Jus to say hello

John Mackenzie

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2017
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57
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Gear owned
Tascam 688 midistudio
I am a new member. My name is John. I have been involved in recording and playing music since the early 1960's and have worked as an AV/ Computer technician almost all my life, and as a sound engineer in studios and in live band situations/ concerts/ theatre etc.etc. I have also been a semi-pro bass player and guitar player for all of that time. I now normally record at home with a DAW, normally using Garage Band or Logic Pro. I still have my old Tascam 688, which I am in the process of repairing ( information and parts hard to find ! ). I am looking forward to discussing all sorts of things on here as i am a bit of a fanatic with these devices . Hope to meet you all soon, in words, or pictures . Looks like a nice forum.
 
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Yes It's great to have interesting people for the community. We all welcome you dear John. Thanks for the introduction. Music is a world wide language. So any one can listen and enjoy to their taste.
 
Hello All,
I am kind of a strange bird as I do not play any instruments but still use the Tascam equipment all the time as well as many Teac, Otari, Pioneer and so on. I use them because I repair them for people. How did I come upon this vocation? Well I was a Patrolman in a town in Northern IL and once I found out what was going on I decided to go back to College to get a 4 year degree in Electronics. During one summer needing money of course I applied for a job at Teac Factory Service in Arlington Heights. I took a tests and was hired the next day. So I worked on decks and other products like mixers and dBx units full time for about 5 years. Home video was getting to be more popular and so I wanted to get more experience in this so I moved on to a company that had a lot more exposure to Video products of the consumer level- I did get my fill of all kinds of VHS and Beta units as well as some training from Sony and NEC. Next as this job wore out on me I moved into the video world further being a Maintenance Engineer for a video duplicator called VCA Teletronix. There I learned more VHS, Beta, 8mm and 3/4" as well as 1" broadcast type video repair. In working with a fellow Engineer I went on to work with him on DVR22 type decks ($55,000) type units. After this job went out- VHS duplication is a limited life media as you probably know. I then got into Radio working at ESPN, Sporting News, Spanish Broadcasting and then lastly Moody Radio Satellite Network. Having gotten out of that in 2010 I fell back on by typical home work which has always been Tape deck repair which I operate now and train people locally and some by E mail and phone calls. I have 7 people to study under me.

The Engineer in me often sees a need for an improvement and I will say one day a person will come out with a modification to fix that lack of design item. Well I have to say so far that person has been me. I do get help making parts by machinist and 3D printer persons but the end result is that we get the job done.
It is a good thing this site is not owned by Tascam as they would have kicked me off a time ago. Even so, I am one person who is keeping their good equipment running while not talking so positively about the stuff they made poorly. I currently have about 193 units to work on but they are not all Teac and Tascam. Now you know more about me.
I thinks I was the last Lead Technician at Teac Chicago before they closed it down and sold to the Manager at the time Denny, who called me back to help him.
 
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