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Reel to reel, cassette and other analogue tape formats.

RE: teac/tascam 44

Have you re-capped it?
Have you aligned it?
How many hours are on it? Have the heads been relapped?

Here is the order I'd follow:

1. Inspect the heads for wear. (Google what to look for.) If they look ok, use a soft crayon to mask the heads, run tape, and see where the tape is hitting the heads by looking at the pattern left afterward. You're aiming for a perfectly vertical rectangular pattern centered on each head. If you don't have that, send the head block to MRL for relapping. They are great people to work with. If they are badly worn and won't tolerate relapping, find replacement heads.

2. While the heads are out, make good use of your down time by re-capping the electronics. Electrolytics have a limited lifespan. Identify the 'lytics, order new ones from Mouser, Newark, or Digikey, get your soldering station out and put the new ones in. For me at least, this is "happy idiot" work. Now is also a good time to order a new pinch-roller. (I seem to recall some versions of that deck had a couple belts in the transport. If that's the case, find 'em and order new ones.)

3. Get the MRL alignment tape for the deck, get the manual, and go through the alignment procedure: playback alignment first using the MRL tape, then repro EQ and bias. You'll need a signal generator for this, or you can use the signal generator plugin in ProTools if you have it. I assume you can find wav files on the web that will do in a pinch, but I haven't tried that.

BTW, there is great tape expertise available at tapeheads.net, and on the Bottlehead and Tape Project forums (the last two both found on the Bottlehead site.)

WW

"Put on your high heeled sneakers. Baby, we''re goin'' out tonight.


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