Problem with 424

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scorps_1982

New member
Hey whats up everyone? I am new here but I'm hoping you can help me out.

I bought a portastudio 424 many years ago for like 5 bucks. It was a known problem that it didn't record but it could be used as a mixer, so I said hey what the heck I'll take a look at it maybe its something easy to fix.

Anyways, time went by and I forgot about it, it ended up in a bottom of a box at my parents house, I moved to school, moved home, bought a house, and now I have all of my old boxes and I found it. Ironically I've been looking to get a multitrack recorder and to my surprise I forgot I had this thing.

So enough of my unimportant history hehe. What is happening with the 424 is that it will power on. I notice right away that the small silver pin that sticks out in the cassette deck spins, and if I adjust the speed setting on the PS, the small pin spins faster or slower. I'm not sure if this is normal behavior as I've never had a working multitrack. I actually took the thing apart and I don't see any broken parts or anything of that nature. All seems to be ok with the tape player part. I can move the parts, no bands are broken, etc...If this is not normal for that pin to be spinning that may be the answer to the problem but I suspect its not.


Anyways, what seems to be the problem is that none of the buttons work! I can't get the tape to move, play, rewind, record, FF, RW....nothing happens. Now I also checked all of the connections inside and they are all attached. I also noticed that this thing is just a collection of a number of circuit boards, so I'm wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if its just a matter of getting a replacement "control board" or if there appears to be more to it and I'm better off looking for another one?

Any help would really be appreciated. You can either write back here or email me at csiniawski1@yahoo.com if you have any suggestions. I also would like to know if in comparison to the newer 424 or even other models if this is a decent multitrack or if it belongs in the trash?


Thanks in advance for your time.

Chet
 
me too....

Hi,

I have just picked a 424 for $10 and like yours, all looks fine and dandy but the play/rew/rec buttons don't work. I plugged a guitar and headphones in and the mixing desk is working fine, quite a nice sound.

I have done a bit of research and it seems the problem is that the rubber drive belts that let the motor drive the tape transport have perished and dropped off. In fact a little piece of carbonised rubber fell out of the casing at one point!

An engineer who knows these things said to me that replacing the belts (relatively simple task) MIGHT be enough to get the buttons working again, as there is a detection mechanism in there.

Am going to start a new thread on this and see if anyone knows for sure.
 
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