So I just bought a Tascam 38. The previous owner took good care of it. I did my first recording test with it yesterday and found that track 4 on the Repro head doesn't work. When on the Sync head, it plays back track 4 just fine, but not with the repro head. Is this something that will require some circuitry repair, or is it just in need of calibration?

MoodyBlues98 wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2025 2:34 am So I just bought a Tascam 38. The previous owner took good care of it. I did my first recording test with it yesterday and found that track 4 on the Repro head doesn't work. When on the Sync head, it plays back track 4 just fine, but not with the repro head. Is this something that will require some circuitry repair, or is it just in need of calibration?

I doubt it's calibration. Likely not even the head, most likely something in the signal path. Could be a bad cap or broken trace, that's best case, worse case is you have a tascam tape machine and are readying your head for banging against the wall until you throw it out the window. Fwiw... I've owned like 7 tascam/teac r2r machines and I love them. They ARE haunted though.

Schematic are out there. Tascam had decent service manuals. Have fun with it and try to enjoy the maintenance process. It kinda became my model train set for a while.

I had a 38 that had the same issues. Often it was that the channel card had become unseated or the contacts were oxidised. Sometimes pulling a card and repeating it cleared thing up.

adavidmackinnon wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 5:15 pm I had a 38 that had the same issues. Often it was that the channel card had become unseated or the contacts were oxidised. Sometimes pulling a card and repeating it cleared thing up.

Service Manual:

[url]chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://audioschematics.dk/wp-content/u ... Manual.pdf[/url]

I highly recommend opening it, cleaning any and all card or molex connectors with deoxit, buy some sewing machine oil and lube the machine everywhere it says to do so in the manual, and maybe some lithium grease for whatever parts the manual requests that. It did wonders for my 2 current old teac machines. If you still have a dead head you may be able to swap a car with another channel to see if it works, if it does, you may consider buying a parts machine on Ebay. If you are going to have a tape machine, having parts is a must. If you can source new belts, change them while you are already in there. Fuck old belts.

Check out this dude, and honestly, Ebay. There are a ton of parts on Ebay.

https://www.teactascamparts.com/

adavidmackinnon wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 5:15 pm Sometimes pulling a card and repeating it cleared thing up.

Typo. That should have read pulling a card and reseating it.
Seriously though, I'm kind of jealous. There are days I wish i still had my 38. I loved that machine.

Kniferide wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2025 10:54 pm

MoodyBlues98 wrote: Mon Jul 21, 2025 2:34 am So I just bought a Tascam 38. The previous owner took good care of it. I did my first recording test with it yesterday and found that track 4 on the Repro head doesn't work. When on the Sync head, it plays back track 4 just fine, but not with the repro head. Is this something that will require some circuitry repair, or is it just in need of calibration?

I doubt it's calibration. Likely not even the head, most likely something in the signal path. Could be a bad cap or broken trace, that's best case, worse case is you have a tascam tape machine and are readying your head for banging against the wall until you throw it out the window. Fwiw... I've owned like 7 tascam/teac r2r machines and I love them. They ARE haunted though.

they fucking are haunted. absolute worst.
had to see a therapist for 7 years to be able to start recording again.

Thank you for all the wonderful feedback everyone! I do own a physical copy of the service manual. I want to be careful opening and working on the recorder because I haven't worked too much on inner workings of electronics (Yet. That's going to change soon lol) I'll try the card first. I should definitely look at getting spare parts. I need to focus on getting replacement hub adapters first because the ones on this machine are a little broken. They still hold the reels but are a little slanted because a small section of the adapters are broken off. The guy I bought this from has owned this recorder since the early 90s and has maintained it well. The belts and all are more recently replaced, but again, I will look at getting replacements parts to have handy in the near future. I also want to get the sewing machine oil as well. I also have to get a calibration tape in the near future well. I was originally going to wait until the end of the year to get a Tascam 38, but the seller offered me $800 for a well maintained 38, and I knew I couldn't pass up that deal. You're lucky if you can get a perfect working 38 for under $1,200. I'll be at my friend's house this weekend to work on the machine (he's a good friend who's letting me have my sound and audio gear in his basement and I like recording the drums in there because of the basement room acoustics.)