I just got one for 100 bucks!!!!! And I have a few questions. Does anyone have the manual that they can send me? I have no idea how to use it. And someone told me I have to reverse the ring and tip wires of the xlr cables I plug into the back? What's that mean?! If anyone knows about these, please help a guy out, he really needs it!

antispatula wrote:I just got one for 100 bucks!!!!! And I have a few questions. Does anyone have the manual that they can send me? I have no idea how to use it. And someone told me I have to reverse the ring and tip wires of the xlr cables I plug into the back? What's that mean?! If anyone knows about these, please help a guy out, he really needs it!

That's a hell of a deal, even if it's just for parts... Nice going!

The MX-5050 is "pin 3 hot", which means the positive signal travels on pin 3. Most gear these days is pin 2 hot. On the tape machine end of the snake/cables solder the pin 2 lead to pin3 (and 3 to 2) on the XLR connector so that your positive signal is remaining positive to and from the tape machine.

antispatula wrote:Does anyone have the manual that they can send me?

Here and here are two Otari MX-5050 manuals on the bay. Not too much $$$, either.

I dont know if either one is your model of 5050 (I know they made (make?) 2-tracks under the same model number; I dont know what all the name variations mean), but the second one (the real one, not the pdf) looks very much like the one that came with my Otari, so maybe youre in luck. Still, you should probably ask the sellers to be sure.

KrisPoulin wrote:

antispatula wrote:I just got one for 100 bucks!!!!! And I have a few questions. Does anyone have the manual that they can send me? I have no idea how to use it. And someone told me I have to reverse the ring and tip wires of the xlr cables I plug into the back? What's that mean?! If anyone knows about these, please help a guy out, he really needs it!

That's a hell of a deal, even if it's just for parts... Nice going!

The MX-5050 is "pin 3 hot", which means the positive signal travels on pin 3. Most gear these days is pin 2 hot. On the tape machine end of the snake/cables solder the pin 2 lead to pin3 (and 3 to 2) on the XLR connector so that your positive signal is remaining positive to and from the tape machine.

hey! Thanks, yeah, it was an increaible deal, even though I nearly killed myself a trillion times in my car (I had to pick it up in the heart of SF, never driving there before, and being a new driver......)

Oh! I get it! Thats more simple than I thought, thanks!

Though I am no expert on mixing boards would his problem with the reverse wireing be solved if he was using a mixer with phase switches. I would think that he could reverse the phase switches and save having to make his own rewired XLR cables.

Unscrew the plate on the back that holds the XLRs and rewire it inside the machine. If you ever need to use the machine anywhere but your own place with your own equipment it'll make your life a lot easier. Its only one wire to change on each connector (the ins and outs are actually unbalanced), takes about half an hour at most.

Also MX-5050 MkIII-8 related - I'm going to get a new test tape for mine soon from MRL. I've previously used a (borrowed) tape with NAB EQ, and I believed this to be the EQ that the machine is designed to use, but I've never had a manual for it. The MRL website seems to indicate that I should get a CCIR tape. I've never thought the noise performance of the machine was that great, could this be why? If the machine IS supposed to be used with NAB EQ, is there anything I can do to change it to CCIR for better noise? Swapping components on the cards?

Did you get a snake (group of cables) with the otari? The cables are probably already set-up right. If not, it may be time to learn how to solder, if you don't already know how, or have someone do it for you. But, before you do that, make sure you know which pin is hot on your board inputs and outputs. If the board is pin 3 hot also, you have nothing to worry about. Check the mixer's manual. If it's pin 2 hot than you need to make some cables. It's really not a big deal. You'll need 8 cables going in and 8 going out.

endofanera wrote:

antispatula wrote:Does anyone have the manual that they can send me?

Here and here are two Otari MX-5050 manuals on the bay. Not too much $$$, either.

I dont know if either one is your model of 5050 (I know they made (make?) 2-tracks under the same model number; I dont know what all the name variations mean), but the second one (the real one, not the pdf) looks very much like the one that came with my Otari, so maybe youre in luck. Still, you should probably ask the sellers to be sure.

The 5050 designation is teh main transport, and various headstacks were available.

Zenarchist wrote:The 5050 designation is teh main transport, and various headstacks were available.

Thank you for clearing that up for me.