Tascam 48 help!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Liason21
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Liason21

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recently got a tascam 48 8-track 1/2" and love it. problem i'm having is that 4 of the 8 channels will not output audio back to my board. i know there is audio there as i can see the vu meters bouncing as it plays back. any theories? i opened up the back to see what i could see....nothing obvious. all solder joints on the specific outputs look perfectly ok. how on earth will i be able to access the cards on this beast? any help would be amazing! thanks all in advance!
 
Got a manual? Its in there. Yeah, I'd try reseating the amp cards and the bias cards (you'll see those in there, there are two of them).

  1. remove the dress panel on the back that is below the jack panel
  2. on the bottom of the now exposed area, about in the middle or maybe even 2/3 the way from the left side of the deck is a screw. Doing this from memory so sorry for the ambiguity...anyway remove the screw...this secures one end of the cossbar that secures the amp cards
  3. Lay the 48 on its back
  4. on the bottom remove the feet
  5. remove the trimmer access cover panel (if yours has it...it is the cover that goes over the panel with all the holes on the bottom
  6. remover the trimmer access panel.
  7. voila! You have exposed the cards. The cards are secured by a small crossbar. Hopefully you already removed one of the screws that holds the bar to the frame. The other is on the bottom so you'll be able to get that out with the deck on its back...you'll see it.

Tip the
 
awesome! i'll try that this afternoon! i knew i could count on this forum. hopefully after reseating those cards i'll have all 8 tracks working! i'll be sure to post here with the results. thanks for the great answer!
 
0h yeah. i don't have the manual!! anyone know where i might find one?
 
sorry! just thought of one other question, very noob indeed. i'm about to go purchase some denatured alcohol to clean the heads, i've noticed the erase head is made of plastic, will the denatured alcohol be ok to use on this one? thanks again!!
 
Yes, denatures alcohol or 91 percent or better isopropyl alcohol.

Teac in California has the manuals (323) 727-4840
 
perfect, thanks! here's the latest. finally got to access the cards with help from the forum. i pulled each one individually looking for any obvious signs of wear. tbh, all 8 looked pristine. same goes for the rest of the wiring found when removing the back pannels, no dust, all connections secure. so i put them all back in one by one and then cleaned off the tape heads. i'm still however, in the same place, no change after reseating those cards. the good outputs are 1,2,6 and 8. all others are toast. i'll likely be getting it to my trusty technician and be gouged price/repair-wise. before i do, any last minute things to check??? thanks again everyone!!
 
Did you try swapping cards to see if they worked on other channels? I'm not sure you can on that unit or not but I thought it would be worth suggesting.
 
It may seem obvious to check and clean the heads. But especially if you are using old tape, you really have to look with a magnifying glass and flashlight. The smallest speck of tape gunk can cause havoc. I had some dried on gunk that was hard to remove, it was like paint.
VP
 
yes! hehe! that's coming tomorrow. swapping the cards i know are good with the channels that are not outputting. what kills me about this is that i know the audio is there, vu meters bounce...no audio! if i'm able to get the bad channels to output by swapping cards, what do you guys think the next step will be? also, let's say i swap the cards out and am still in the same predicament? worse/best case scenario?
here's something i just came across in a book i have: "tape head height must be adjusted so that each track is properly aligned with its corresponding head gap....a sight discrepancy between head heights may result in loss of output" possible the repro head will need some adjusting? would the vu meters even move if this were the case? trying to cover all the bases i guess...
just so it's out there, this machine was free. and for good reason, as it apparently has it's issues. a friend of mine was unloading some of his studio gear that he hasn't used in years. as the story goes, he never knew the previous owner or any history on it at all, it just kinda showed up there and remained untouched until i came around. thanks again!
 
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