the car and record a rehearsal..i don't have to be careful with it.
 
While the converters are certainly useable, they are 16 bit converters from 20 years ago. You would probably spend more on an interface with tdif than you would just getting an interface with analog inputs and 24 bit converters.
 
Yep, just like a VCR they need to be cleaned and used from time to time or they will go south. I wouldn't use them now for any new recording, but yeah having one around for transfers can come in handy. I didn't care for the Tascam DA stuff as much as I liked the Alesis ADAT, but in the long run they all suffered the same fate of failing in a VCR-like way.
 
Ah yes, I remember the mac/pc style arguments about Adat vs. tascam. Its pretty funny how we get religious about tools. Especially ones that get horribly outdated inside of a few years.
 
Funny, I was just thinking the other day about how many great albums were recorded with so called crappy 16bit digital recorders, I mean when Dat tapes came out we were over the moon that we could record to a noiseless digital tape and send it off for CD manufacture.

No all I hear is "I would never dream of using 16 bit, You need 24 bit at 96k to sound any good, blah blah blah.

Oh well off the soap box and back to work.

alan.
 
True. Metallica's black album was mastered off of the 16 bit dat tapes. It has sold north of 20 million in a genre that had a hard time going gold. It's also a touchstone for what an album of that style should sound like.

Of course, expensive pro equipment sounded better than the consumer stuff. Most of the 16 vs 24 bit debate now revolves around the fact that anything that is 16 bit only in this day and age is obviously the cheapest, bottom of the barrel equipment. That has more to do with the sound than the bit depth.
 
Within the past year-and-a-half I've bought 2 DA-38s and an RC-848 controller. 16-tracks of DTRS with a controller for under $250. Low hours, perfect condition, etc.. I bought them to transfer old demos, originals, and outside projects that I worked on years (and years) ago. Mission accomplished.


I thought about unloading them once I was finished, but I kept them, instead (c'mon, they were cheap...). I now use them to record rehearsals I have with some old bandmates with whom I've recently started playing again (we've been together in one group or another for almost 30-years). They're a great sketchpad. And it's so much fun to mix on a tape based system like "back in the old days..."

:listeningmusic:
 
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