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Repair of old reel to reel recorders.


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I have two old 1/4 inch 2 channel reel to reel recorders. One is a Wollensak that my uncle brought back from Germany when he was over there in the mid 60s. The other is a Sony that my dad gave me which is approximately the same age. These were both pretty close to top of the line when they were new. They've both been in storage for at least 30 years, so I know they need some maintenance and overhaul. I will use any kind of gear in the studio looking for new sounds and I was thinking of recording some tracks on analog tape before transferring them to digital. I first started learning to record long before digital was around and to my ears the old analog tape machines seem to have sort of a natural compression and warmth that even the new digital machines lack. I was wondering if anyone knows of a place on the East coast (VA specifically) that may be able to service these machines, or are they too old to locate parts for and too expensive to bother with? I've been checking around locally and haven't had any luck yet. I really would like to get at least one of these machines working.

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I don't know about repair facilities, but I believe the Wollensack is a mono recorder. I have a reel to reel tape that my uncle recorded with a Wollensack of my band rehearsing in 1965.

 

It's a mono recording. He set a microphone in the middle of the floor of the skating rink our manager owned and recorded us for forty five minutes.

 

Absolutley priceless.

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i have an old, old tascam reel machine. when i got it - it was stuck pretty bad but in fairly unused condition. the heads by appearance seem to have had no use - shiny, bright and zero visible wear. i suspect it was installed and never used.

 

the main bearings were all in great shape. the capstan/pinch roller assembly needed work. the lubricant had dried up into a sticky paste and the assembly would not budge. it took a lot of penetrating oil and some patience to get it to operate.

 

the recorder sounds great for a 7.5ips machine.

 

i'd say the main issues you might face would be bearings, belts, and rubber/plastic assemblies.

 

getting new rubber for these things can be impossible or at least difficult.

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I'll look through my collection of stuff over the next few days. Somewhere I have some informationfor a place to get belts, rollers and other soft parts for tape machines.

Another suggestion is to call around to your local repair shops. You may find one or two that have the where with all to work on one of those old machines.

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I would call around to different repair facilities as well. They usually know who does this sort of thing. VST in Pasadena has sometimes worked on this stuff in the past, but obviously, that's not very close to you!!! I suppose if any studios are using analog gear, you could give them a call as well.

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Good luck to you. As the former owner of at least 10 reel to reel machines (and, of course, litterally countless cassettes) I have to say that maintaining old machines had better be a labor of love.

 

Because the rewards may be more spiritual than practical.

 

 

Is it a "piano key" Wollensak? That was the familiy of machines I was first recorded on, doin' a knockout rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. They were also the tape machine of choice for my first school district. Our 1000 kid elementary had two of them after a while. They were pretty tanklike.

 

As the owner and/or user of a number of Sony tape machines back in the 60s, I would say they are not nearly as tanklike as the Wollies, but -- it's my impression -- that, as consumer products, they were far more reliable than today's Sony products. (Not hard, IMHO.) Back then, I loved Sony.

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Originally posted by GZsound

I don't know about repair facilities, but I believe the Wollensack is a mono recorder. I have a reel to reel tape that my uncle recorded with a Wollensack of my band rehearsing in 1965.

 

 

This Wollensak is a stereo recorder. It has those cool looking old backlit VU meters and separate mic inputs on each side. It has round dial type knobs for volume and tone, but it has these things which resemble really big light switches that actually operate the recorder. It originally had two mics and two speakers that you could detach. When you attached them back to the recorder, they would fold in and you could lock them together and carry it around like a suitcase. In it's time it was like a really high end portable stereo and recording system. My dad didn't really know how to use it very well and when I was around 8 or 9 he would drag me to adult parties as his personal DJ. I thought that was really cool because all these adults would call ME and ask if I could record certain songs for their next get-togethers and I would make mix tapes for them. I eventually lost that gig though. One time my dad let a friend of mine tag along. It was getting late and some of the adults had been putting away a few too many (some of them were upstanding citizens and dedicated Baptists LOL). We told them we had to go out to the car and get some more tapes. Before we went out, we plugged in the mics and let the tape roll for about 45 minutes hoping we'd get some good stuff when us kids were outside. Well, we did get some pretty good stuff and we later played it for everyone we knew. Somehow word got back to some of the adults who were on the tape and my dad tanned my ass severely and confiscated the Wollensak. The really {censored}ty thing about the whole ordeal was that I later caught him and my mother listening to it and laughing their asses off. He eventually let me have it back but there were no more DJ gigs. I still have a trunk full of those old tapes in my attic, but the one thing about tape recordings is that they don't hold up well over time and these are at least 40 years old. Besides using these old machines for recording, I'd like to get them up and running again for all the great memories they gave me and also because they got me hooked on recording and experimenting with sound at a young age.

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Like I said... spiritual value. ;)

 

That's a great story.

 

I used to 'DJ' adult parties, too. More the afternoon family thing, anniverseries, and the like. I did a silver anniverery and my grandparent's golden, where we borrowed my cousin's real live 7" reel stereo machine. After my 5" mono machine it was heaven. In fact, I recorded my mom doing a "sound-with-sound" duet (it had combo rec/play heads, so there were no simulsynch issues).

 

With my firm grounding in MOR pop at 13 and 14, I was the man for the job. A little Sergio, some Johnny Mann singers, a couple mellower latin tracks from Persuasive Percussion, some Stan Getz. I made it all go down.

 

And the 1-7/8 ips mode on my tape machine took all that nasty, distractin high end right off... :D (With 5" reels I had to do what I hadda do.)

 

 

My first TR was a little battery powered one (it didn't even have a capstan, it was so primitive, it just pulled through faster as the tape built up on the takeup) and I did a bit of surreptious taping, too.

 

I got busted and told not to eavesdrop. It was my position that the tape recorder brought me above the level of eavesdropper to journalist -- but I don;t think that opinoin was popularly shared in the household.

 

Later my dad got a little portable for work with a sound-triggered recording function. (It was my impression at the time that he got it to do a little eavesdropping of his own on his, shall we say, difficult partner, who never met a corner he didn't want to cut or a lie he didn't want to tell.)

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