Tascam ATR-60/16

timkroeger

timkroeger

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Hey there,

I just scored a 16 track 1" Tascam ATR-60/16 that's going to need some care and maintenance. I don't have much experience in servicing tape recorders but I've built and fixed tube amps, so it's mostly the mechanical part of the job I'm a little afraid of.



I didn't do much testing yet because the pinch roller is a little sticky and you can listen to the tape adhering and breaking free from the rubber surface when in play mode. I don't want to ruin the tape and what not. A new pinch roller is on the way, as is the complete original service manual and a used tentelometer (no manual or calibration gear available though :(). I still need spring scales but I wanted to wait for the manual so I can be sure to get scales' with the right scale. I guess I'll need a MRL tape and some degaussing device in the near future but before I start to set up the machine there are more important things to do.

The machine came with the function select unit and I have a NIB Micro Lynx here (needed to peel the transparent foil from the display :)) with complete manual and cable diagrams that I still need to hook up with the ATR. I have the 38 pin ELCOs, suitable 20 pin cable but I'm missing the damn 40 pin connectors for the system unit. I could only find those for those flat computer cable which cut the insulation so all the pins are connected, but I only need 20 pins and would rather solder or crimp the single strands. Anybody know where I could find those things? Maybe even with a housing?

I have taken some pictures of the machine and the heads and I noticed some "colouring" on the heads, don't know how to describe it. I'll attach a shot but please have a look at the page I set up for this machine. I know nothing about the history of the heads, maybe someone with experience can comment on them. Maybe they're relapped, don't know... If you need more photos, please let me know, I'd very happy if someone could have a look at and comment on them.



I also noticed that the record and repro heads sound quite different. after recording a small piece of music I compared them and I feel the sync head is sounding fine. The repro head is missing a lot of high frequencies though and sounds quite dull. Maybe you can see something on the following picture I took of the repro head when you compare it to the record head above.



Anyway, I wanted to say I've been reading here for some time now, digging out older threads about "the 58", "the MS16", "the 388", various mixer projects (I have a Tascam M-3500 32 channel console with manual & schematics now, maybe do an op amp upgrade after cleanup and that will be another project) and I feel like this is a really nice place with nice people doing really nice things. So as I am going to take care of the ATR I will update this thread along the process/progress and hopefully someone else will find the informaiton useful.

Thanks for all the info you provided already in the many threads I read.

Cheers
Tim
 
Looks like a very nice find. Did you buy the parts directly from Teac? If I can offer some advice it would be to read all the threads from sweetbeats. This man is redoing a few decks and goes in detail of each step. Their are a lot of good people here and will help you as much as they can. When you get to the recording point you should post a few in the analog thread. Again, welcome.
 
Thanks for the warm welcome,

yeah I read a lot of sweetbeats' threads already. Actually I was reading the M-__ thread while you replied ;)

I bought the service manual from German Teac support (http://triplex-service.de) and the roller from openreel.net (Kawashima Audio Service Japan). They still offer heads for the ATR-60/16 and MS-16. Let's just hope it doesn't come to that yet.
 
timkroeger,

First of all, welcome aboard!

Looks like you scored a nice copy of this deck and heads seem to show very little wear at all so odds are, this is a low mileage machine!...or has very nicely re-lapped heads. Either way, you should get years and years of use out of them!

About the rubber parts. If the rubber has gone gooey, then yes, it's time for a fresh one. How's the rubber on the tach roller?

There's also a possibility that that the tape grabbing is simply a case of sticky shed on the reel of tape you're using and there are threads here that talk about that topic ad nauseam so please check those out.

About all the test gear, odds are, all you'll really need is the MRL tape for doing calibrations. The transport itself drifts very little if at all even over years of use so the tentelometer and spring scales are probably a waste unless there's issues of tapes getting chewed and badly stretched. If they aren't, odds are those settings are still in-spec and not needing any adjustments.

Cheers! :)
 
Thanks for the tips on spring scales and tentelometer, I think I should try first things first :) The tach roller is fine and very clean. It feels try and I'd say it is in good condition. It's a different thing with the pinch roller. Not only the tape sticks to it, but it feels sticky when you touch it; quite different than the tach. I only have some old Ampex, BASF and AGFA tapes here (early 90s I think) and sticky shed is definitely an issue. But the tape is grabbed even if it's not shedding. Let's hope the new roller slips through customs ;) It happens from time to time...
 
Keep in mind that tape can grab and make the machine run slower while fast winding and playing before any extreme shedding starts to occur. So, once you do get the new pinch roller, also make sure to buy and use only fresh new tape as the tape stock you mentioned having, all could be suspect.

Cheers! :)
 
Already loving it...

Today the operation/maintenance manual for the 60/16 arrived. It's ... comprehensive. :D



Btw. has anyone dealt with Audio Village yet regarding their short versions of MRL tapes? I was thinking about buying one of those to save some bucks. Their tapes feature the following tones on all channels.

  • 50 Hz (10 sec)
  • 100 (15 sec)
  • 1kHz (25 sec)
  • 10k (35 sec)
  • 16k (20 sec)
  • white noise for phase adjust (25 sec)
  • 20-20k sweep to check response

I'd have them record it on +6db 911 RMGi, IEC eq (please correct me if I'm mistaken) and that would cost me $279. Throw in a Han-D-Mag for $79 and save on international shipping. What do you think?

Cheers
Tim
 
Nice-nice deck ya got there. Looks very healthy with a long life ahead of it from what I can see, and it is a marvelous transport as far as tape handling goes.

Tentelometer manuals can be found at the Tentel website, and you can also order the calibration weights from them.

Han-D-Mag is indeed the degausser you will want for that transport...I'd trust my degaussing to nothing else.

+1 to Ghost's words about sticky tape...no time to read through all the thread but your tape could be grabbing in the path.

What "coloring" are you seeing on the heads? I can't tell what is reflection and what is coloring...take some shots with no flash (to avoid glare), good light (so we can see the dern thing), and put a piece of white pape or an index card in front of the head to block out reflections.

The heads do look nice though. I wouldn't worry about the response yet on the repro head until you can degauss, setup the tape path and then put it through calibration.

Yes, a 250nWb/m cal tape on +6 tape (i.e. RMGI SM911) would be the standard for that deck. Compare the prices direct from MRL before getting the Audio Village versions and try and evaluate what features you want/need on the tape and make your selection from there.

I have two TimeLine Micro Lynx systems. I found the PCB mount sockets for those 40-pin connectors...3M. Still looking for the cable mount partners and hoods but I believe I will eventually. My local electronics shop had some non-keyed 40-pin connectors that would work but no hoods and won't latch to the socket without the hood.

BTW, why upgrade the opamps in the M-3500? IIRC that thing is loaded with 5532's...the main tranny in the PSU must be beefy."

Sorry for the hassle...that's all for sure and thank you for help. Let me know if you have any question or concern.

Cory
 
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Hey,

thanks for the input on the accumulating questions ;) The tentelometer manual will come in handy but for now I followed ghosts advice and skipped the auction of the meter. All I can say about the roller is, it "feels" sticky. Not like the tach roller or the pinch roller on my 34B. The replacement should arrive tomorrow or the day after tomorrow and then I can at least compare old and new. I have a few pancakes here, all mid-90 but I felt reluctant to put them on reels. I think I should just order some fresh RMGI soon.

I'll try and post a few new shots without flash and with better lighting + index card tomorrow. On the current photos you can see a reddish brown discoloration in the middle of the heads which could be mistaken for reflection. Hopefully better shots will clear things up.

Now you got me confused about the cal tape. I thought/read or - to be more precise - I think I read and subsequently thought that +6 means +6dB above 0dB (185nWb/m), which then would be 355nWb/m. It says so on the audio village site and I've read another more in depth article somewhere else but can't find it anymore...:(

When you find the cable mount sockets with hood, please let me know, I've been searching for what must be the better of 2 day online and couldn't find anything. I know the cable that came with the system unit (sony 9 pin adapter) had a 40 pin connector from JAE. I found crimp sockets (at least I think that's what they are) but no hoods. I sent an enquiry to my favourite online electronics shop here in Germany about the part I'm missing in their inventory, but they didn't get back to me yet.

I found some threads (GS forum) dealing with M-3500 mods and people claimed it made a big difference to them, e.g. replacing the gain op amps with BB 2604 and the eq op amps with BB 3352. Did you mean those when you wrote 5532? I'll dig out the schematics tomorrow and have a look at the parts list what's actually specified. The thing is I don't really know how it is supposed to sound. Right now I'm ok with the sound of the board but I have no reference and almost no console experience. So I thought I'll just put sockets in one or two channels and do an A/B. See if I like it... I'm going to have a look at the PSU though first and measure ripple and voltage ratings. Maybe I'll just recap the whole thing if it's not too much a hassle. Has worked wonders on my '68 Vox AC 30 and on my Bosch Power Tools Charger ;)

Oh, and I just spent the better of the day re-reading (almost re-living) your 58, M520 and M-__ stories. Saw you have a 234 Syncaset lying around. I have a 234L (L = "low speed") version here and had trouble fitting a replacement capstan drive belt from marss which was way too large in diameter. Told him about it, he sent two new belts with both different but lower inner circumference right away although I only asked for the specifications of the belts he used so I could compare if I got a wrong one. Great guy!

Cheers
Tim
 
Yes, +6 is 355nWb/m, but if you set your deck up for nominal operating level (i.e. 0VU) of +6 and then run +6 tape you'll be hitting standard operating level when your averaging VU meters are hitting 0...and, depending on your program material you may be hitting your tape to max operating level with program peaks which may or may not sound good to you...that's why the standard setup on a deck on which you are running +6 tape is 0VU = +3 = 250nWb/m...gives you 3dB of headrooom on your meters before standard operating level. If you are running +9 tape then typically you'd set the deck up for a SOL of 355nWb/m which still leaves you 3dB of headroom with the +9 tape...and realize that you can still use a +3 SOL cal tape (i.e. 250nWb/m tape) to cal the deck for +6...just set the levels on the deck to repro the tones at -3VU using the 250nWb/m tape.

I meant 5532. Its a relatively slow chip but many regard it highly even today as a nice sounding chip. I replaced stock 072's, 4556's and 2041's with a variety of more contemporary chips on the first two channels of my 80's vintage Tascam prototype board...I like the stock strips better.

My Tascam M-308B was chock full of 5532's and it sounded really great.
 
Thanks for elaborating, I think I understand now. So that would mean I could just get +9 RMGI 900 blank tape, because it costs me the same as 911 and set up the ATR for +6 with 355nWb/m cal tape (VUs at 0) and still have 3dB of headroom. That way I can re-calibrate the machine to +3, +6 and +9 when I set the levels on my deck accordingly (-3, 0 and +3), right? It's just a matter of "offsets".

Regarding the op amps I think it's all a matter of personal taste and as I don't know yet what to listen for (and I don't know from what background the modders come) I'm going to stay with the stock op amps for now. I just like to tinker with stuff to get the "best" out of it, I just can't stop doing that...
 
I took a few new shots of the heads with better lighting and without flash (still not perfect). You can see a reddish brown discoloration in the middle of the heads across all tracks. I think the wear on the record head is a little off center.

erase head



record head



repro head

 
The heads look fine.

There is some brass metal used in the construction of the heads on that deck which has a natural reddish hue to it so I wouldn't worry about that at all. ;)

Cheers! :)
 
That looks like a very low use machine. I'd leave it alone, mod / upgrade wise. Calibrate / align it but keep it stock.
 
No worries. I won't do anything else on the machine other than calibrate it and do some maintenance. Of course I'm going to put it to use, once everything is looking fine :D

I had a problem with the tape path as the tape slid down the pinch roller noticably when in reproduce mode. The curling at the bottom of the right guide got so bad that the tape slid off the guide. I checked the manual and was almost on the move to do some adjustments when I thought about the "adhesive" pinch roller again. The tape stuck to it only slightly and I was almost ready to believe it was the tape that was adhesive, but it was AGFA PEM 468 which I remembered should be ok. So I thought: if the pinch roller is more adhesive on the lower or upper part of it (e.g. track 9-16) that would definitely pull the tape off it's path. Good thing the replacement pinch roller arrived today and replacing the roller is really a no brainer. So I replaced it and play mode was ok again.

The only problem I have with the tape path is, when I switch to FF and the reels are accelerating, the tape slides down from the right guide again, just to slide back when it reaches about 60% of full speed. I don't think it's supposed to work like that... Everything is working fine in reproduce mode or REW, it's only the acceleration in FF, that's causing problems. The tape stays aligned when forwarding in full speed.

Any ideas where to look first? I don't have those so called "gauge blocks" here to check tension roller azimuth and the top and bottom of the rollers are of different diameter, so I can't just hold a 90° angled tool (don't know how you call that) against them. It needs to fit between base and top of the roller. Anyway the rollers "look" fine to me. What do you think?

Cheers
Tim
 
There is a history of problems with AGFA 468 tho:
http://recordist.com/ampex/docs/misc/sticky-shed.html

+ numerous user reviews from different forums.

I think that if you replace that pinch roller, get a known good tape and go through the mechanical adjustment, for your machine, that will fix the fore mentioned issues. Of course you should also do an electronics alignment. You've got a really clean, low use machine and all it may need is a proper alignment.
 
Thanks for the link, the agfa tape is mid 90s according to the previous owner, who threw those in when I bought the deck. I checked that against some Ampex 456 which is not usable at all anymore... All the Agfa does is shed some minimal oxide. The roller is already replaced. I'm going to see what kind of alignments I can do with the tools I have at hand right now, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I'm glad the machine is so clean and not heavily (ab)used. Makes things easier for me :)
 
Tim,

Welcome to the ATR60-16 owners club:) It really looks like you have a "near new" deck there.

I purchased mine a few years ago from a local radio station where it had been used for recording advertising "jingles", etc., and although it shows more wear than yours, it was carefullly maintained by the tech staff. It came with nine reels of tape, spare take-up reels and two MRL calibration tapes, one of which had never been opened............I thought that was great until I discovered BOTH MRL tapes had succumbed to sticky shed, my saving grace is that I have a laboratory drying oven at work so baking the tapes won't be a problem.

If you have any doubts about the tapes you have on hand DON'T use them, buy some new tape.......it will give you peace of mind.

BTW, my deck is pictured on the last page of Ghost's "Tascam Wallpapers" thread.

Chris :cool:
 
The heads look beauteous

The guides are fixed right?

Try adjusting the height of the right tension arm roller.

There is a hex socket set screw in the roller cap. Loosen it and then you can raise or lower the height of the roller by turning the cap counter-clockwise or clockwise respectively.

I dealt with this extensively on my 58 which was a similar setup to the ATR60 series (and MS16).

Look across the face of the transport from the right side as you adjust the roller...positioin yourself so you can look dead-on at the rubber rolling surface of the pinch roller and see the tape surface coming into the pinch roller and leaving the pinch roller. Shine a good flashlight on the tape so ou can see the behavior of the tape as you adjust the tension roller height. My guess is that you'll see it kind of puckering on one side or the other as you adjust the tension roller up or down. Find the middle point where there is no deformation of the tape. You may need to adjust your reel table height after this. Throw the transport into FFWD and REW too and adjust that tension roller for the best compromise of tape behavior in all transport modes.

If you really suspect that the guides are not perpendicular to the transport face then try loosening the cap screw in the top of a guide (start with the outgoing guide) and rotate the guide to see if there is wobble as you rotate it.

I bet that's not the problem issue.

**If the guides are NOT fixed height there's a whole new wrinkle to this so post back if this is the case.**
 
The center tape guide is adjustable but since the tape slips/curls at the right guide I think an adjustment of the right tension roller arm could cure it. Adjusting the height of the right tension roller arm is also part of the standard alignment procedure according to the manual so I'll walk trough the alignment today. We'll see how it goes. I'll make sure I take notes of what I adjusted and how much, to be able to return it to its current state if I manage to make matters worse.

Chris, I saw your deck in the wallpaper thread and it looks great. Ghost made a nice wallpaper from your recorder! I mean, from the photo of your recorder ;)

Cheers
Tim
 
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