Tascam 244 - Recording volume drifts quiet to loud and sounds distorted

[oli maxwell]

I recently changed my idler tire because the machine was starting to chew up tape. After that, the recorded sound was very distorted with no transients and the volume was drifting from quiet to loud. I demagnetized the heads and cleaned them with alcohol wipes. I think it got a bit better but it's still drifting quiet to loud. I bypassed the dbx board. Still the same issue. I don't know what to do now, any ideas? The previous recordings still sound fine on playback, it's the new recorded audio that sounds bad.

 

[shredd]

As the resident Village Idiot, I can only guess at this. But my money's on incompatible/incorrect part, and/or OTHER parts that are worn and the new idler revealed them.
Then again - I have to sit with my guitar a bit to figure out which way the pointy end goes...

 

[Remi Lacroix]

Hi Oli maxwell, has I remember on these 4 tracks cassette play / recorder there are 2 heads, one for playing and one for recording. Has you mentioned the machine chewed up some tape, so it could have de aligned the heads. Now if the sound goes from way up then way down I would say that the recording head is loose, and both heads are adjustable. If they're de-aligned then the play sound and recordings will get distorted. That easily happens when tapes gets tangled up into it. Hope it is helping you.

 

[oli maxwell]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm actually in Quebec as well, in Montreal. The 244 actually uses the same head for playback and recording. There is another head which is the "erase head".

The volume doesn't go way up and down, it just drifts a bit, maybe a few db up and down. It sounds like someones just moving the fader up and down a bit.

I've read the manual and I've got a mini oscilloscope on the way from amazon. I'm going to try the playback and recording calibration and see what that does. If it still does it, then I'm going to bring it in because I have no other ideas. Tetrakan on youtube has loads of videos on this particular machine but I haven't seen him describe this problem.

 

[Remi Lacroix]

Hi Oli, I've looked at the video at Tetrakan 244 ... Ho boy ! ... I see better now, yes you're right the other head is the eraser one ... I just tried to help with what I could remember of old stuff '90's ... technology changes but I ain't sure it is getting better. Now I know more by looking at that video. ( the idler tire) In my old days it was a sort of a belt that was driving the tape.
Anyway, I had very similar problems with tape machine, but not same technology. Good luck, You'll find a way