I posted the following on the Tascam Forums facebook page, and the moderator there responded, "Garth, that's a wonderful post. It would be fantastic if you could create an account and post it on tascamforums.com so all our members could read it." So here it is.
It would be fun to re-connect with some of the people I worked with at TEAC/Tascam in Montebello in 1982-83, if you're reading this, Don O'Connor, Kurao Yamada, Kambe, and a few others. I know Don went into the recording industry, but the last time I saw him was at my wedding 31 years ago.
The big TEAC sign near the 5 freeway that used to say "Magnetic Tape Systems" back then, then it got changed to "Digital Systems," but now it looks like TEAC sold the building and the top of the sign no longer has the big four letters that were visible from far away.
I fixed over a thousand machines while I worked there. The newest line was the 50 series (52, 54, and 58) IIRC, so I hardly got to work on those. The styling was beautiful IMO. The 30 series had been out a short time. The older ones like the 4010 were a huge pain to work on, mostly because we did not always have complete service manuals for them, and the part-number system had changed, so getting the right thing from the parts department got interesting. Ernie and his humorous right-hand man with the speech impediment laughed at me more times than I care to remember. I sure did a lot of Portastudios, the 144 and 244.
One model that had terrible problems with intermittencies was the 5500, and I had one running for days on the side work bench one time, hoping to catch it when it failed so I could track down the problem and fix it. The president of TEAC was coming to visit from Japan, and we were all trained in how to act when he was there. You know how the Japanese are (or at least used to be)—ultra polite, formal, and respectful. We were to dress extra neatly that day, and when he came into our work area with his entourage, we were to stop what we were doing and stand beside our work bench and face him, basically at attention. He saw the 5500 on my workbench and covered his mouth and pointed and laughed, and said in very broken English, "Ah! Very trouble machine!" (He knew!) It broke the ice.
I still have a warm spot in my heart for tape recorders, although I am not in the recording industry and don't even listen to music anymore (although I'm a cellist and perform regularly), and really have no use for a tape recorder. Still, the marrying of high-quality audio electronics and fine machinery feels nice. I'd sure like to have a Nagra especially, although I don't know what I'd do with it at this point. It's nice to see professional-quality tape is still being manufactured. The only real problem I see to maintaining the old machines is getting the rubber parts, since they rot over time even without use.
I was finishing my degree in recording arts when I was at TEAC, although since then I've mostly been doing circuit design and embedded software for a company that makes high-end aircraft communications equipment, including with high-quality music reproduction for the cabin, plus special headsets for aircraft and soldiers. At this point I could make my own recorder if I wanted to, although the audio quality would have to be better for music than the voice recorders I've designed for recording aircraft radio traffic and audio checklists.
It would be fun to re-connect with some of the people I worked with at TEAC/Tascam in Montebello in 1982-83, if you're reading this, Don O'Connor, Kurao Yamada, Kambe, and a few others. I know Don went into the recording industry, but the last time I saw him was at my wedding 31 years ago.
The big TEAC sign near the 5 freeway that used to say "Magnetic Tape Systems" back then, then it got changed to "Digital Systems," but now it looks like TEAC sold the building and the top of the sign no longer has the big four letters that were visible from far away.
I fixed over a thousand machines while I worked there. The newest line was the 50 series (52, 54, and 58) IIRC, so I hardly got to work on those. The styling was beautiful IMO. The 30 series had been out a short time. The older ones like the 4010 were a huge pain to work on, mostly because we did not always have complete service manuals for them, and the part-number system had changed, so getting the right thing from the parts department got interesting. Ernie and his humorous right-hand man with the speech impediment laughed at me more times than I care to remember. I sure did a lot of Portastudios, the 144 and 244.
One model that had terrible problems with intermittencies was the 5500, and I had one running for days on the side work bench one time, hoping to catch it when it failed so I could track down the problem and fix it. The president of TEAC was coming to visit from Japan, and we were all trained in how to act when he was there. You know how the Japanese are (or at least used to be)—ultra polite, formal, and respectful. We were to dress extra neatly that day, and when he came into our work area with his entourage, we were to stop what we were doing and stand beside our work bench and face him, basically at attention. He saw the 5500 on my workbench and covered his mouth and pointed and laughed, and said in very broken English, "Ah! Very trouble machine!" (He knew!) It broke the ice.
I still have a warm spot in my heart for tape recorders, although I am not in the recording industry and don't even listen to music anymore (although I'm a cellist and perform regularly), and really have no use for a tape recorder. Still, the marrying of high-quality audio electronics and fine machinery feels nice. I'd sure like to have a Nagra especially, although I don't know what I'd do with it at this point. It's nice to see professional-quality tape is still being manufactured. The only real problem I see to maintaining the old machines is getting the rubber parts, since they rot over time even without use.
I was finishing my degree in recording arts when I was at TEAC, although since then I've mostly been doing circuit design and embedded software for a company that makes high-end aircraft communications equipment, including with high-quality music reproduction for the cabin, plus special headsets for aircraft and soldiers. At this point I could make my own recorder if I wanted to, although the audio quality would have to be better for music than the voice recorders I've designed for recording aircraft radio traffic and audio checklists.
