How to fix a noisy output on the Tascam Porta02 MKii 

YW, I just want to show people how to do it because so many people are getting in to these things and a lot of them are broken, but not beyond fixing :D

that's great! you got it for a steal m'man. I'm happy I could help. I tried to find topics to cover that I couldn't find anywhere else. so I'm happy you found me. I'll keep doing more.

rad, super helpful to know some people get along with my humor :D cheers and thanks for the sub!

thank you so much!!!

lovely! the Porta 03 is NOTORIOUS for this problem. you can fix it for sure. if you need help, gimme a shout.

Thanks!

yeah! NP. It might take one or two spray throughs to get it right, but it will come clean :D

You're totally welcome. did you get yours up and running?

@@User173 Not yet. I started again today, got the old belts off and measured them. What belt kit did you order? I don't see this model listed specifically on the vintage-electronics website. Is it the same as the 414?

​@@hearpatplayjust replaced the belts on mine since the ffwd and rwd wouldn't work anymore. works flawlessly now

oh dang. sounds like you will need some extreme luck there my friend. I hope all is well. it's usually a bad sign when they say "can't test". but, you may be lucky!!! let me know if you have problems or need help.

Totally! the only thing you are doing is either a) adding a pot in line with the power to the motor to slow the motor, or b) replacing the single speed motor with a variable speed motor and adding a pot to control the speed/ pitch. I have not done it to a mk 1, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

Shoot, sorry for the late reply. But I think that noise is pretty normal. these are fairly noisy little boxes. I'd have to hear to know if it's more than normal. but there is a usual hiss and noise with these.

just rubbing alcohol the jacks, then fire it up and take a listen. if none of the pots are crackling or screeching in your ear, then you are good! if they are, then de-oxit!

@@User173 Beautiful, thanks a brunch for the swift response. Time to make some loop tapes!

what are you running in to it? if you're using Eurorack modular, it might be coming in too hot?

you can fix it. but you'll have to find the capacitor you blew.

Can't hurt to clean the heads. The hiss sounds like noisy pre-amps. Perhaps a good clean will help a bit, but noisy pre-amps will sound like a steady hiss. there is some present in general on these old tape machines, but usually it's a feature, not a bug. Remember, listening to these on headphones will present a fair amount of hiss, but it shouldn't be annoying. That's kind of the "creaminess" of tape.

@@User173 hey sorry I missed your reply. Just as an update, I cleaned the heads and that worked perfectly though. Still got that hiss but it can be managed, thanks for the reply

stoked to be able to make you laugh and to be able to help!

Its also not the LED because record and playback functions arent working either

I'm not sure.... are you saying that your DAW recognizes it as a higher bpm? That's interesting. I've not tried the metronome thing.

@@User173 Yeah, I just get slightly different speeds every time I record. (: I've been multitracking a synth being controlled by a sequencer and the different layers do not stay in time. It's an interesting kind of dreamy effect. I wonder if there are any other cleanups/tuning I can do to the Porta02 to make it operate more precisely?

This didnt work for me

if all your ouyputs are noisy, it's a ground issue or capacitor issue.

hmm, that's an interesting one! I've not heard of that one before. Some mechanical noise must be being recorded on to the record head. I'd open it up and see if you can check all the solder connections to the play head and make sure you don't have some weird grounding issue or some cold solder joint. First step is a very thorough visual inspection.

@@User173 ok, thanks so much! Also, have you ever heard of one track recording at a lower volume than the rest?

I'm having exactly the same issue with mine but oddly enough it only happens about 25% of the time. Were you able to fix it? Like you said, it's only audible through the headphones (not the line outs) and it doesn't actually get recorded to the tape. My suspicion is that it has something to do with the headphone amp, but I have no idea how to start troubleshooting that.

@@bicyclops damn I can't even remember now -- if I recall correctly, I was messing it up by using tinfoil over the tape head for sound on sound recording. Try cleaning it and making sure nothing is stuck anywhere

@@bicyclops damn I can't even remember now -- if I recall correctly, I was messing it up by using tinfoil over the tape head for sound on sound recording. Try cleaning it and making sure nothing is stuck anywhere

no, I've not heard of that. so you are overdubbing and playback going into it drops so you cannot hear it?

@@User173 yes

you have made sure that the porta 2 is set to line and not safe or anything else? if so, then likely a bad jack. Easy enough to replace. you can search ebay for new replacement jacks and then solder a new one in. it's not hard :D

@@User173 unfortunately that must be the case then. Thank you for your quick reply! Great work! Last couple of days I've been watching your vids with Lyra 8.

@@tomislavgrzunov6560 awesome, more videos to come. I've just moved across state and still unboxing everything. Plus USA holiday season. Anyway, the 1/4 inch jacks are cheap. Would be an easy fix if it's just that. My first suggestion is to open it up, take a look at the jack and see if there is something faulty, like a bad solder joint, and then all you have to do is just resolder it and buy nothing!

@@User173 i looked it, seems fine. Yeah, can't wait to see more! Looks and sounds amazing! Tomorrow I'll give it another look to see what exact type of 1/4 jack is it.

hehe

it's a generally easy fix my friend!

Unfortunately I'm not taking commissions at this time, but I'll happily help you fix it! we can chat online or even zoom meet if you need help.

hmm, that's possibly a few things. It could be a loose ground on the headphone jack too? Maybe start there, open it up and make sure the line output you're using is fully soldered properly.

Ah, good point - thank you, I'll open it up and try that.

I have a 414 with the same issue. Thanks for the ground trace tip. Is there a good way to find cold solder joints?

@@User173 if it’s not a loose ground on the headphone jack, what else could it be? mine looks fine (same problem with the constant white noise from the moment it’s ON) thanks SO much for the amazing video btw!! i did slow it down 0.5X towards the end and i’m glad i did 😂

I mean a recorded sound

no you shouldn't. that's odd. sounds like the pot isn't shutting off all the way.

@@User173 can i fix this?

could be a couple things. Perhaps the switch is broken, or maybe the record wire from the head is detached or a cold solder joint. It could also be that the connector that seats the record wire for that track is not properly seated on the "motherboard". Have you opened it up yet and took a look around?

@@User173 no sir not yet! That info is exactly what I was look for. I felt like I wouldn't even know what I was looking for and those starting points will do the trick. I'm super new in the fixing cassette things world... my first solder was neigh but a month ago haha thanks!

@@hououinkyouma702 Not a problem. Crack her open and have a look around. Familiarize yourself with how it's all connected and how it all works before you do anything to it. Notice how the record and play heads have wires that go off to a little connector on the main board. Make sure that the connectors are not loose and that none of the wires are pulled loose or have a cold solder joint. then you might take it apart further and inspect the switch as well, though I doubt it's the switch. give me a message if you need more help!

@@User173 will do! very cool of you to take your time with a rando! My contribution back will hopefully be good music :)

@@hououinkyouma702 I'm sure it will! I do it for this very reason, I just love helping people and giving out free information. I'm an old school Star Trek Nerd and I wish the world was more like that.

uhhh, well do you get crackles when moving the volume pots? is it happening all the time? does it come out of every output, or just one? I need a lot more info. but I would start by isolating where the problem is coming from. it's most likely a loose ground or dirty POT.

User 173 I’m having the same or a similar problem with my 424 mk3. Desperate to fix it. It’s a popping sound-like a vinyl record but more like electrical popping as opposed to static- on playback but it usually doesn’t start until about 20 seconds into the playback of recording. Sometimes it does start right at the beginning of the song, oddly. But usually it comes in after ~20 seconds. It’s on most (all?) of the 4 recorded tracks but I think it’s louder on the 1st and 2nd. Anyway, the pops don’t happen in the exact same spot in the recording every time-it varies by a few seconds every time. What’s weird is I got it to stop popping after cleaning the heads and capstan, long enough to bounce my stereo mix onto my Denon stereo cassette deck (loss in sound quality though-boo!), but when I tried it again a day later (to bounce a fresh mix of the same song onto my digital recorder), the static popping was back and bad as ever. I cleaned it twice and still can’t it to stop. Please help!

@@slacktoryrecords4193 that's a tough one without being able to diagnose it myself. You may have a cold solder joint or a bad capacitor. It's so hard to tell from a youtube comment. However the fact that cleaning it got it to go away is a great indication that something is wrong on the play head perhaps. I'm not sure if it needs to be demagnitized or not. Sometimes these old tape machines build up a huge magnetic field and it can cause some popping and glitchy playback. See if you can't get another deep clean going, open the whole thing up and clean the board too, while you are doing that inspect as best you can all the solder connections. be sure to isolate for me which tracks are doing it. you said maybe all, but please try and isolate if it's a specific track, or if it's all of them, then it's likely something in the output. It could also be a magnetic build up, and so trying to find a demagnetizer could help. I hope you are using the right cassette types as well. Check out the owners manual online and make sure you're using the correct cassette tapes. also try out multiple kinds and make sure you aren't just having a problem on the one. get back to me and let me know how it goes. If you are still haveing problems you could either send me the unit or we could set up a zoom meeting and I'll try and trouble shoot with you online :D

User 173 Thank you for the thoughtful response! It seems that it’s *mostly* this one tape that’s affected. While the pops don’t occur at the exact same spots on the tape every playback, they do occur at *roughly* the same points. Which is odd, no? Sometimes there are lot of pops in the first 20 seconds when I RTZ and press play quickly, but usually not. I tried a bunch of other tapes (these are all type II TDK Pro 30s), and only one of them seemed to have a bunch of pops on it (and I didn’t remember it having them before). But I cleaned the pinch roller, capstan, etc. properly, and I was able to get through another playback (to bounce my stereo mix onto my digital 8-track) without more than one pop. Then I went through 6 other recent recordings, and only one of them had one pop at the start and one at the end of the song. I have a feeling I could get that one to play without any pops if I tried again. For reference, here is what it sounds like. This isn’t my recording, but it’s exactly the same pops: m.soundcloud.com/faraz-h/tascam-414-pops-and-clicks

@@slacktoryrecords4193 I'm glad it's just mostly on one tape. Might be something messed up on that tape with the magnetization. and as I said, if your machine needs to be de-magnetized that's super important.