I picked up a cheap tele and after getting it home realised the guy had set the bridge saddles insanely high:



This is nuts, right? It feels jammed and the screws at the back are at such an upward angle that I can't seem to turn them. What do I do to unfuck this?

Guess you could pop off the bridge if you really can’t get a purchase on the adjustment screws

Nm, I used needle-nose pliers to slowly turn the legs.

God people are assholes.

andyman wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 10:40 am Nm, I used needle-nose pliers to slowly turn the legs.

God people are assholes.

Probably no fret buzz, at least!

Maybe they were using it for slide?

Dude was a drone synth guy. Shockingly, anything lower than this buzzes, so to the tech it goes..

Planned resurrection of Otari MX5050-mkiii 1/2" 8-track continues.

Ok analog friends/fiends, we're back into the territory that brought a lot of us here. So this is what I'm dealing with currently: Random unexpected volume drops.

I printed about 3 minutes of 1k to fresh tape and throughout and across many tracks, I'm seeing unexpected drop outs when playing those back. I can hear them and they register on playback consistently at the same points. So my play heads seem good but something in the record step is wonky AF. I originally thought this was happening more on the outside heads 1 & 8 because the middle ones seemed more stable on that first pass however repeating it, I saw channels 3 & 4 just completely dip out.

It's not the mixer feed because I'm using the internal oscillator (and also my board generates 1k and the intermittent behavior was the same). I also don't think it's the tape itself because this happens at different points if I erase and go back.

Originally I was thinking the heads are probably cashed (was relapped when purchased years ago), however I'm not familiar enough w/ the symptoms of what to expect from worn out heads. Could this be just a case of dirty trim pots on the back? We did align it at EA after it had been sitting idle for literally 20 years.

Thoughts?

Garth wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 4:10 pm
Ok analog friends/fiends, we're back into the territory that brought a lot of us here. So this is what I'm dealing with currently: Random unexpected volume drops.

Thoughts?

When I had a 5050 MKII 2 Track it did this from time to time.

Kniferide wrote:

Garth wrote: Thu Dec 14, 2023 4:10 pm
Ok analog friends/fiends, we're back into the territory that brought a lot of us here. So this is what I'm dealing with currently: Random unexpected volume drops.

Thoughts?

When I had a 5050 MKII 2 Track it did this from time to time.

Did you ever get to the bottom of it? This thing is a boat anchor if I can't figure it out.

Are the insides to this old Magnavox console salvageable or should the entire thing get trashed? Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!