Back Panel of Reel-to-Reel Tape Recorder

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, I'm Kurt Glaser, chief engineer at KGB Studios in Seattle. We're continuing our series on how to restore a 4-track reel-to-reel. Today we're looking at the back so that you understand some of the pieces in the back. The next session then we'll hopefully be taking apart the back so you can see what the inner workings of this 4-track reel-to-reel are. What we have on the back of the reel-to-reel tape recorder is fairly simple, as you can see here. The first thing we'll take a look at of course is the power cable. I want to make a comment on the power cable right here. The power cable, as you can see is only a 2 prong. I'll put it over on the background here. Is only a 2 prong connector. That's not a real good plan. That was one of the things that almost closed the deal when I bought this deck back in 1976. It said it only had 2. Most reel-to-reel recorders have a 3 prong connector, but I did discover that this little section right here on the back. This guy right here is a grounding pin and you can ground the entire chassis on the deck with this grounding pin. So, that's what I chose, that's another reason I chose the deck besides the cost on the unit of course, which is very competitive at the time. Now the next piece here, is we have these 5-pin, what they call DIN. This is for the front 2 channels. This is for the back 2 channels on this 4 and 2 of the pins are for record and 2 of the pins are for playback. As you might be able to see in the illustration. It's called a DIN connector. It's almost reminiscent of what became the MIDI connector later on. Let's move over to the left. Up on the top here we have Mr. Fuse, where you can twist and take the fuse out. I'll do that right here so you can see it. The fuse is one of the typical type fuses. You can check with an ohm meter to make sure it's working. Obviously if the deck doesn't work right off the bat that would be your first piece to trouble shoot, to find out if it isn't working. And then of course down here we have what they call, unbalanced, RCA, type of connectors for the output here on these four. Front 2, back 2 here and then over on here. We have the input. This is where you want to run from the mixer or some other input source, like a guitar or a synthesizer, you can go RCA out on that device; coming into the RCA in here for the front or for the rear. Interestingly you can record one track at a time, on a 4-track reel-to-reel, or you can record 2, 3, or 4 tracks. These are of course unbalanced and I'll show what the type of connectors I recommend using, which are brass types of RCA."