Tascam 388 track 1 wavering...head adjustment or tape?

  • Thread starter Thread starter WhinyLittleRunt
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WhinyLittleRunt

WhinyLittleRunt

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I have been testing out my 388 and the first thing I noticed, as with my Tascam 38, is that track 1 wavers in and out, acting like because it's recording on the outer edge of the tape it's not aligned correctly. I tried this on two different tapes, both different brands. The one that came with the unit is on an Ampex reel but I have no idea what actual tape it is, and the other is a Maxell. All my tapes are previously recorded. i don't have an MRL test tape for it, nor do I think I'll ever drop the dough on one either, so I'm really just trying to get an opinion of sorts; if my assumption is correct or close. I demagnetized and cleaned the heads also.
The other thing is that track 1 bleeds almost fully into track 2.

EDIT - when I say "wavering", I mean like drop-outs in the audio... Only seems to happen on track 1, as it's on the outer edge (duh)
 
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You mentioned cleaning the heads and tape path but there are different degrees of cleaning from a simple fast wipe with a bit of isopropyl alcohol to more vigorous cleaning with methanol and really scrubbing the parts thoroughly and then inspecting them very closely to ensure you got every last speck of crud.

As the deck is new to you, I'd opt for the full bore cleaning method first to absolutely rule out dirt as a possible issue.

And about track 1 bleeding into track 2, you really need to test things like that with a bulk erased blank tape to ensure there's no remnants playing through because of a different track alignment from the other machines that those used tape you have came from.

Cheers! :)
 
The Ghost of FM said:
And about track 1 bleeding into track 2, you really need to test things like that with a bulk erased blank tape to ensure there's no remnants playing through because of a different track alignment from the other machines that those used tape you have came from.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I ordered a bulk eraser today off the Bay; I read somewhere that I could use my head demagnetizer (Han-D-Mag) to do the same thing if I really needed to. My tape was definitely recorded on a 2-track deck originally, but the one that was with the machine was a full 8-track recording. It is actually bleeding signal from whatever I recorded on track 1 into track 2. I'm not hearing the remnants of previous-recorded material. I thought at first it was because I was assigning 1-2... :facepalm:
 
I suspect you may be dealing with a wear pattern worn by tape that is slightly more narrow than what you are using. Is there a wear path on the head? While reproducing try gently coaxing the tape toward the face of the transport and holding the position...track 1 performance improves? If so then what is happening is the tape is letting at the top edge of the wear patterns because the tape you are using is just slightly wider than what made the wear path. I had my 388 head relapped to resolve this...somebody else (shedshrine?) ran a couple full tapes back and forth of what he was going to use with the lifters defeated and that resolved the problem for him.
 
sweetbeats said:
I had my 388 head relapped to resolve this...somebody else (shedshrine?) ran a couple full tapes back and forth of what he was going to use with the lifters defeated and that resolved the problem for him.
Click to expand...

Running it back and fourth I assume you mean FF and RW against the heads, right? I actually did this accidentally on my little Sony reel-to-reel earlier tonight because I looped the tape the lifter and I was trying to figure out why it was making so much noise until I saw what I did :)

Otherwise...crap.. how much would a head re-lap cost me on this thing?
 
Yes, try running a reel of tape in fast wind a time or two over the heads with the lifters defeated.

I don't know what a relap is...you can email JRF and ask.

Try the fast-wind thing first.
 
yeah, for me it was the issue of the RMGI LPR-35 tape being ever so slightly wider than the Ampex/Quantegy, though in my case it was more of a uniform weak signal on track 1 - the tape wasn't getting full contact. And, yes, it fixed itself when i did a fast wind in cue for 5 min if i remember... left a bit of tape dust as well in its process of carving the edges back down! since it worked then with parts of the tape that hadn't run through the heads this way, i came to the conclusion that it wasn't just a case of the tape fitting better by having the edges shaved off, but that the head had changed...

i'll look for a link to the original post, in case my memory's funny, but i think it was only about 5-10min of tape that i did that with - didn't even require a full tape at all in my case.
 
sweetbeats said:
Yes, try running a reel of tape in fast wind a time or two over the heads with the lifters defeated.

I don't know what a relap is...you can email JRF and ask.

Try the fast-wind thing first.
Click to expand...

Cool - running it with the lifters up several times in FF/RW seemed to do the trick. That's awesome! What a great troubleshooting technique and solution. I emailed JRF earlier in the week and they quoted $100 for the 388 repro head.

It came with a reel of tape which I had been using as a test, but who knows what it is... the reels I bought specifically to run on this unit were Maxell UD 35-90s, which I read was the formulation used at the time the machine was built.
 
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