Exploring a Reel to Reel Tape Recorder: Sony TC-366
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 เม.ย. 2016
- On Technology Connections, we looked at this machine briefly when we explored the invention of magnetic recording technology. Now, in long form, is a more thorough look at this machine and how it works. We start with an overview of operation, then take it apart to get a look at the inside.
The Technology Connections episode on tape recording:
• Tape Recording: Taking...
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Out of High School I worked at a radio station. From the beginning of my career there to the end, about three years, we transitioned from still using analog, to fully digital. I worked a late shift, and would set the station up to run automated from 11pm to 6am, recording weather, sports, and general news updates, along with commercial breaks, onto carts (similar to 8 tracks) while the rest of the programming came from reel ro reel with cue tones. After the station went on automation, and before my shift ended, I would record any commercials I had been asked to voice over, station bumps, promos, etc. edit them, and cart them up. Before digital, this meant a lot of reel to reel work, and often literally cutting and splicing tape with cut/splice blocks. I literally used this gear, day to day, and now 20 plus years later, I am finally learning how it actually WORKED. Radio, as a career, didn't work out for me, but I am glad for the experience, and I am glad to have found your channel to better explain some of the tech I took for granted.
I also worked briefly at a college station at the latter end of this transition period. We were slowly moving towards computer automation, but DJs generally still did things manually with CDs, vinyl, and occasionally carts. Strange times indeed.
I did manage to get a good deal on four Otari 2-track machines from another station later on. While the basic principles of operation are similar to the one shown in this video, the decks I have are more robust and advanced. Instead of a single motor, there are three: capstan, supply, and take-up. The two reel motors are MASSIVE, and make the machines very top heavy. The size is necessary to apply lots of torque to deal with 15" metal reels. The capstan has a large flywheel, but instead of different contact points the motor is electronically servo-controlled to provide a wide range of stable tape speeds. I still have these machines. The fact that they also have an additional consumer playback head means that I can also playback a large stash of consumer tapes that I inherited. The three motor drive is essential to minimizing wow and flutter, and I wish that more consumer decks (especially cassette) included this feature.
the carts similar to 8 tracks are the Fidelipacs. Theres a video about them on Techmoan's Channel.
My favorite part is that the empty reel is not pulling on the tape it just spools it and the speed of the spool is self regulating. Amazing engineering!
Getting the clutch tension right is definitely an art, but you'd be surprised how simple the tape transport system really is compared to how complex the behaviour looks to be.
Some interesting history on 1/4" stereo tape.
Back in the 70s I had an old reel to reel machine that played both mono and early stereo tapes.
The first version of stereo tape used two heads, one for left and one for right, with about a 2" space between head. Each channel took up 1/2 of the tape; the right channel took side one and the left took side two. This meant the tape was one directional, and had no 'side 2'. Also, the left channel was delayed on the tape slightly. This was called the 'staggered stereo configuration.
Later, technology allowed both channels to be contained in one head, aligning the tracks on the tape. But, each channel still took half of the tape. and the tape was still one directional. This was called the 'stacked stereo' configuration.
Part of the reason the interlaced, two side, stereo tape (as described in the video) was developed as the interlaced configuration, was so that early 'stacked stereo' tapes could be played on an interlaced stereo machine.
The machine I had played standard mono, stacked or staggered stereo tapes, but it would only record in mono. and it had a very cool "magic eye" tube VU meter.
By the time the stereo compact cassette was developed (originally, cassettes were only mono), technology had progressed far enough to be able to put two pick-ups into the same head, right next two each other. This allowed each channel to take 1/4 of the tape, and allowed those two channels to take the same space as one mono track. This meant both stereo and mono tapes could be played on either stereo or mono machines.
I'm not skipping any of the ads because I love this channel!
The way that engineers are able to design such complex combination of precise motions and precise physical forces keeps amazing me every time I look at such devices being disassembled!
It took me a moment, but I see how you did the visual effect on the bit starting at 3:40.
Props for doing it so well. Really nice job on combining practical effects with post-production.
3:55 I don’t think I’ve ever seen a fly be green screened before.
A note on Tape Heads: while it IS possible to use a recording head for playback and vice versa, it will reduce the sound quality doing so. The reason nfor this is that a recording head will have a relatively wide gap between the magnetic poles to ensure that the magnetic field generated by the head will penetrate deeper into the layer of magnetic material on the tape, whereas the playback head should have as narrow a gap as possible to ensure the widest possible frequency range. Hence, a combined record/playback head will be a compromise between these two requirements, and will not give the best possible fidelity, but this option is of course cheaper than having separate heads for recording and playback.
Though the Scully 100 actually made this work ok although the heads had two different windings. John Stephens managed to get his machine’s sync playback to sound pretty much the same between sync/record and play heads. It’s a bit tricky and you need a very strong record amplifier to manage to record on a head nominally wound as a play head. Also, having a separate play head also manages to make it a lot easier to align the tape machine. This is especially true of something like a 16 or 24 track studio machine.
I really liked this video. I always liked technical videos like this, and you explain it in regular English, but not so dumbed down that you're talking down to your audience. Well done.
My dad used to own this Sony TC-366 since the early seventies. I recorded and played a lot of music with it. It was a wonderful machine. My dad got rid of it when it developed problems. Later, in the eighties, I bough myself a Technics RS-1506 that I still have in use today. Also a wonderful piece of mechanical and electronic engineering of outstanding quality. I will keep it as for as long as I live.
Very well done. Bought one of these in Japan at PX in 1971 and have enjoyed many years of service from the machine. Excellent discussion on the inner workings. Thank you.
You are a truly gifted and wonderful teacher, and God bless you.
The capstan flywheel is what I've always equated to being a _"mechanical smoothing capacitor"_ because it smooths out uneven movement and jerkiness, as a smoothing capacitor smooths out ripple and hum.
I thought of the fly wheels on steam engines that serve the same purpose, smoothing out power delivery from the cylinders.
That tape deck was built like a tank, my Dad had one of these exact models around 1973, and it sounded gorgeous, I wish I could still have use of it! Very informative video, thanks.
I've always been impressed with the audio quality these things are capable of. I listened to some of the masters of Pet Sounds on le Tube and it's absolutely incredible how detailed it is, it's like it could have been recorded yesterday.
I own this same model too! Just got a pretty broken one for like $30 and I think it was a pretty good deal. Quite a few mechanical issues to fix but all the electronics seem to be working well!
Very good! I have owned a Sony TC-630 since about 1970. I had a lot of fun using the Sound-On-Sound function. I do still have the machine but it needs a new main pulley belt. You were right on target with your video. Thanks!
Great vid! I’ve been looking for someone to explain all this for a while. So glad for all the free information I needed to fix my machine. Thank you!
A very good job of explaining the workings. I have restored over 125 of these units and could not have done a better job.
Thanks for the upload! I have this SONY TC-266 Tapedeck. Very well explained how these systems work! Greets from The Netherlands Europe!
Excellent job of explaining the workings of open reel tape recorders.
Good job on the video . My parents bought this machine long ago in the seventies when i was a child , more than 50 years now , and i still have it . Thanks to this video i understand fully , for the first time , how it is built and how it works .
Loved your videos for a long time but hadnt gone this far back in your video library. I found a TC-366 in a pawn shop and this video gave me some great info on repairing it, thank you so much!
This has been such an incredibly useful video. Amazing, simple explanation. Thank you.
Wow, excellent information! Thanks!
this is what the internets are about :} thank you so much for the time and effort in producing and sharing this video.
i'm familiar with the cassette players as i've used and fixed a few, but i have never opened a Tape Recorder. really enjoyable video.
ps: i just got a new old Marantz cassette deck. i have no cassettes :}
I have the same machine, got it at a Goodwill. Needed some minor work but still runs like a champ.
Im about to buy one of these and feel i will be watching this video a few more times. Thank you!
I had a Teac 2000M, one of the last (and best) ones made. Bought it new in 1990 and used it to edit a couple of tapes. What a marvelous machine! Just looking at it was a great pleasure. The sound was nothing short of excellent and certainly as good as digital. I miss it.
Wow! "old school"! Excellent video! Keep em coming...
This is such a good review and explanation. Thank you!
You answered ALL MY QUESTIONS....
GREAT JOB!!..
Thanks for video!
My father had rather over-engineered version of reel tape recorder with 3 motors, one for capstan and one for each reel. All three motors are 2-phase AC motors. Reel motors had AC voltage regulators for tension control, while capstan motor had tachogenerator and even more sophisticated circuit to keep speed constant.
Good thing with that one: there were no problems with broken belts cause there were no belts at all! Also, no felts, levers etc.: most of work was given to electronics rather than mechanics.
Cool! I bet that cost a relative fortune though. It almost sounds like a professional grade one. :D
I still have my 3-motor Sony reel recorder. (I forget the model number, and I'm not digging it up now.) The 2 reel motors try to spin in opposite directions to each other, maintaining tension on the tape, and allowing the tape to move in either direction without introducing slack (though it is not bidirectional--3 heads only). The capstan has its own synchronous motor. The capstan can be disengaged, allowing fine tape-positioning movement by manually spinning either reel in either direction, while listening to the recorded signal.
Not over-engineered but just a reasonably designed tape machine not really capable of long term sustained operation without service. The machine depicted is clearly a consumer model tape machine made at an affordable price. As provided from the factory single motor machines like this were capable of very satisfactory results but over time that would deteriorate unless you kept up with tape machine maintenance.
Don't know which recorder your father had, but if it had 3 motors, it was NOT "over-engineered", but rather was a more professional model designed with better performance and longer life, with fewer repairs and maintenance required. The mechanism in the consumer grade Sony shown in this video would not have stood up very well to daily professional wear and tear. I am sure that its performance and specifications are not really all that good either. Those "over-engineers" models are doing it they way that it SHOULD be done, but they cost a lot more to manufacture.
I have had this exact same machine since mid 1975 that I bought used and it was in great shape/low hours, It still plays great.
I used it to record many Brand new Virgin LP vinyl records on High Quality Virgin 7-1/2" Tape so I would have a near master copy of those records for the future. Only the rubber drive belt has had to be replaced once. Thanks for this video.
I've had a TC-366 (or two) for most of the last 40 years.
Great machine, but owners should always keep a spare takeup belt on hand and learn how to change it efficiently.
Other models with the same mechanism include the TC-377 (more features) and TC-388 (more features and fancier cosmetics).
There was also a TC-366/4, the 4-channel version.
Excellent series of videos, thanks. I'm steadily making my way through all your videos and enjoying everyone. Having grown up with most of these technologies I remember them being reasonable quality but prone to breaking down or just degrading in quality with time. Just look at how many moving parts there are in that reel to reel and everyone has to be within spec. I enjoy the mechanical nature of the technology but I'm not sure I'd want to go back to it.
I just picked one of these up. In fact the same model. Thanks for all the info!
I have a tc-366 and I love it. I had to replace the belts and the motor capacitor but besides that it’s a great piece of history.
Thanks I just received the Sony TC366 this helped me out
I love these things bought a sony tapecorder from the 60's it works perfectly without me touching or replacing anything even the belts are still good
Very informative video! Keep up the good work!
Love your vids dude been binging
I'm just here to watch all the great content.
every time I see macro footage of old electronics, I desperately want to take a giant box of cotton swabs, tooth picks and isopropyl alcohol to the board....and I have to talk myself out of tearing about my own stuff to make it clean.
Great video! Now I have to figure out why I have no spinning motor after a simple capstan belt change!
Excellent description thanks
This is a good video. Thank you!
awesome explanation.
i still have sony tc-270 it still works great i bought used back in 1990
I've got a TC-252D and a TC-377, purchased recently at estate sales. Nostalga for me as I used to bounce tracks between similar machines in the 1980s. They are built like tanks, but I have an issue it the 252 record circuit preventing one channel to record. I'm still having fun with them. Long tape delays are the purpose for the two machines.
I repaired my excellent UHER ROYAL Deluxe german made portable studio
broadcast recorder, found it on a second hand shop for a few Euros,
repaired it, recaped it and now it delivers superb vintage studio
broadcast sound, and no I listen to superb sould and jazz music as well
as classic, no junk music: @
When I joined a company called Teletape I was told that Ringo Starr had tried to sue the company when his Sony TC366 broke down and parts were not immediately available.
He should have waited and brought a Sony TC 765. Nice review and explanation though. The supply and take up clutches were always prone to wear on here machines and we always kept some in stock along with some belts.
An other great video!
Thanks!
Enjoy this video very much indeed 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The 3rd head was critical for on the record bias adjustment. Also the reels have a slipping clutch which is allowed to slip at a specific rate that you showed by the lever on left. The take up reel has a fixed slippage as tension isn't as critical to effect tape tension after the capstan pinch roller.
Great stuff!
Well frick, I just got answers to everything I wanted to know about these. Neat
49 seconds in. deck assy' head in the upper left corner pointing at dudes head had me DYIN!
Excellent! Thanks
Very cool!
oh my god. I have always though it was odd that both reels didn't rotate at the same speed, but now that you've said it, it becomes so obvious to me why it doesn't.
this is a cool channel, im not a tech wizard, but i usually try the oddest things with varying gadgets. i came from days of black and white tv with 13 channels than only ran 18 hrs a day, and at the time I was the remote control. i'd hear my name called and thinking someone was interested in me, only to hear "hey change the channel. they thought that was the coolest thing. Mix parts and double up on non known outcomes has always played out in favor of only relying on manufacturers directions that always have warnings about the use of other manufacture products. some crazy things i've found out for sure. but in the 80s from finding things thrown away in the trash, i got reel to reel recorder, and i really had no use for it's recordings but it did some awesome amplifications to normal marantz amplifiers run through some ar15 speakers (if that sounds right,) and some sony cassette player that had a separate playback and recording docks on one machine is what the signal would come from, it'd shake the house. it was the reel to reel that made it all worth while. never settle for what technology limits. supercharge everything. you might get less overall life of it, but when it's running, it's leading the race. i got a military telephone back pack thing, it works but there's not a receiver to send messages to. but it's got this huge crystal thing that plugs in. i'm trying to figure out what to do with it. remember in the early 60s the hearing testers at school? it's have these tones to test your hearing quality, and a bone test to see if it it was connected to something in your head. i have a couple of those too. works like new.
I have 2 Sony TC-105 reel players and they sound great.
on mine the switch connected to the lever you mentioned at the end is broken :(. so i need to hold down the knob on play, if i let go it stops. i ordered a replacent though, you vid was very handy in finding out how it worked!
Brilliant man indeed 😀
Correction:Looking down from top edge of the tape, it is the 2nd and 4th tracks that are recorded for Side A. The 1st and 3rd tracks are for the opposite side and when the tape is inverted, Tracks 1 and 3 become Tracks 2 and 4.
Thanks for the video. Now I believe I know the 2 things I need to look at to figure out why the reels will not stop after stopping fast forward or rewind when I am trying to find a particular spot on the tape. I normally have to just play the tape from beginning to end without using those functions.
There usually is a solenoid that is activated to brake the spool.
5:20 - The constant speed is maintained by the "Capstan"(metal motor-driven) and "Idler Wheel"(rubber, free-spinning). The drive is correctly referred to as "Capstan and Idler Wheel", each piece retains its own name. And several machines, the "capstan" will be a post with removable sheath(held in place by a screw cap) to convert between 50 Hz and 60 Hz power supplies. I know what I'm talking about as I once owned a Sony TC-330 which had open-reel AND cassette in the one unit.
Very cool video. I recently found a graig mr292 for $30 and i was a bit confused and intrested on how these machines work.
I'd love to see a video from you about open-reel video. There are some videos on YT about it but you would give it the definitive treatment, as you do with all your videos.
This asks a question. The 4 and 8 track recorders allowed a person to listen to what he had played and add new material that was in sync with the material being played so it seems that the record and play heads must be reversed so that you hear as or just before you play the added material on another traic
This is a really tactile format, isn't it? I mean, the engineering behind it, how it works, the fact that you have to touch the tape, makes it very different even from a compact cassette. Even though the basic principle is the same. Some time ago, I began thinking about getting a tape recorder. But I think that I probably won't. I had a turntable too, and I kind of liked the fact that that was also a very tactile format. However, the wear on the records, the specks of dust causing pops, the cleaning etc. just makes it cumbersome. Although I do realise I'm sounding very lazy now. :)
Heavier objects have more inertia, tho momentum does work, but usually for things in motion witch is why it does works here, but I don't believe it's the most accurate word you could have used since your explanation explained inertia better than momentum. I know I'm being pedantic about the semantics but this has been the first and only thing so far after binging all of your videos that I have enough knowledge about to correct, so I hope you can excuse me😅🤣🤣💜
Thank you I just bought this very machine... Any part numbers for Main Belts?
Nice Video & Mp3 Song
Nice overview of Sony et mechanics. I Think you erred on one point. The round felt pad lies between the two disks on the take up spindle. The two disks lock together on the supply spindle.
That Sony has the same transport as my TC280 and my TC252, but neither of them are 3-head.
Liking the user manual background thing. But don’t stop your “normal “ background and something new in the shelf
A lot of Sony reel to reel had an unfortunate playback head felt pad arrangement, unlike other brands , other brands had a floating felt pad arrangement,Sony had floaters on the erase and record heads only, this meant that as the felt pad wore, it made for uneven pressure on the head resulting in drop out on one channel, I had this problem with my TC 630 and I saw it on a friends model, I corrected this by redesigning the motion of the pad, mounting it on a pivot just like the action on the erase/record pad system.Unfortunately head wear had occurred on one channel which had a slight effect on playback.
You did not talk about the advantage of having separate motor for each reel. My dad had one of these Sony decks in 70s. I think it was tc-377. This systems works like a vacuum cleaner head rubbying the belt against pullies with friction. He had to replace the belt once a year which is was a pain. In 80s, he bought a TC 765 which had three mottors and completely touch controlled.
Were all reel to reel tapes iron oxide or were there other formulations like the tapes used in compact cassettes???
Не понял совершенно ни хрена, но лайк поставил - обожаю магнитофоны зарубежного производителя.
Incredible technology from the 70's.
I know this is 7 years old, but most auto reverse units would not have 6 heads, but only 4 as they do not have record function in the reverse direction, so it is only 1 extra playback head. The erase and record head would not be duplicated. Some machines use a rotating play head, but this was not common in open real, but was quite common in auto-reverse compact cassette machines.
It's a lot of fun to record a music at certain speed then play them fast or slow... There was a Tom and Jerry episode where Tom was dancing with a female cat and Jerry would mess up his rhythm by speeding up or slowing down the record.
You should have cleaned the pinch roller and the heads you naughty man, but a great video.
Many thanks Mr Teletape.
Yep, and the capstan that you showed had a loose spindle, needs 5mm showing for it to spin on. Superglue.
Just got one! Someone was throwing it out and it is in pristine condition! Anyone got tips for places to buy reels? Or any other tips ofc! Ty for video, now at least I know how it works haha
I had this very tape deck, bought it for CAN$299 at Fairview Electronics in Toronto at 1038 Albion Road. Pete & Geets (Peter Griffin RIP and Dave Haydu) were in the store that day. Geets gave me an autographed copy of their comedy album "ONCE AGAIN", signinf it "Thanks for the spins". I eventually traded up to a model with solenoid switching, a TC640. Holey Underwear! I never saw a transport so DIRTY!
I have a working Truetone reel to reel player, is that anything you'd be interested in for your channel?
I knew you'd have a video on reel to reel. LOL
As we rely more and more on technology AI and social media to help us construct the narratives of our lives and our identities and memories Im really looking forward to the day when I can no longer remember this was an image I downloaded from the internet and not the actual event
very interestingly
I have the Sony TC-377 the next version that offered F&F Ferret & Ferret heads. I need a new capstan clutch and reel clutches and tried all sources available. Do you know where I can order these parts at?
This guys ace
what are those background pictures at the beg. behind you?
i have a 353 or 355 but can't get it to play the tape at an even speed i already replaced the motor run capacitor and belts What do you suggest?
Any idea where I can get a copy of the schematic that is displayed? I'm rebuilding my dad's Sony reel to reel.
EBay has a number of sellers selling parts and manuals. I am one.
What causes a machine to "eat" tapes?
I came across this tc 377 in brand new mint condition. Looks like the one in the video. What type of tape do I use? Where can I buy tape for it. Is there music I can buy for it?
Congrats on your 377, better unit than the 366...tapes available on EBay.
Do video recording machines have different heads than audio machines?
Video recorders use rotational heads mounted on a drum that spins at 1800 RPM.
Question: why was it not possible to make a single tape head with magnets close enough to read all four tracks of a stereo tape? Every auto-reverse system I’ve heard of uses two heads, or else uses an elaborate head flipping mechanism...I’d have thought there would be cost savings in a single fixed four track head? Especially since I know four track recording was being done in the sixties.
Technically it IS possible, but at a cost: by cramming 4 separate heads into the same housing, there's a much greater chance that the magnetic field generated by one head will 'spill over' to adjacent heads, thereby reducing channel separation.
@@BertGrinkAs you said the erase head has to be a separate head otherwise nothing gets recorded on the tape or the quality will badly suffer. Its possible to combine play back and recoded heads into one head like in cassette decks which there isn't much space to put an extra head. It is an advantage to have a separate heads which he discussed in his previous video. Depending on how far the playback and record heads are apart and your recording speed, you can create a feedback and echo loop. Reel-to-reel decks are higher end recording systems. This is Sony deck he's the kind of improved deck over 50s systems. That's why you have separate heads for playing and recording.