TASCAM 414 MKII switch speed on tape

[Gladyyyys]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is a way to switch speed on Tascam 414 mkii?
I have tried to play a tape and absolutely couldn't find how to manage this.
The tape was played way too much rapidly.
any help would be very much appreciated,
thanks !

 

[famous beagle]

Hi,

I'm pretty sure the tape speed on the 414 mkii is set to 3-3/4 inches per second, which is twice that of standard cassette speed. Some 4-tracks allows you to set the speed (1x or 2x), but it's fixed on the 414 mkii.

 

[Gladyyyys]

yes i'm sure i can fix it but how???

 

[famous beagle]

When I said the taped speed is "fixed," I meant it's set that way, and you can't change it. The 414 mkii always plays (or records) at twice the normal cassette speed.

What type of cassette are you trying to play? Is it a store-bought commercial album, or is it something you've recorded yourself?

 

[Gladyyyys]

hum ok that's too bad. well i know there are several types of tapes. I have some that works well but i wanted to use some store-bought as well.
anyway thank you very much

 

[jdragonash]

I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas to modify the circuit to get the tape speed up to 7 1/2 ips. I thought I heard of someone doing this, but could have been a early morning hallucination or applicable to a different model.

 

[sweetbeats]

Maybe somebody has, but it’s not a good idea. Why do you want to do that?

 

[LazerBeakShiek]

. Why do you want to do that?

Inches per second across a tape head , is like frame rate on a video..5 ips is 24 fps...7 ips is 30 fps.. 10 ips is 60 frames a second..etc. and so fourth..it's a graphical construct. Based on science.

My monitors can do like 30 frames a second.

 

[sweetbeats]

Inches per second across a tape head , is like frame rate on a video..5 ips is 24 fps...7 ips is 30 fps.. 10 ips is 60 frames a second..etc. and so fourth..it's a graphical construct. Based on science.

My monitors can do like 30 frames a second.

I don’t need an explanation of what ips is on a tape machine. I’m asking @jdragonash what they’re hoping to accomplish by increasing the transport speed, and then I want to talk through how it is likely they won’t get the result the anticipate and why.

I suspect they want to increase speed because they assume it will result in better fidelity. But the head profile and coil gap were optimized for 3 3/4ips. So the doubling of the speed will shift the response curve up an octave, but because the gap is optimized for 3 3/4ips you won’t gain much in HF response, on top of format limitations. But the 40Hz roll-off will now be at 80Hz. So the low end will largely be gone, and what head-bump there is will now possibly be in a less sonically desirable range. Plus I’m not confident the dbx will track correctly. So it’s just a bad idea. But I wanted to know from them if that’s why they wanted to run at 7.5ips.

 

[jdragonash]

Yes, @sweetbeats , my motivation for seeing if that could be done was to see if it would result in better fidelity. Yes, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. The response curve shift , let's say something that would benefit from a high pass filter. I don't really use it for tracking, mostly go sub in from mics on acoustic percussion stuff like shakers, tambourines, hand drums, etc. and backing vocals. But it doesn't seem worth it for the reasons you mentioned. Thanks for the reply.

 

[sweetbeats]

Yes, @sweetbeats , my motivation for seeing if that could be done was to see if it would result in better fidelity. Yes, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. The response curve shift , let's say something that would benefit from a high pass filter. I don't really use it for tracking, mostly go sub in from mics on acoustic percussion stuff like shakers, tambourines, hand drums, etc. and backing vocals. But it doesn't seem worth it for the reasons you mentioned. Thanks for the reply.

High pass filter wouldn’t help…would make it worse I think. A primary problem would be loss of LF content, so a HPF would only exacerbate the issue.