Reel to reel restoration and use in production

[Polytrix]

Hey everyone!

 

Very excited to be inheriting my uncle's Sony Stereo Centre tc630 three head solid state tape recorder reel to reel. Specs are here:

 

https://www.hifiengine.com/manual_library/sony/tc-630.shtml

 

I'm yet to get it yet and I know it's been in storage for a long time so I'm expecting I may need to do some restoration.

 

So my questions are: has anyone ever restored/repaired an old reel to reel? Is it possible to get new tape?!

 

And if anyone has a reel to reel in their setup, I'm sure some of you do, how do you actually use it as a production device other than recording to tape. Could I use this as a tape delay effectively? Cheers!

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

<p>Tape:</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="https://www.atrtape.com/">https://www.atrtape.com/</a></p>

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<p>tl;dr - The most basic things you'll need are cleaning supplies (lint free swabs, pure iso alcohol and some rubber cleaner, see below), a new pinch roller (almost guaranteed yours is bad already ad i it isn't it will be soon), a service manual, and a modest push/pull force gauge (i.e. a little spring scale with a hook on one end and a push rod on the other) to set the pinch roller pressure correctly. The next step is a good degaussing tool (see below for a recommendation; a lot of them are useless).  If you're really using it a lot or if you want to listen to old prerecorded tapes or tapes recorded on a different machine, you'll eventually need to do a proper alignment and that is a bigger project.  If you're just mixing down to it you can probably get away with kind of faking the alignment at least for now (that's what I do because correctly aligning it needs some expensive tools I can't justify even if I could afford them). </p>

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<p>There's no free reel to reel in reality but it doesn't have to be horribly expensive to fix one up.  My Otari MX5050 MKIV was $20 (not a joke) but getting it back to usable condition (but not correctly aligned, just good enough to use it as an effect) ended up costing me around $250 in tools and supplies spread out over a year, but I needed new reel hubs and Otari pinch rollers are on the expensive side, I bet you could get everything you needed to maintain it, plus a new pinch roller for $150-$200, maybe less (unless you need to have a pinch roller custom manufactured, which you might; see below for options).</p>

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<p>For cleaning, you'll want some 99% or better isopropyl alcohol (anything less has too much water) and some lint free swabs. Athan Corp makes a good pinch roller cleaning fluid.  I've heard stories about cleaning fluids reacting with residue left over inside the rubber from different cleaning fluid that was used by a previous owner and actually damaging the roller, but the odds of your roller still being good are very low. </p>

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<p>Pinch roller. You will almost certainly need a new one. Even if it looks OK it will probably squeak and might stick to the tape and make it jam.  Most of them have melted or gotten hard by now. It should be firm but softer than a hockey puck.   My reel to reel is an early 90s Otari, so one of the newest it's possible to get, and its roller failed from old age over 5 years ago.  It's normal.</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/">http://www.terrysrubberrollers.com/</a></p>

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<p>Athan Corp. (athan.com or on eBay) also makes good rollers (I'm using one of theirs in my Otari) but they don't appear to make one for your machine.  You might contact them and see if they can make one. Terry's Rubber Rollers is the one that has been the go-to for a long time.</p>

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<p>Find a service manual for your machine.  It will have instructions for correctly setting the pinch roller force and aligning and biasing the machine.  For adjusting the pinch roller I've found that these aregood enough (choose one with the right range for measuring your machine):</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="https://www.amazon.com/Push-Pull-Spring-Scales-Beige/dp/B009P8CZKQ">https://www.amazon.com/Push-Pull-Spring-Scales-Beige/dp/B009P8CZKQ</a></p>

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<p>Head demagnetizing tool  Not all of these are created equal.  The sort of cigar shaped one with the curved  red metal want on one end that you see a lot is the first one I had. It's not even powerful enough to work on a reel to reel, although it was probably enough for the cassette decks I originally got it for.  For reel to reel you want to get something like this and WATCH VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE BECAUSE INCORRECT DEGAUSSING TECHNIQUE WILL PERMANENTLY RUIN THE  HEADS IN YOUR MACHINE:</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://www.rbannis.com/products/handmags.html">http://www.rbannis.com/products/handmags.html</a></p>

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<p>Calibration tapes needed for aligning the heads if you do that (don't bother unless you are confident that you have thoroughly degaussed the entire tape path, because some of the test tones are up above 10k and even one pass through a machine with magnetic buildup in the tape path will ruin it.  Not worth buying used since there's no way to confirm they're still good unless you already have a perfectly aligned machine and test equipment.  You can probably get away without doing this, at least in the beginning, but the stereo image will be messed up a little if the head isn't aligned.  My MRL tape is used (got it free) and I don't have the money for a new one so I haven't bothered but if you get serious about using tape you'll eventually want to do it all right.  Ideally you'll be able to borrow (because they're punishingly expensive to buy) a really sensitive gauss meter to make sure the tape path is free of stray magnetism before you run an alignment tape through it.  This is stuff that I wouldn't bother with unless you use the machine a lot, but if it's badly out of alignment it might be unavoidable.</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="http://mrltapes.com/">http://mrltapes.com/</a></p>

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<p>There are also some tricks people have come up with over the years to get the alignment good enough without using a test tape.  One of the most common involved marking the front of a head with either grease pencil or occasionally a dry erase marker, running a few feet of leader tape through it and then looking at the shape of the spot where the grease/ink is rubbed off.  A correctly aligned head would have a perfectly rectangular wear pattern.  An incorrectly aligned one will have a pattern that's some blend between parallelogram an trapezoid and you can adjust it slowly by trial and error until it's aligned.  There's also a trick using a test tone but that only works on half-track machines where flipping the tape over plays the same material backward with L and R swapped; reel to reels made for home use are quarter-track format so you probably can't do that with yours.  Here's a pretty decent discussion of if and how it's possible to align a machine acceptably without a test tape, with a lot of good links:</p>

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<p><a data-ipb="nomediaparse" href="https://www.gearslutz.com/board/geekslutz-forum/861059-reel-reel-alignment-without-test-tape.html">https://www.gearslutz.com/board/geekslutz-forum/861059-reel-reel-alignment-without-test-tape.html</a></p>

[joshuatxuk]

^RSP knows his shit!

 

tapeheads.net as well as audiokarma.org are good forums to find out about R2R players and vintage audio equipment in general

 

there's also the Tape OP messageboard 

[TubularCorporation]

I ave no idea what happened to my post after I edited it to add the tl;dr paragraph at the beginning, but I don't have time to edit out all those HTML tags right now.

[joshuatxuk]

 

For cleaning, you'll want some 99% or better isopropyl alcohol (anything less has too much water) and some lint free swabs. Athan Corp makes a good pinch roller cleaning fluid.  I've heard stories about cleaning fluids reacting with residue left over inside the rubber from different cleaning fluid that was used by a previous owner and actually damaging the roller, but the odds of your roller still being good are very low. 

 

91% is passable but yeah, 99% is def ideal. There's deoxit for cleaning pots and switches if those are a bit dirty. Canned air for dusting out the insides.

 

You also, especially if you plan on recording a lot, might want to get a demagnitizer. They are kind of a debating point among tapeheads - some argue they are not needed BUT personally I've liked using them on dirty and well used tape decks I've bought. Helps with the playback fidelity a lot and then prevents the dirty tape deck from stripping away fidelity from the tape itself when played. Simple wands are good. JUST be sure to use it very carefully - move it close to the deck slowly to the tapeheads, slowly pull away, don't unplug it near the R2R and  DEF DO NOT turn it on near tapes - they will damage them. I always use it in another room from my tapes.

 

This is a good demo video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98GIAWHSW2I

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCSIaithd_I

[Polytrix]

Thank you very much! Info very much appreciated so cheers. Just hope it won't cost me so much to sort it out

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

Oh yeah, deoxit is good but be careful about lubricated vs unlubricated.  Lubricated is mandatory for pots but will mess up switches; unlubricated is for switches but will make pots wear faster at best and lock up at worst.  These days I use unlubricated for everything and then manually lubricate the pots and faders with Deoxit Fader Lube or Fader Grease (usually the lube, but sometimes that's too thin and I use grease - old Roland faders seem to need grease to work smoothly after cleaning).

 

My cleaning process for pots and faders that I really care about (i.e. those old Roland ones that are basically irreplaceable right now):

 

-Blow out as much gunk as possible with some compressed air

 

-Spray in UNLUBRICATED contact cleaner

 

-Spray in more compressed air to clear out anything the contact cleaner loosened up, an also most of the cleaner itself so that it will dry faster

 

-after all the pots and faders have been cleaned to this point I wait another 10-20 minutes to make sure all the cleaner has dried out, then I put a couple drops of fader lube in one of the pots, twist it back and forth a bit, and make sure that it feels smooth across its whole range.  If the fader lube isn't cutting it I'll use fader grease but I rarely need that.

 

-Give it on last quick blast of compressed air to spread the lube evenly and clear out any excess

 

 

Do your best to avoid getting the rest of the PCB oily, it probably won't do any harm but it will make it collect dust and it's always possible it might have long term effects.  The Deoxit cleaners come in cans that have adjustable nozzles and the factory setting is too strong and will spray out the sides of the pots you're cleaning and end up on everything, even if you pack paper towels around them.  If you twist the nozzle fully counterclockwise it's much easier to control; I didn't notice that you could do this for years and I wish I had.

[Polytrix]

Jesus Christ what have I got myself in for!? Haha it should be a nice little project I can work on over time I suppose.

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

Jesus Christ what have I got myself in for!? Haha it should be a nice little project I can work on over time I suppose.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Owning a reel to reel is like owning an antique Volkswagen.

 

 

EDIT:  I resisted all of the stuff I posted for years but in the end there was no way around it.

 

 

Also, the sad truth is, since the newest Airwindows tape emulation plugins came out a few months back I kind of stopped using the reel to reel. Other tape emulations, even the good ones, didn't do it for me but these sound really, really good.

 

http://www.airwindows.com/totape5/

http://www.airwindows.com/fromtape/

 

 

Working with a reel to reel is its own reward, though. It will definitely have its own sound that you might like, and since it's a three head machine you also have a pretty good tape echo! Patch an aux send to the reel to reel input, the output back to a mixer channel, put the reel to reel in record-monitor mode or whatever yours calls it - the mode where it records with the record head and plays back with the play head at the same time - and it's an echo.  The gap between the record and play heads combines with any speed controls your machine has to set the delay time, and you can use the send level on the channel that the reel to reel output is patched to as a feedback control. It won't be as easy to control but it should sound as good as or better than a Space Echo but with its own unique voicing.  Also, because it's stereo you can use it as two synced tape delay lines at the same time, or even set it up for ping pong delay by sending your dry signal to the left input on AUX1, then sending some of the left output to the right input on AUX2  and then sending some of that to AUX1. Tape echo is actually probably the best thing to do with it (and if you're using it as an echo you can get away with being a lot less picky about setup, although you'll still want cleaning supplies and a pinch roller is inevitable which means you'll also need the push/pull gauge and service manual to get the pressure set right after you put the new pinch roller on...)

 

I think the only big-ish expense you're going to face up front is the pinch roller, everything else can be put off and it won't do any harm (well, if the heads are misaligned for a long time they'll wear unevenly and that is a problem but I doubt you'll be using it enough to worry about that any time soon - head wear is a whole other can of worms that I've avoided because I was lucky with mine - it came from a well known music school, but it was made just a couple years before ADAT and DA-88 machines took off so it didn't get used much. If the heads are worn unevenly it makes alignment harder and eventually you can etch a groove into the head that can damage tapes (not likely but it can happen); if it's just worn out the head gap eventually starts to get wider and since the highest frequency tape can reproduce i a function of the tape speed and head gap with, the wider that gets the less high end you'll get out of the machine.  New heads are still being made but you don't even want to ask how much they cost, especially if they're for a consumer machine since you'd probably need one custom made.  HINT: the companies making them are the same ones that were making them back when a machine like my $20 one was still selling new for around $40,000 in 1990s money. Their prices are in line with that and you'd probably need all three replaced if you needed any replaced. Not an option unless you're a major studio or rich. If the heads are shot it's still useful as an effect, you just wouldn't want to mix down to it usually.

[Guest Chesney]

It's actually fun keeping a tape machine, it's almost like a pet. I use a Teac 80-8 for recording and sending mixes back and forth.

I don't need to add any more info, ^^^ have pretty much covered it. Tape is scarce and expensive but it's worth it as long as you enjoy the majestic ritual of the process. 

[TubularCorporation]

It's actually fun keeping a tape machine, it's almost like a pet. I use a Teac 80-8 for recording and sending mixes back and forth.

I don't need to add any more info, ^^^ have pretty much covered it. Tape is scarce and expensive but it's worth it as long as you enjoy the majestic ritual of the process. 

 

Yeah, I love it.  I wish I could afford a fourth head for mine - it has a spot to install a quarter track head for playing back prerecorded tapes, and I've got some stuff I did in college the first time I had a reel to reel but it's all 7.5ips quarter track so I can't play it.  No way that's happening though.

 

Tape is expensive but if you're using it as an effect you can reuse the same reel for a long time. I don't know if it's true, but I always heard a legend that the band Acid Mothers Temple bought one 2" reel when they bought their multitrack machine in the 90s, and have recorded every album since on that same reel.  Supposedly you can hear it slowly wearing out over the last 20 years or so of their discography.

 

 

PROTIP: you can get pretty good 10" metal reels relatively cheap if you buy old, shedding tape on eBay and salvage the reels.  Empty, used 1/4" reels are usually like $30-$80 for the metal types, depending on the specific reel (people pay more for branded stuff that matches their machines, etc. etc.) but if you look you can find dead tape stored on metal reels for less than the same reel sells empty.  I've got three or four good 10" aluminum reels and I paid about $35 total for all of them because they were full of unrecoverable tape.  Although I always worried I was destroying something amazing when I threw out the old tape, but it was shedding so badly I couldn't get it to play at all.

[Polytrix]

As always with watmm I'm amazed by people's kindness and willingness to share and help each other, thank you very very much. I think I might kind of see it as an fx box to start and use plugins for mixdowns to save myself the cash which I do not have. The idea of turning into a ping pong delay sounds absolutely perfect. I'm big into tape delays: I use Audiothing's OuterSpace plug on pretty much every track.

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

As always with watmm I'm amazed by people's kindness and willingness to share and help each other, thank you very very much.

 

To be fair, it's also another convenient pretext to talk about our gear.

 

 

If the pinch roller isn't sticking to the tape it should be OK for a while longer.  Mine was fine when I got it around 2010 but by 2014 it would squeak whenever it was running and after literally weeks of oiling and fine tuning the tension adjustments and everything I came to the unavoidable conclusion that the pinch roller was the problem, and I was right.  OTOH, I had a Tascam 388 from 2001 until I sold it to a friend cheap in 2016 and its pinch roller is still OK last I heard, even though it's probably a decade older than the Otari, if not more. So you never know.  I've just lost a few of pinch rollers one after the other in the last two years (well two, the Otari and my ridiculously beat up Space Echo that somehow manages to keep working - the cassette decks I've got are still fine for now) so I've got a new appreciation for the fact that they really do go bad.  Kind of like how capacitor failure or tape shedding or having your acoustic guitar split open because the weather is too dry all sound like something that probably doesn't happen much until it happens to you (all of those have happened to me).  But you might still have years left in yours, I'm just harping on it because it's the most likely problem you're going to have (unless your machine is belt drive, in which case those will probably go first but they're also cheaper to replace plus a three head machine probably didn't mess with belts).

 

I did all of the mechanical and electronic alignment in my Space Echo completely by ear and it worked, so as long as you're not looking for a mastering machine or really accurate stereo imaging you should be good.

 

And yeah,I haven't done it but instead of ping pong you could also use it as a stereo tape echo, which is something that I'm pretty sure was never available as a dedicated piece of equipment.  So that's cool.

 

Other than that, though, if you're using it as a delay you should be fine with one reel of tape and some cleaning supplies. 

[Polytrix]

Thank you!

 

 

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[Polytrix]

Just to say I'm getting this tonight/tomorrow and will report back maybe with some photos to get views on what I need to do/replace. If it was bought in the 70s, was barely used and put into storage until now, what should I definitely expect to be broken? Quite excited to get this and do some tape looooooooooops

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

Just to say I'm getting this tonight/tomorrow and will report back maybe with some photos to get views on what I need to do/replace. If it was bought in the 70s, was barely used and put into storage until now, what should I definitely expect to be broken? Quite excited to get this and do some tape looooooooooops

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

If it has any belts, the odds of them still being good are low.

 

Pinch roller same thing, but your odds are better. 

 

In theory a lot of the electrolytic capacitors could be failing from old age.  In practice I've got stuff that goes back to the 60s and the caps are still working, although I have had a couple of things need recapping over the years (mostly amps). So that wouldn't be my first concern, but it's possible.  I'd expect hum or bad sound or just plain not working right electronically if they're an issue.  If you use it a lot and expect to keep using it for years, you might want to think about a recap eventually though, even if it's working.  Maybe even learn to do that yourself (practicing on smaller stuff) because it would save a lot of money and it's a useful skill to have.  Recapping isn't exactly hard, it's just slow and tedious, so it's a goo candidate for DIY because you don't have to be some kind of expert to do it and paying someone else can be expensive because of the time involved - especially if there's no schematic or parts list and you have to go in and manually identify all the capacitors before you can even get replacements.

 

 

That said, I've hardly recapped anything of my own because it's a huge pain in the ass.  Have to do my turntable finally this year, and some time I might tackle the Juno 6.  I've already had most of the boards out a few times when I was cleaning the controls and installing a MIDI retrofit, so it's not totally uncharted ground (and the boards are easy to work on), but all of those nearly irreplaceable proprietary ICs make me paranoid.

 

Controls might be scratchy.

 

As long as it wasn't exposed to a lot of moisture or dust or anything I bet it's fine other than that.

[Guest]

I just recently got a nice Akai (also inherited) and have been having fun with it. There is some buzz, and the recording quality isnt amazing, but I dont have the time or energy to put any work into it right now.

BTW, eBay has a lot of sealed reel to reel tapes for sale, I got a couple Ampex reels and they have been serving me well.

[marf]

Man, I want a reel to reel. You can make great effects with them. Deep echo. Hard two fine the old tube ones now cause they are tragically being gutted as preamps. Terrible

 

Get on the Ampex mailing list. You won't find a bigger group of geniuses on the subject

[Polytrix]

Ah well so I cleaned all the heads really nicely and lubricated it inside as directed in the user manual (I've got all the extra bits you'd hope for) and of course as feared there is something wrong. It works well receiving audio so the internal amp is working with an aux input. But, after threading on two reels nice and tightly and setting it to play, there is no obvious sound of a motor and definitely no movement between the reels so no tape is moving via the heads and thus no sound output via tape. Same would therefore also apply to recording to tape/using it as an effect etc etc. Drive belt failure? Internal mechanism seized up with grease after being out of use and in storage for so long? Gutted! At no stage have I seen the reels move when set to play or rewind etc so there's deffo something holding it back. Do I keep trying?

 

 

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[cruising for burgers]

Ah well so I cleaned all the heads really nicely and lubricated it inside as directed in the user manual (I've got all the extra bits you'd hope for) and of course as feared there is something wrong. It works well receiving audio so the internal amp is working with an aux input. But, after threading on two reels nice and tightly and setting it to play, there is no obvious sound of a motor and definitely no movement between the reels so no tape is moving via the heads and thus no sound output via tape. Same would therefore also apply to recording to tape/using it as an effect etc etc. Drive belt failure? Internal mechanism seized up with grease after being out of use and in storage for so long? Gutted! At no stage have I seen the reels move when set to play or rewind etc so there's deffo something holding it back. Do I keep trying?

 

 

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[Polytrix]

ah well, nothing ventured right!

 

 

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[Guest]

I assume you've done your research, but make sure youve threaded it all correctly, because I got that wrong at first. Did you watch any tutorials on the youtube?

[Polytrix]

Yeah I'm pretty sure I'm threading it through fine, it's more that there's no actual movement taking place when okay is engaged so rape isn't being actively sent over the heads etc etc

 

 

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Jesus that a horrible auto correct! Okay=play. Rape=tape

 

 

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[TubularCorporation]

I'd say it's time to open it up and check for belts next.  If it has belts you may be in luck. Also make sure it doesn't have any kind of editing mode that's switched on.  Unlikely for a model meant for home use, but possible.  That would stop the motors but keep the tape against the heads, for manually scrubbing to find an edit point.  Also what Ganus said, on some machines it's a small difference between threaded right and threaded right except for the little lever or arm or whatever yours has that lets it know when a tape is threaded so it's worth checking one more time just to be sure..

 

I'm sure you could find someone to work on it if it comes to that and you really want to.

 

 

EDIT: while you're in there, have a look around for this (which, incidentally, I've never once heard called "capacitor plague" in my entire life):

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

[Polytrix]

Hey, cheers for help. So I've opened it up again and with a little fiddling with the function dial which you push over to 'FWD' to set in a play mode, I noticed I did actually manage to find a sweet spot where the motor engaged and actually turned the belts inside to in turn the empty take up (empty reel) on the right hand side. 

 

Problem now is that when I've actually threaded the tape properly over the heads from the full reel and into the empty take up reel and given it a few turns to the point where it's ready, it doesn't seem to have the guts to actually continue to turn the reel now the tape is attached to it which is obviously required to in turn pull the tape continuously over the heads for playback and actually rotate the pinch roller. Am I right in thinking that the pinch roller should in face be rotating already and not rely on the take up reel to rotate it as the reel spins? If that's the case, that's  not working.

 

But either way, if I manually turn the take up whilst in play mode to manually bring more tape over the heads, I'm getting sound output from the aux outs and into my monitors via audio interface so that's all very hopeful. Makes me wonder if this is sort of a tension/release things where I need to sort of improve the traction on the take up reel.