tascam 388/tape question

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taperocket

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Hi,
I recently got a tascam 388 and I've been recording on to quantegy 456 with excellent results. This is the 1200 ft tape and the unit recomends 1800 ft reels so I switched to quantegy 457 tape which is the equivalent of 456 but with the 1800 ft length reels.

BUT..when I try to record on the 457 the sound fades in and out in waves and seems distort when I play it back. Why is this? Is the tape itself defective or did a previous owner bias the 388 to 456 and so it wont work with 457? Someone please inform me as to what this could be about so I know what tape to buy and whether or not I need to return this reel of 457 to musicans friend or get my unit recalibrated. Help! Thanks.
 
Perhaps they're tape dropouts.

An argument could be made that 1800' tape, 457, would be more prone to developing dropouts, because it's thinner than the 1200'/456. Also, there's always the possibility of it being a bad reel, itself, and not the whole line of 457. What little use I've had, [in test], with 457, I've not noticed any dropouts. Any reel could develop dropouts, though.
 
I think I would agree with ARP.

It sounds like you got a bad roll of tape, perhaps slit incorrectly and skewing up and down and thus causing the sound to drift in and out as you described.

The distortion is another issue altogether and I can offer no logical explanation for it to occur on one tape, 457 and not to occur on 456, which is basically the same formulation with a thicker coating of oxide and backing layer.

Unless you are hitting the tape with very high levels, above 0db consistently, (which you shouldn't be doing on the 388 with dbx engaged), There is no other thought that comes to mind.

One last thing to note is that the pinch rollers pressure might be a hair to light for 457 tape and not receiving the same grip and pull pressure that the thicker 456 formulation represents and this might also have a small factor in the instability of the tape movement pulling 457 through the transport reliably.

Bottom line;

Try a fresh roll of 457 from a different lot number then your current inventory of tape. Also clean your pinch roller and make sure there are no gummy spots or overly brownish and shinny discoloration areas on the rubber.

Caig Laboratories makes a great product for cleaning rubber rollers called Caikleen RBR that works like a charm.

www.caig,com

Cheers! :)
 
one more question

Thanks guys, I'll try that out. One more question, although the 388 manual says to use 1800 ft reels, would it be ok to use the 456 with 1200 reels or could that potentially harm the transport. Thanks for your help! Todd.
 
Using 456 on your Studio8 would be perfectly acceptable. It won't harm the deck's mechanism or electronics and in some respects, it will improve some characteristics.

It's only shortcoming beyond having less recording time, would be the LOAD feature which makes the mechanism behave like a cassette deck where the tape won't run off the reels at either end and stops automatically because of the pre-programed length of an 1800ft roll of 457 tape into the transport's electronics logic firmware.

Cheers! :)
 
cool..

Great, yeah, I'll probably stick with 456 then since its a little thicker, and yeah, after I press the load button, I usually rewing anyways to a resonable starting point. Thanks for your help!
 
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