Reel to reel restoration and use in production

That sounds almost 100% like pinch roller to me, but I'm very far from an expert. Last year the owner of as far as I know the biggest vintage stereo shop in the state told me that in his experience almost all of the consumer cassette decks he sees are starting to have pinch roller issues lately and it's getting really hard to replace some of them (if they aren't one of a handful of models that have new pinch rollers being made then you're stuck sending them to one of the two or three places in the world that still manufacture custom pinch rollers, which means the repair costs 2-3x what the repaired machine would sell for.  Between that and my Otari (which is one of the last generation of reel to reel machines from the early to mid 90s, so about as new as possible) having its roller go bad a couple years back I suspect we're seeing a wave of pinch rollers hitting end-of-life, like what happened to tape machine and turntable belts in the mid 2000s - suddenly all the machines of a particular brand and model would start failing at the same time because some specific part in them just hit the end of its usable life (at the shop where I worked we had about a dozen BIC brand turntables that had worked when we got them over the previous few years fail in a two month period, for example).

If you can afford it and justify it, you might consider getting a replacement pinch roller now even if you don't need it yet (if nothing else you could always sell it later).

Thanks man. Yeah maybe worth it but last time I looked for a Sony tc630 online I found someone selling one for 50€ which seems a bit mad. Can't I try and restore it myself instead?

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  On 2/4/2018 at 12:38 AM, Polytrix said:

Thanks man. Yeah maybe worth it but last time I looked for a Sony tc630 online I found someone selling one for 50€ which seems a bit mad. Can't I try and restore it myself instead?

 

 

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That's actually totally reasonable for a new one.  The tolerances on this stuff are really tight, it might be possible to make one but you'd have to find a suitable kind of rubber and essentially lathe-turn a tire to fit on the original metal core/hub/thingy (or design and fabricate a suitable new core.

I put off getting the two replacement pinch rollers I had to buy back in 2013 and 14 as long as humanly possible, and all I could really determine as far as DIY goes is that the $100+ price tag for having a custom pinch roller manufactured isn't actually so bad because it's not so easy.

It sucks that they cost so much but they last 20-30 years if you're lucky so at least you probably only have to do it once.

Thanks. It's obviously difficult to tell if it is indeed the pinch roller, I'll wait till I get the new tape to totally decide to see if I make the jump to buy a new one. I probably wouldn't to be honest as it's seems to be sufficiently working. I'll post some recordings early next week.

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Yeah, definitely wait until you have a chance to try it with new tape.  If you expect to keep it for a long time, though, you should get a replacement roller sooner or later, because eventually it's going to need one and they might not be as easily available anymore when it does. I've learned that lesson the hard way a few times over the years - if you're planning to use something that's already old long-term, get some replacement parts as soon as you have the chance, don't wait until you need them.

Yeah will do! I'm hoping that with the new tape I get less jams. I've cleaned it again and adjusted a few things but I'm waiting till the new tape comes. I was close to buying two new belts today off eBay as well, About 20£, but I'm really not sure if that's necessary (again I can't totally see any obvious issues with the existing belts but I'll order those two if I keep getting issues just in case), I suppose there's a chance that they lose their elasticity/ability to maintain tension as the years have passed?

On a side note, I listened to your track last night and really enjoyed it! Love the reverb on the melodic elements, great sense of space and enjoyable melodies.

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If it's belt driver then I'd try that first, actually.  I could't tell from your earlier posts if it had belts or not. They're more likely to fail than a roller, and if the belts are slipping, it could explain the jams - maybe the takeup side really IS struggling in that case.  Plus it's a much cheaper first thing to try, and also another one that's inevitable, so even if it doesn't solve the issues it's a good thing to get out of the way, and it will probably make the speed more stable if nothing else. 

I hear you on the expense though, I had mine for quite a few years before I took the plunge and got it all working well.

Yeah, it's got two small belts on the inside. I'm not sure how vital they are tension wise but I gave in and ordered new ones. Wasn't too expensive. 

Especially if you think that's well worth trying. 

We should make a track together using our r2rs as the only source of tape possible effects. Fancy it? 

  On 2/5/2018 at 6:53 PM, Polytrix said:

Yeah, it's got two small belts on the inside. I'm not sure how vital they are tension wise but I gave in and ordered new ones. Wasn't too expensive. 

 

Especially if you think that's well worth trying. 

 

We should make a track together using our r2rs as the only source of tape possible effects. Fancy it? 

Sure!  IT will be a while before I have the time/money/will to make  acable to hook it up, but I caved and got a synchronizer (the official Otari one is unattainably rare and expensive, but I found out there are tons of equally good third-party ones being dumped on eBay right now for $50-$60 since every broadcast facility from the 60s through the 2000s needed to have a few of them) so once I make that cable (unlike the synchronizer itself, the factory cables to hook them to Otari decks are really rare and much more expensive, but the official schematics are easy to find) so hopefully in a month or so I'll be able to slave the reel to reel to my computer via SMPTE and get even better flanging, since that way it'll do the whole thing where when you take finger pressure off the supply reel it will speed up to get back in to sync, overshoot past the zero point (where it would theoretically null with the dry signal) and then slow back down an settle in to sync.  That's what makes it get that classic 60s/early 70s woosh that it's famous for, when it passes the null.  It's impossible to do with any real-time effect, hardware or software, analog or digital, because it inherently needs a pretty high amount of latency (like, hundreds of milliseconds).  Probably silly to do but I've been lusting for that sound for years since I first learned about it in high school. So in light of that, another $60 plus whatever cost and hassle it takes to build the cable (probably another $20 $25 in parts since the multipin connectors cost a bit) seemed worth it.

I was already planning to do a whole album-length project based around tape flanging and delay when I got that done and I'm definitely down to do some kind of collab in the mean time.  PM me sometime and we'll figure out how we want to do it!

Well if it's a sound you are craving then I say why not!

Mine has turned into quite a little project and it seems natural to make a track with it as a source of inspiration especially considering the time I've been putting into it.

No rush, it'll be a few days before I'm up and running anyway. Just as a point of reference, I've been listening to this a lot recently:

https://youtu.be/nayM6-HsbE8

So I like the idea of creating weird ambient loop based stuff, lends itself to space echo saturated noise right!

I've also been listening to this a lot:

https://youtu.be/EOta1fulN1Y

And this was the last track I finished:

http://soundcloud.com/polytrixer/rawhead-fires/s-j8p58

Send me a dm I feel as though we might have subverted this thread too much now!

Also, this sounds amazing in places:

https://youtu.be/GTe3Gy8uff8

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  On 2/5/2018 at 9:43 PM, Polytrix said:

I like the idea of creating weird ambient loop based stuff, lends itself to space echo saturated noise right!

Well then we're off to a good start already!