TASCAM 414 MKii mods help

[omar w]

Hi everyone.

This is Evilartform

I'm an electronic musician from washington dc, i use a modified tascam 414 mkii as part of my live set up. I'm about to head out on tour and am trying to wire up 4 separate 1/4 mono outs (one per tape channel) so that I can effect them all differently on stage . I can't seem to find a good spot on the pcb mixer to wire out from. I also can't find a good diagram anywhere, does anyone have the 414 service manual or can anyone offer me some advice? I have been at it for a few hours with the multimeter and i'm stumped.


I run four separate drones via tape loop, usually some kind of harmony

other mods I have done include:

overdrive via callibration,
momentary tape stop/ flange button for motor,
variable speed and calibration with upgraded potentiometers for tape speed variation,
a circuit bend between head phone jack noise generator

hoping to also add:
erase head defeat switch ... 8 pin switch? is that even a thing?
midi to potentiometer to tape speed

Here are videos of recent live performances:

Liv Nightclub, DC:
https://www.facebook.com/omar.waqar/videos/10206537755145438/

Wonderland Ballroom, DC:
https://www.facebook.com/EvilArtForm/videos/10155833337205487

Promo Video:
"Cassette Sacrifice: Revolutionizing the way electronic music is performed live. Evilartform comes out with a new series of Improvised Cassette Manipulations. Merging analog cassette with classic 808 sounds"

Official website:

www.evilartform.com

...heading out on tour so come by and check it out!

 

[naxobill]

Hello! I'ld love to mod my porta02 to get tape overdrive and speed control knobs to start working on it, i also would like a to do a switch it to get tape delay/recording). but that's probably a whole different story. Do you have some schematics or hints to do these? i have little knowledge on circuits but understand signal workflow due to effects and get ideas "fast". I want to switch channel 2 to be an aux/ parallel loop bus channel which i guess would be easier than turning it into an echo
The momentary flange thing you said sounds like an awesome idea too.
What you mean with different knobs for tape speed variations? i thought to see if i could add a pot for the pitch corrections of the speed changes, which could be cool for glitch like stuff.
Lots of things i want to do with it but just bent a big muff and a wah before. If you could leave me some hints to work on i would be sooo thankful

 

[SkywaveTDR]

These unit are complicated and not robust enough to go doing this kind of stuff to it. Guys think it is fun but what they are doing is wrecking the unit. I have seen some of these messed up units and they just degrade the performance and make repair more difficult. I myself advise against this kind of practice. I have spent to many hours trying to get them to work again and figuring out what these guys have done to them. If you mod the unit expect to fix it as well as most shops will see that and want no part of the repair. That was Teac's stance when I worked there.