Tascam BR-20

[Jackanory]

Hey guys (and girls)...

Firstly, let me say hello. I'm a musician/producer/audio enthusiast living in London. I'm pretty new to R2R so please bare with me. Everything I have learnt I have learnt myself and by just getting stuck in.

I have a Tascam BR20 (yes I know it's no Studer...) and I have a very annoying problem. There are various problems with my unit, most which I can work around, but this I cannot. I use the machine to record out of my digital set up, then back in to add a typical analogue tape character to whatever might require it; usually drums. Last night I recorded a drum track to tape, recorded it back into Logic and noticed a very frustrating problem. The tape appears to be playing back faster than it was recorded. Not much faster, but enough for a 3 minute song to drift out of time by the time it reaches half way though. No speed controls were even TOUCHED between recording and playback, and I've made several recording attempts with the same problem.

I am going to disconnect the brakes; I know the problem is it's playing back to fast, but what if it's been recorded too slow?

If this isn't physical problem then how reliable are the clocks on these things? Also, knowing very little about tape machines, what kind of standard is the BR20? Obviously it's a consumer product, but where does this thing stand amongst the revox, the sonys etc...

The recordings sound great and it really sounds just like I want it to. Except the playback thing.. yea...

Any help is really really appreciated. I have a project due to be finished soon and I'm really hoping the drums can be taped up to the max.

[ironbut]

Hi Jack, welcome to the forum.
The BR-20 is quite a nice machine actually. For your purposes I think it should be perfectly fine.
If your speed problem is small and you've used the Tascam for this same purpose before and never had a problem, I'd guess that it's something in your tape path that's slowing things down a tiny bit at a time. The first thing to do is clean your tape path thoroughly. All it would really take is a bit of sticky material to apply a little drag on the tape. Take a bright light and clean all the guides and heads (anything that the tape is moving across).
Secondly, it could be the tape itself. If you happen to be using Ampex/Quantegy 456 it, and several others, have a tendency to have binder breakdown often called Sticky Shed Syndrome. This happens when the binder that holds the oxide to the backing changes and leaves a sticky substance on the tape path. The tape itself will stick momentarily to all fixed surfaces it travels over and in extreme cases will actually stop the machine altogether.
So try using a different tape stock but only after you've cleaned the tape path. All it would take is a bit of this sticky stuff the size of a pin point to slow a tape down enough so it doesn't "sync" back up.
I'm sure you've checked all your setting in Logic. Incorrect headers can change the sample rate but I think that would be pretty obvious.
Give these a try and see if it helps.
If it doesn't, let us know how far the timing of the track is.