What do you think about the overall sound quality of this Fostex? Have one, love one but I haven't tried any other 4-track. I'll restore two Fostex 460 in the near future, can't wait to hear those too!
It's equivalent to Tascam and yamaha stuff so long as the tape speed is the same. Same electronic topology and opamps in all these things more or less. Dolby C is noisier than DBX, but the high end is better. Choose your poison!
I've never seen one on the wild. In fact, I didn't know they existed until last week...I found the service manual on reddit by accident when I was searching for the 260 sm, which was eventually provided to me by fostex customer support. Fostex are definitely better in this respect; I've opened half a dozen support tickets with Tascam and never had a response, whereas Fostex have always supplied me with the information I asked for in a couple of working days. 460 looks like a 246 on PCP ...Nice!
@@Tetrakan Can back that! I couldn't find the service manual for the Fostex 460 and it's PSU and they've sent one over in a couple of hours, with a nice message. The only annoying thing with the 460 is the rather odd external PSU with a very 90s joystick-style plug. I had to buy a complete non-working machine with that big black brick, so I can clone it for the one I had before without it. At least I have two now.
Love your videos (Fostex 260 and Tascam 246 here). I just cleaned up and replaced the belt on both recorders based on your videos - that you for the terrific explanations. I do have one question: My tape counter doesn't seem to want to start 90% of the time. It displays, and it resets, and sometimes it advances as it should. But the vast majority of the time is stays at or near 0000. What do I need to check or replace to make this work again? Thanks in advance for ay advice you or your viewers can provide. K
Sorry for the late reply....I just repaired one of these where the solenoid, which engages play mode, was rusty. The symptoms were similar to what you describe. I left the core to seep in white vinegar overnight, and the rust came off with fine grit wet dry sandpaper. Now the transport works fine.
@@Tetrakan Thanks so much - the Fostex is at the shop now because try as I might, I couldn't signal trace other than to figure the rec/pb signal was getting to the LED meters, but wasn't getting through the input PCB for one channel. I'll get at the solenoid when I have it back in hand. Thanks again so much for your generosity sharing what your experience and knowledge with us.
Do you think its possible to mod the transports of two Fostex 260's to run off of one motor? The question may be a bit far-fetched, but I figured this would be a good place to ask.
Not completely impossible. I mean, if my hypothetical nemesis locked me in a dungeon/workshop escape room, with infinite time tools and parts like a multitracker themed purgatory edition of the TV show scrapheap challenge I could probably cobble something together. Doesn't seem very practical tbh.
@@Tetrakan That was a beautiful reply. I love the sound my Fostex gives me, but there's no way to make a stereo recording with it if I'm bouncing tracks. It would be nice to essentially have two cassettes perfectly synced by one motor to retain quality and gain four extra tracks.
@afarfryproductions822 if your arrangements are too complex for 4 tracks really you'd need to get a Tascam or Yamaha 8 track. The DBX noise reduction behaves differently, and in most people's opinion, including mine, sounds slightly worse. Or go to reel to reel. There are also sync to midi for hybrid DAW / cassette solutions to explore but I'm not very knowledgeable about those because they seem like a headache, so I've avoided them so far.
@Tetrakan I've got a Tascam 488, and the sound on that is pretty thin. The reel to reels are nice, but they just don't have that nice tape compression that the Fostex 260 slaps on my drums and vocals. I'll likely just move up to reel to reels and cut my losses.
I'd have to check the anatomy of that cassette player by referring to my own video, it's not a model I've worked on often and i dont have access to youtube videis here at my dayjob...but here is an educated guess. The clicking you are hearing is probably a solenoid, which means a system of shift arms is being used to transfer power from the capstan motor to the gears which raise and lower the head, but its not catching. That could mean one of the belts ( there would be more than one belt if the design uses solenoids) is loose, or hard grease on the gears (remove with isopropyl, replace with silicone grease) or there is something misaligned with the way the mechanism - spring or plastic part in the wrong place, or some part is actually broken or missing. You'd really need to open it and take a look.
You probably need to solder that fader, pry it open and deep clean it. If access to that board isn't shown in this video (I published this a long time after filming it, so I can't remember, sorry) then It will definitely be shown in the third part of this series, which I am due to publish this coming Wednesday. Here's a video I made doign the deep clean on Tascam 244 faders, the process will be similar enough in your Fostex 260, good luck th-cam.com/video/8XT01jWUzRU/w-d-xo.html
What do you think about the overall sound quality of this Fostex? Have one, love one but I haven't tried any other 4-track. I'll restore two Fostex 460 in the near future, can't wait to hear those too!
It's equivalent to Tascam and yamaha stuff so long as the tape speed is the same. Same electronic topology and opamps in all these things more or less. Dolby C is noisier than DBX, but the high end is better. Choose your poison!
@@Tetrakan good to know! Both could do 9.5cm/sec, 460 has a half speed option too.
I've never seen one on the wild. In fact, I didn't know they existed until last week...I found the service manual on reddit by accident when I was searching for the 260 sm, which was eventually provided to me by fostex customer support. Fostex are definitely better in this respect; I've opened half a dozen support tickets with Tascam and never had a response, whereas Fostex have always supplied me with the information I asked for in a couple of working days. 460 looks like a 246 on PCP ...Nice!
@@Tetrakan Can back that! I couldn't find the service manual for the Fostex 460 and it's PSU and they've sent one over in a couple of hours, with a nice message. The only annoying thing with the 460 is the rather odd external PSU with a very 90s joystick-style plug. I had to buy a complete non-working machine with that big black brick, so I can clone it for the one I had before without it. At least I have two now.
Love your videos (Fostex 260 and Tascam 246 here). I just cleaned up and replaced the belt on both recorders based on your videos - that you for the terrific explanations.
I do have one question: My tape counter doesn't seem to want to start 90% of the time. It displays, and it resets, and sometimes it advances as it should. But the vast majority of the time is stays at or near 0000. What do I need to check or replace to make this work again? Thanks in advance for ay advice you or your viewers can provide. K
Sorry for the late reply....I just repaired one of these where the solenoid, which engages play mode, was rusty. The symptoms were similar to what you describe. I left the core to seep in white vinegar overnight, and the rust came off with fine grit wet dry sandpaper. Now the transport works fine.
@@Tetrakan Thanks so much - the Fostex is at the shop now because try as I might, I couldn't signal trace other than to figure the rec/pb signal was getting to the LED meters, but wasn't getting through the input PCB for one channel. I'll get at the solenoid when I have it back in hand. Thanks again so much for your generosity sharing what your experience and knowledge with us.
Hey, Tetrakan: love your videos as you know. Are you planning on doing one on the Fostex 460? Looks like a hell of a machine.
Thanks. Yeah I intend to cover the whole Fostex back catalogue eventually, when exactly I can't be sure though.
Do you think its possible to mod the transports of two Fostex 260's to run off of one motor? The question may be a bit far-fetched, but I figured this would be a good place to ask.
Not completely impossible. I mean, if my hypothetical nemesis locked me in a dungeon/workshop escape room, with infinite time tools and parts like a multitracker themed purgatory edition of the TV show scrapheap challenge I could probably cobble something together. Doesn't seem very practical tbh.
@@Tetrakan That was a beautiful reply. I love the sound my Fostex gives me, but there's no way to make a stereo recording with it if I'm bouncing tracks. It would be nice to essentially have two cassettes perfectly synced by one motor to retain quality and gain four extra tracks.
@afarfryproductions822 if your arrangements are too complex for 4 tracks really you'd need to get a Tascam or Yamaha 8 track. The DBX noise reduction behaves differently, and in most people's opinion, including mine, sounds slightly worse. Or go to reel to reel. There are also sync to midi for hybrid DAW / cassette solutions to explore but I'm not very knowledgeable about those because they seem like a headache, so I've avoided them so far.
@Tetrakan I've got a Tascam 488, and the sound on that is pretty thin. The reel to reels are nice, but they just don't have that nice tape compression that the Fostex 260 slaps on my drums and vocals. I'll likely just move up to reel to reels and cut my losses.
I picked up one NOS working for 13$! i had the belt replaced yet the VU meter on one track does not read fully.
I have one now and the tape heads won't move and make a single clicking sound. I opened it up and belt is still in good shape. Any advice?
I'd have to check the anatomy of that cassette player by referring to my own video, it's not a model I've worked on often and i dont have access to youtube videis here at my dayjob...but here is an educated guess. The clicking you are hearing is probably a solenoid, which means a system of shift arms is being used to transfer power from the capstan motor to the gears which raise and lower the head, but its not catching. That could mean one of the belts ( there would be more than one belt if the design uses solenoids) is loose, or hard grease on the gears (remove with isopropyl, replace with silicone grease) or there is something misaligned with the way the mechanism - spring or plastic part in the wrong place, or some part is actually broken or missing. You'd really need to open it and take a look.
My channel 2 is on full blast and won’t come down , how do I get to that and fix it?
Same man!
@@whiteshedrecordings dude if you find a fix pls hit me up man, you on Instagram?
@@goonknox Sure thing! @apoorlywrittenstory
@@whiteshedrecordings awesome, done ,
Ps I’m dawless too
Add me up @goonknox
You probably need to solder that fader, pry it open and deep clean it. If access to that board isn't shown in this video (I published this a long time after filming it, so I can't remember, sorry) then It will definitely be shown in the third part of this series, which I am due to publish this coming Wednesday. Here's a video I made doign the deep clean on Tascam 244 faders, the process will be similar enough in your Fostex 260, good luck th-cam.com/video/8XT01jWUzRU/w-d-xo.html