Tascam 388 Q's

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EddieVergunst

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So I've had my 388 for a few days now. Haven't recorded, I still need to get a mic.
Anyway, I got a whole bunch of tapes with it, I loaded one up and I noticed that the tape came in contact with both heads while playing back. This is not good, right?
Also, near the end of rewinding, with say 10 minutes left on the take up reel it rewinds much slower, slower than playback speed. Is this normal?
And I was wondering, does anyone here have a manual which they could make a copy of (I'll pay for it). I tried Tascam , but they won't respond to my emails.
And finally, anyone know of any online FAQ's on how to take care of the heads etc.?
 
The tape is suppose to touch both heads when in play or record but not in rewind or fast forward. Make sure the tape lifter is in the down position on less you are trying to do tape editing.

And I would try a couple of differant tapes and see if it still rewinds slowly, Could be a bad sticky tape and thats not good for anything. Other than that I could not give you any help on what it might be.

I have a manual but for what you would have to pay for just the ink it will be cheaper to just get one from tascam. The manual is pretty large Plus alot of the pages are fold outs that are bigger than standard paper.
I bought mine a few months ago from tascam, I think it was around 25 or 30 dollars. The tascam number is 323 727 4840.
sometimes they are a few day getting back to people on the internet so I would just call and place the order with them.

I hope the unit works out for you Its a great machine, I love mine

Have fun
 
It would seem that TASCAM now has a world wide policy to ignore e-mails, even ones where you want to spend money with them for a manual.

It has been my personal experience with them to call them with credit card in hand and speak directly with the parts department.

As for an on-line guide to cleaning heads, you standing in one.

Use the search feature of this website and type in the words "head cleaning" and leave out the quotation marks and search within the analog forum. 100's of threads have been written on the topic here already.

As to your slow rewinding problem, it does sound like classic sticky tape syndrome. Try winding a fresh, brand new tape with a cleaned tape path.

A further thing to check is whether the LOAD function is on or off. With it on, the tape may be slowing down near the end of the reel so that the tape doesn't fly off the hub at the end of the roll of tape? I am not sure about the specific behavior of that function on fast winding speeds.

Once you have the manual in hand, much of the mystery of the machine will be revealed and you will get full value of using it.

Cheers! :)
 
Mark7 said:
Welcome to the Brotherhood Eddie :cool:
Click to expand...

:cool:

I checked your site and I see the Velvet Underground+ Television amongst your influences. Id love to hear some of that stuff.
 
Reel Person

Jethro Tull cover. Wow
You really sound like Ian Anderson on those vocals. Very impressive technical musicianship to pull that off.

When I first started playing guitar I just had the four bass strings on my acoustic and I learned the bass parts to Aqualong and the rest of the songs on that album, it was so fun.
 
Yeah, I was just thinkin',...

that Jethro Tull cover of "With You There to Help Me" is probably my highest musical/production achievement, ever, and definitely one of my fav's. It's the opening cut of the album "Benefit". That one was produced on the 38/M30.

I have not learned the whole Aqualung album yet, but I wanted to, & I have actually produced the song "Aqualung" in 8-track, also on the 38/M30. Aqualung is one of my favorite albums. I've covered "Cross Eyed Mary", and even did a one-off of "Locomotive Breath".

I covered other Jethro Tull, there was one I did of "Back Door Angels", off the "War Child" album.

"With You There to Help Me" is the only JT cover I have featured over at NWR. Otherwise, you're looking at a LOT of Beatles, Ramones, and Bowie,... and so goes the rest of my repetoire,... along the same lines.

There's lots more stuff on tape that I've not posted to the web, TBA.

Thanx for listenin'. Come again!
 
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