How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (Joe Bravo)

Sun, 23 Oct 2005 00:49:40 GMT

"should go into the "golden info" file"

I just know that's a crack about my age.

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (silentmusic)

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 14:47:40 GMT

Right on. Three cheers for Joe! This one gets printed out and saved in my recording binder.

Now, can you explain how women tick?

- Jason

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (yep)

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 13:22:30 GMT

Kudos. Nicely done, Joe.

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (DonnyAir)

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:43:16 GMT

Wow Joe, great post!

This is one of those that should go into the "golden info" file.

Thanks for taking the time to present this particular thread and also in the manner and detail in which you did it.

Highly informative.

D.

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (Joe Bravo)

Sat, 22 Oct 2005 10:18:27 GMT

I should have probably mentioned that this method of adjusting the speed is something I would only do if my deck was consistently playing at the wrong speed. If its a matter of having just a few tunes on an old tape that seem to have been recorded a little fast or slow, then I'd just go ahead and dump it to Audition and correct the speed/pitch there. If you try to change just the speed or just the pitch in a DAW application then you can run into problems. But as long as you're changing both speed and pitch it generally sounds just fine.

We used to keep a double-speed tape deck in our rehersal space years ago for taping practices and stuff. It was probably the best 4-track tape deck ever made. Anyhow, I don't own one anymore but I still have a bunch of practice tapes I wanted to get into Audition. The drums were all I really wanted and they were on track-1 so they would play on the left channel in the forward direction of my NAD deck, albeit at half the speed they were recorded at. And fortunately both decks used Dolby C. I ended up making a DAW recording of the drums and then just doubling the playback speed/pitch with Audition and the tracks sound great.

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (ohhey)

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:58:32 GMT

There are plenty of decks out there with a +and-12% pitch control. Tascam makes several and Denon and some of the other brands do too.

RE: How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (Telecaster)

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 21:23:48 GMT

Thank you, all I need now is a deck, I will go searching tomorrow.

How To Adjust Tape Speed and Heads w/ Pics (Joe Bravo)

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 20:57:18 GMT

Since the topic came up about transferring tunes from cassette/reel to reel to a DAW setup I thought I'd take some snapshots of my old NAD deck and show you a couple of things. That's something I've been meaning to do for a long time.

I've seen a number of posts the past couple of years concerning tape decks playing too fast or too slow. If your deck doesn't have an outboard adjustment for changing the playback speed you can still generally do it (unless its an incredibly cheap/cheesy deck) by opening up the cover and finding an adjustable resister for the tape take-up motor. It'll be in one of two spots: (1) on the motor itself (2) or very close to it on the circuit board. Usually its on the motor, or at least it used to be. I haven't bought a tape deck in several years so maybe they're doing something else these days for all I know.

If its on the circuit board, just look for it near the motor; its usually made of plastic I think and it'll look basically like a screw sticking up. A lot of times they're white.

If its on the motor as most are then you'll want to look on the back of the motor. You'll spot a very tiny black dot. If you touch it with a jeweler's screwdriver you'll find that its actually a rubber covering that has a small slit in it that's almost too small to see.

Turn the deck on and play a song. While playing, place the screwdriver in the slot and feel for the adjustment screw. Its not hard to find and I don't think there's anything else in there to hurt but I may be wrong. I've done this dozens of times to several decks over the years and haven't managed to damage one of them yet. Anyhow. proceed at your own risk. And OBVIOUSLY BE CAREFUL OF TOUCHING ANYTHING ELSE INSIDE THE OPEN CIRCUIT BOARD, ESPECIALLY THE TRANSFORMER OR YOU CAN BAR-B-QUE YOURSELF! DUH!

A small turn of the screw goes a long way in adjusting the speed. And since I'm on the subject, there are a couple of things that will effect the speed of the take-up motor causing it to slow down or speed up. (They almost always slow down over the years). Usually its because the drive belt (you'll see it around the motor pulley) is wearing out and loosening up. Once they need a speed adjustment, that's a pretty good indication that you'll be replacing that drive belt in the next year. But even direct drive motors wear out and slow down. I don't like direct drive motors simply because they're so difficult to change compared to a drive belt. I like very simple decksâ€”no electronic transports or anything like that. Its just one more thing to go wrong. A good manual deck with a belt drive motor can last you for decades.

One more thing about speed. Turn the deck on and play a tape for 5 or 10 minutes before you dicker with the speed. Sometimes decks will speedup during the warm-up process. They generally won't change in speed after 10-minutes or so of playing. I did however once have a cheap deck (a Pioneer I think) that changed its play speed continually over the course of an hour. It had a stinking electronic transport (but not direct drive) and even after changing the belt, the speed problem persisted. I never did figure that one out.
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Well I'm not going to give a how-to demo on adjusting tape heads since you can probably Google several sites that show you how to do that already but, I thought I'd show you at least where to look for the head adjustment screw (there may be more than one on your deck).

To get at the adjustment screw you usually have to take the cassette cover off. You do that by simply pulling up on them most of the time.

You'll see a small hole where you're to insert your screwdriver. A Jeweler's screwdriver will work for this pretty well although I like one slightly larger.

Turn the deck on, place a tape in it and then hit the play button. Once you do that, the head(s) will pop-up into view and you'll then be able to get at the play head's adjustment screw through the hole. If you don't have alignment tapes you can adjust it by ear fairly well. Turn the screw one way or the other about 1/4 turn and you'll notice the sound will raise or lower in high-end response quite noticeably. I usually just try to get as much high-end as I can without the stereo field skewing on me. You're done.

Adendum: Of course its a good idea to demagnetize the heads after you've been poking around under them with a screwdriver. And also, while some decks have seperate heads for record and playback, its the playback head you'll be adjusting. The record head usually only pops-up into the tape path after you hit the record button, so that'll give you a good idea of which is which. Besides, record heads and erase heads (erase heads are generally whiteish in color) don't even come with adjustment screws in cassette decks most of the time. They seldom need adjustments.