TASCAM ATR 60/8

[faelucho]

Hello, I am new to this forum, first post!

I am thinking of buying a tascam atr60/8 with vumeters and NR unit for a good price here in Spain (about 400 euros)

The person selling it has not a clue about tape machines, even less than me!

he sent me pictures of the heads and sent it to a technician for testing.

Here is what he's told me. The guy tried by bouncing 8 tracks to 1/2" from some old recordings of his studio with the machine and said that all audio path is in working condition, everything appears to be good.

BUT, that there seems to be a problem with the transport (syncro he called it, but I guess thats what they call it here in spanish?) That everything works properly but the play and rewind buttons need to be pushed several times in order to work. So the transport DOES work but its kind of stubborn and needs to be pressed several times in order to play, rewind, etc. So he says that in the long run if I plan to work with the machine for long periods of time this can come as a hassle.

So I don't know how bad of a problem this is, maybe some cleaning can fix it?

I do a lot of DIY repairing of my equipment at the studio, so I could open the machine and go for an easy fix if needed.

The machine is not in my hometown so I actually have to drive to go buy it, its a 6 hour drive so please if anyone can help me with any experience with this , just to know how much of a problem this is and if fixing it is a possibility I could take that drive and repair it once having bought it.

In this parts is hard to find this machine or any 8 track 1/2" for that matter, and if so, they don't even come close to this price, so I believe its a bargain but not sure if its worth it.


also here are pictures of the heads, how do they look to you? Not the best pictures I know but its what I've got this far.

thank you in advance for any help, I'm truly grateful for anyones advice!

[faelucho]

Ok So I’m back from the trip and got the machine with me!!

Everything seemed to come together as the day I was going to test it I received an answer fro John French about the heads saying they looked very good with life left in them and offered good prices for relaxing or even new ones!  And when I got there the heads were clean and the stain appears to be gone!

Now for the testing part. The seller said a technician tried the machine and made a bounce with it from another deck, and apart from the tranport craziness everything is ok. It appears the machine has had all its caps changed by previous owner, this the technician confirmed, and pinch roller appears ing greatshape so do the lifters! so this was great news!


EVEN THOUGH I didn’t have that much time to try it out, just got to make sure the signal got to the vumeters, every cable was there, and everything turns on, and tried out all the switches.

I loaded a tape he had and noticed that the NAB adapters are in pretty bad shape, one original tascam that appears to be faulty and another one (don’t know what brand) that uses a couple of washers to get the right distance!

Everything appeared ok, the only problem of course was the craziness of the transport controls, they went ll over the place, when pressing PLAY all buttons seemed to light on and machine went crazy. Then after turning it on and off again something different happened.

But the problem I didn’t get is that the rec buttons for arming tracks appears to not be working, none of the lights come on, but everything else on the module works OK. But as I knew the price is great and have the original manual with me, went ahead and took a risk and brought it home. I believe as the heads are ok anything else I can fix with a little patience.


SO NOW HOME. I don’t have any tape yet, but went ahead and turned everything on again. And I have some questions, maybe someone can help me with:

1. The capstan is always moving, is this normal?

2. I raised the lifters and tried the transport and everything seems to be running smooth!!!  How come?  could this have something to do with the NAB adapters that didn’t hold the tapes properly? I don’t know what happened but whenI tested it everything went crazy and now without tape everything works OK.

3. The rec buttons still don’t work!!!?  I’m pretty sure I’m doing something wrong. Is there something I should check for? something not connected? Every vomiter registers audio when trying it out but just can’t get the tracks armed.


Well I’ve been diving deep into the manual and followed rec procedures but still no dice with arming tracks.

So any help anyone can give me will truly be appreciated.

once again sincerely,

Rafael