Tascam 48/Tascam M-30 Mixing Problems

[Randalb]

Hi, I have a problem that just surfaced a week ago.

I have a Tascam 48 and I use an M-30 for my mixer.
While recording all 8 tracks a few days ago, when I went to mix the tracks, track 2 and 7 dissappeared while in the "sync" mode.
When I put it in "repro" mode, they appear again, but I have lost track 5.
Help!! I'm pulling my hair out!
What could be wrong?
I pulled all of the cards and reseated them, and the deck worked great for a while. I have also checked all cables to and from the board.

Thanks for all of your help!

Randal

 

[knightfly]

Couple of possibilities here (at least) since the problem temporarily went away with reseating cards, try cleaning the card connectors with 91% or 99% alcohol and drying before re-installing - look carefully at the contact surfaces, are they really clean and shiny? It's been a while since I was into my 38, but seems like they used mating sets of split fingers instead of plated on contact surface and female card edge connector. If the 48 uses the former method, make sure none of the fingers are bent too far open.

You may also have a separate problem at the same time - most decks use little reed relays to switch between rec/repro modes - these are notorious for getting "contact-itus" - the next time the problem happens, try switching between rec and repro about 20-30 times, and see if the problem either goes away or changes. What this does, is every time the relay is energised, the contacts "wipe" each other and sort of "self clean" - if you switch a lot of times, it may clean these internal contacts. If that DOES fix the problem, I'd contact Tascam and try to get replacement relays, or track them down yourself. Newark.com may be able to get you direct replacements if it comes to that. I hope you have the SERVICE manual for the 48 - makes this kind of work much easier. Good luck... Steve

 

[mixmkr]

also could be old/failed solder joints, which were kinda notorious for the tascam reel to reels...plus the above mentioned.