$19 TRASHED Reel to Reel - Guitar Amp or Restoration?
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- Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
- I bought this vintage 1958 Telectro Model 556 Mono reel to reel tape recorder at a vender's mall for $19. The case was pretty well trashed, but inside I knew there lurked a tube amplifier, so I bought it anyway with an eye toward possibly making a guitar amp out of it. But some signs of life from the tape player made me reconsider parting it out. Now I'm thinking I might try to restore it. What to do...what to do...
I stopped watching after 4 minutes as you kept the reel to reel manufacturer a secret and it seemed like a real strip show the way you kept us waiting with a broken mic . A wind up.
Paul Death A reel strip tease. Pinned!
Brad didn't keep us waiting. You can clearly see "telectro" on the front at 1:13.
haha
The Guitologist How can anyone be against a strip show? I think he might have a reel bad attitude. :)
@@HondaWanderer Well my grandma hasn’t complained yet.
I say make a combined guitar amp with integrated tape delay function 😃
I see that a T-rex replicator tape delay pedal alone goes for NoK 8158 😮 with a little work you could make a HEFTY profit my dude
My thought exactly. Amp with a built in bonifide tape delay = THE BOMB!
such cool idea!
Flaming is right, without some serious re-engineering to this thing and the addition of another head and preamp circuit to support the additional head, can't happen. I'm like an electron, seeking the path of least resistance. I think I found it in this case.
Well, that's a bummer
My brother was in Vietnam in 1965. While there he took advantage of low prices while he was on R&R. He shipped home many, many things. The UPS man came to our house almost every day during the summer of 1965. Some big boxes arrived one day. I did my brother a favor by opening them and making certain everything was in good shape after being shipped thousands of miles. I found an AKAI reel to reel tape recorder and two large speakers that had 12" woofers and small tweeters. I had a Fender bass cabinet with a 15" Jensen speaker in it. My amp had blown so I decided to see if I could use the AKAI tape recorder as an amp for practice. I have no idea what the wattage output was on that AKAI, but my Fender Jazz bass sounded great going through the tube amp on the AKAI tape recorder into my Fender bass cabinet. By the time my brother got home from Vietnam, I made certain that AKAI was working well, although I never did play any tapes on it. My brother took it off to his apartment and spent a fortune on reel to reel music tapes to play on it, when lo and behold, 8 tracks came out.
Ironic that 8-tracks would supplant RTR tape, the latter being such a superior technology for home listening.
I loved the Bongo and the squelching!
Thanks. It's my newest piece of performance art entitled "Smell the Eel".
Ah, I thought it was part of "The ever Shrinking Beard" record. ;p
Great title.
Build an amplifier
That ended up sounding reel😎 good.🤘
The missing 18 minutes of Nixon white house tapes?
Avalanche1368 there was some guy on there talking about JFK and Howard Hunt. He never played any music so I threw it away.
Wonder who was the speaker ? Talking about JFK & Howard Hunt that may have been interesting. They were suppose to release the JFK files this year but only a lil bit & most was redacted as far as I can see. Maybe there was some gold on them tapes haha
Did you ever restore the microphone? I just subscribed not long ago so if you did I have not seen it yet. Have a lot of your vids to still discover.Cheers
My first guitar and amp was my dad's 1966 Teisco Del Rey EP10T plugged into a 1966 TEAC A4010S as a preamp which was ran through a 1967 Sansui 1000A stereo receiver containing this tube compliment: 2 x 6CW4, 3 x 6BA6, 1 x 6BE6, 2 x 6AU6, 3 x 6AQ8, 2 x 12AX7, 1 x 12AU7, 1 x 6BL8, 2 x 6AN8, 4 x 7591. The TEAC could be used to overdrive the signal into really thick fuzz. It was also LOUD. One day I pushed it too hard and toasted the majority of the tubes in the Sansui. Dad had the tubes (and something else) replaced and I was back in business.
14:29 "sex with a zombie only 19.95" lol
i just love your channel! & vid's! i thought i was only one who loved old junk! but YOU!! know a shit ton more than i do!!... that's! for! sure!! 😉✌
I would fix it. Some of these reel to reel decks are worth a mint. Probably not this one, but still.
How about a video playing through the finished amp and singing with that mic, that would be cool., love your channel and take care.
do the amp and show us how so we can do it ourselves
Sweet. A touch Bright and glassy. Will have to figure a way to bleed off just a touch of those highs but pretty cool.
This video is 3 years old. A used Amperex Bugle Boy 12AX7 is about $80 right now sometimes listed higher.
Didn't those grommets just get gooey due to chemical deterioration over time, or just because of water damage?
It's possible, I suppose, but they didn't look very old and grommets like this usually get hard and crusty. I think they added some sticky stuff in an attempt to keep them on.
hahaha, yeah, David. Seeing something like that would not shock me.
LUCKY :-\ WOODEN SHOE TUBE LOL CONGRATS BRAD OH the dayz when a tab worked. cat piss 4 me now :-(. roxy is the only thing that works after 25yrs.
@14:27 Sex with a Zombie only $19.95! What the hell internet advertising? ...Good for a laugh.
Keep it a vintage tape machine. You build killer amps all the time!
I was wondering how many would notice that.
Yes and donate your children to the illuminati / guitologist is fucking with you.
L.M.F.A.O!!!..
The Guitologist Great stuff. I was actually playing a golf game on my tablet and happened to look at the tv I was casting to at the right moment. 🤘😎
I was right about to fall asleep when I saw that lol glad someone else noticed!
AMP IT UP !!!! CHEAP MONO SOG RECORDER.........YOU DON'T NEED !!!!! AMP IT UP !!!!
I bought a tanberg R2R for a few bucks , it didnt work mechanically but the electronics was fine so I used for a guitar amplifier.Pluging a guitar into the mic input causes a very nice overload sound.
28:30 Still better than Yoko's singing
I've stepped on cat tails that made better sound than that. I've heard grinding tractor gears that sounded better than that.
That little amp is a great teaching tool. I'm tempted to look for something similar just to play around with and learn how to build/tune a tube amp. I've managed to rebuild a couple just replacing components piece by piece, but I don't yet understand the theory behind it all.
I think it would make a cool guitar amp. Im sure you will make it play and look 100 times better.
I think the amp would be more sellable. There are much better ways to record these days.
My thought too. A little custom guitar amp is worth more than a mono RTR.
Good resurrect for that tube amplifier, good sound. Those shaded pole motors with the extra take of winding to feed the amplifier is not always a true isolation transformer. Often it is a tap of winding at a specific voltage for the amplifier. That voltage could have been perhaps 60 Volts AC. When applying 110 Volts to the amp it caused the series resistors to burn up and tubes glowing like a light bulb. Old tube turntables had similar arrangements as well.
What about building a PWM amp to replace the amp that tape deck and possibly use the tape mechanism as a tape loop reverb, a NE556 half used as the clock the other half used as the Pulse Width Modulator clocked from the first half driving MJ3055 TO3 case transistors driven via a BD131 driver Transistor whose collector connects to the base of the bottom MJ3055 as well as a 10 K resistor to VCC and a 47R resistor from the emitter of the BD131 to GND and the output from the MJ3055 goes through a lopass filter back to emitter resister via a 47K resister, the base of the BD131 gets driven via the second half of the NE556.
I guess you are wondering about the two MJ3055 transistors well a 1K resistor connects between the VCC and the base of the top transistor then to the collector of the bottom transistor via a IN4007 diode and a matching IN4007 connects between the emitter of the top transistor to the collector of the bottom transistor, the emitter of the bottom transistor connects to GND or negative the output to the speaker via a 10,000uf electrolytic connects to the emitter of the top MJ3055 and also connects to the lopass filter that feeds back to emitter of the BD131, I would have attached a diagram but UA-cam doesn't allow you to add attachments into the comments.
The tape mechanism could be repurposed into something like this, but I'd need another head, for one, and I'd still have to figure out how to get that belt on.
No doubt, make an echoplex-ish thang. With the price of effects being as high as they are, you could swap out to some general/generic tubes and make some player or yourself totally psyched. Or... make it an amp or go back to orig. Lol, was that helpful? I feel your pain with this decision. Good luck with your back duder, walking is great back healing therapy
needs another head and complete circuit in order to work as a delay
Fucker came alive .Sweeet.👍🏻🔉🌟🎯
reel to reels have made great preamps,,,wether it's Blackmore's Aiwa he's used for nearly 40 years or the Teac we used to boost my 35 watt per side receiver that blew up the squakers in the 3 way 12's not once but twice.
Should have kept my dad's Webcor reel to reel. mechanics failed but electronics were fine.
I have a couple of Webcors in my RTR stash. One of them is HUGE.
OHH YEEAHH just goes to show these type of recorder have been trashed purely because out of date nothing wrong with them just chucked out. I used to take my recycling to the local council yard and you would be surprised what people throw away there was a guy who used to work there who retired and still went there every morning and there was an unused part like two double garages in size where any electrical items found amongst the junk or had been left out to collect & any brought to the yard he would give them the once over and if ok he'd sell them at ridiculously low price to yard workers or second hand shop and would buy the booze and food for New years party every year for yard workers and family. All out of other people's "Junk" crazy eh and some of it wasn't junk like TV's nothing wrong just bought new, Must be similar places everywhere other country's. Do you have such a place near you !?.
thanks, Gerry. Yeah, people here in Louisville either take their stuff to thrift stores like Salvation Army, Vincent De Paul, or Goodwill, or they wait until heavy trash pickup time and leave it all at the curbside. You can jump in the car or truck and ride around looking for stuff just sitting out on the curb. It's like a city-wide free yard sale!
Many good ideas! What form would bring the most money? If restored, can you sell it? If turned into a low watt guitar amp, would you build a head or combo? Do you have an existing cabinet? Is there more of a market for a guitar amp than an old mono tape recorder? What ever you do, your loyal fans will be thrilled! By the way glad to see another video! Love ya Brad! Thankz
Yep, lots to consider. Sometimes I let emotions and sentiment take over and restore things that really should be parted out or scrapped or converted, but in this case, the decision was made for me.
I've got a sure 55 mic that was my father in law's. He restored it before I inherited it. It sounds nice and warm when mixing a guitar cab. He also left behind several tube amps. I've got a 200 watt stereo instrument amp, probably out of an organ. He serviced them for years at a local music store. I want to see what can be done with it. Are you game?
What kind of amp is it? Got a model number or links to pics?
Wow! That amp with that Victor cab is magical. You are a true electronic alchemist sir. The playing wasn't bad either.
The coil you found was part of the record and bias oscillator. It used the audio output valve (tube!) to form an oscillator when in record mode. Nominally about 30khz, higher in better quality units. This provided bias to the record head and also fed the erase head. In up market units a push pull circuit was used at around 100Khz often around an ECC82. The higher bias frequency gave lower noise and produced less distortion and harmonics.
Michael Beeny thanks for the comment. I knew it had something to do with the bias for the head, but have no idea how it works. I need a schematic to study.
New house, fresh hair cut and shave. Wasn't quite sure I had the correct channel. Great little find just for the tubes. Like the idea of making it into a guitar amp. Thanks for the entertaining vid.
I sometimes go months without a cut or shave. I do it to confuse facial recognition software.
I do the same only because I don’t give a efn hell
Nothing quite like shaving off your beard half through the video:)
charris939 I made a video of that too.
I think this would be kinda cool if you could make it a reel to reel tape machine with a DI input that you can use for guitars. Best compromise ever,
The way this one worked when in record mode, the output tube was driving the record bias and signal, so there was no output when a signal was injected. Would have required a redesign from the ground up.
Rockin'
I vote mini-head :) .. can't waste the raw distortion of that tiny amp on a tape reel!
What style...fantastic look and sound. Watching your demo I just wanted to grab the guitar and have a go!!!! Thanks for these videos. Like many here, I love them even though I don't necessarily understand them.
I go junken and I find some amazing stuff
Thank you sir , keep making cool videos I really enjoy what you are doing
Thank you, Scott.
About 95% of what you do is way above my head but still enjoy each video anyway. ATB
So true I wish I could do what he does
Your videos always impress me is there any tips you could give me for doing some fun little projects like this on my own ? I have a basic understanding of how to work on this stuff (thanks to you and uncle Doug!)
Need some help turning a hot Rod Deville 2x12 into a head anyone done this before?
All you should have to do is have someone build you a head cabinet for the chassis. Keep the original cab the same in case you ever sell it. Then you'll be able to keep your custom head cab for something else.
Sounds like it may have great harmonics, build on it ;)
id do the turn in to amp thing
Illuminati confirmed
guitar amp would be cool
It would be awesome to see you convert an old cassette machine into a tape delay with variable speed. Many people have done this with the Marantz portable cassette I believe.
Every now and then I'll run across a cool tape deck I'll pick up. Maybe I'll venture out into something like this and do a video.
to much peyote ?? Nice job on bringing that tube amp back from the dumpster
No, but for some reason this frog tastes really good right now.
guitar amp for sure.
Hey ! Nice. I was in the same situation. Therefore, I bought 4. I converted 2 into guitar amps, a grundig tk14, and a tk40. I left a tk125 original, because it was still working properly. I should change the power cord for one with ground cable. An the last grundig tk28 is a mess. A very old design, like a puzzle.
I love the vintage sound through the 6x4" built-in speaker.
HEY GUITOLOGIST! 32:30 THAT"S WHAT FENDERS NEW SERIES OF ROAD WORN GUITAR HEADS LOOK LIKE!!!
It's surprising them don't have a series of road worn amps, like with tweed all cigarette burned and cup stained and frayed out...
Id scrap it. I have 4 here still waiting for me to decide the same thing. I killed one that was smashed, got a magic eye and a Mullard ECL82. I have the others that have more in them. If they work and the belts are good I'll restore, if not ... guitar amps. they have transformers for input and output because of the european multivoltage situation so plenty of vintage iron for simple amps.
I feel bad doing videos like this in a way, because I don't really want to encourage a gold rush to disassemble old RTR decks, but it's true, there's gold in them thar hills.
Its rare to see them over here nowadays. I always have my eye open for that stuff. I'm currently working on an old Ferranti radio, 1956 or thereabouts. Just finished the edits and the vid will be on my channel in about 10 mins.
Cool. I've been binging on Radio Rescue's channel the last few days. I'll check out your vid...
Well whatever you do. Dont play an incantation to conjure the Evil Dead.
I buried her in the fruit cellar...
if you could make it a guitar amp with a tape delay function that would be awesome like the guy in the below comments said
Would have been neat, but just not feasible on this model.
I haven't watched the whole thing yet, but answering the question, if i had as much amps as you do, i would probably go with the restoration of a tape machine, because as far as i understand amps aren't going anywhere, but this thing looks like it might be interesting. I'm myself fighting with a tremolo pedal right now for about a week, specifically a buffer gate section which doesn't want to switch transistor properly without polarised caps, and i don't want to have a polarised caps in there, yet with polarised caps (non pun intended) it works perfectly, so maybe i should just proceed with that. What do you think? Obvously you don't know exactly what is going on there, but even some general wisdon might be useful.
Go with what works most reliably and with the least fancy stuff.
nobody will use a reel to reel anymore....we dont even use CDs much
Sadly, I know this is true. I do love the sound of a good reel tape into a nice hi-fi. They can be very low noise and super nice sounding.
Make a Telectro guitar amplifier, custom made and sign it with your name and date and sell it. Any guitar player will be happy to have it.A reel to reel will be a waste of time, I don't think anybody would use it any more.Nice video, thanks.
Strip Show...HaHaHaHa...The Striptologist....Peepi'n and Picki'n !
Just MHO, but I think I've heard you say it yourself in the past...'the world has enough guitar amps'...if you can bring this back, I think that would be a laudable endeavor, and hopefully profitable at some point...
As much as i like R2R machines, it´s always a paine in the arse to change capstan belts on home taping/semiPro machines. It usually needs a close to complete teardown of the machine/drivetrain....
only the top pro machines are some sort of easy an xchange when it comes to beltchanges. Usually you lift the "playdesk" up and the electronics are completely seperated underneath. Instant access to the all the moving parts and all belts without any disassembling...:) change the belt(s) close the desk and here we go again.
Guitar amp please!
guitar amp or ecopplex
Who are the clowns that don't like this? Keep up the great work! Robert
Thanks Robert. Your indignation will surely keep the haters at bay. :D
Bongo Squelch Solo was Aces. Lol
heheh, thanks man. It was certainly a mess of notes.
Yeah it sounded like Kiss's solo spots on Alive 1&2 , I never got Kiss as kid I like Elvis Chuck Berry Fats Domino CCR… later I listen to some Kiss & saw some old shows man were they bad back in the day live… the Kiss live records were anything but live from what I've read & the engineers & producers that spoke of re recording about everything in the studio I think the audience mics were all that were used on those records. Gene's Bass solo well I'd be ashamed of that my self, it sounded like that tape mach going in to oscillation e.g. Gene's Bass solo & the end of Aces solo. I guess to kid in the 70's that was the Bomb. haha
cool stuff!
Ok I stopped watching at 11:04 BUT I will continue to watch till the end a lil later on ........
I thought it was a Shure 56 when I first saw it .......... My cousin owns a radio station here in town and is known world wide...... I have a few vids over there when I was on the air with Todd on the Swamp & Roll Show.... He has an old mic like that and a old vintage TEAC 8 channel studio recorder....
I'll make a vid and post it up and then send you a link.......... Plus Tard Mon Ami ~!~!
When I saw that Victor speaker, I thought that you should be looking for the Kalart/Victor 16 mm projector model 70-15 (15 watt tube amp), or a 70-25 (25 watt tube amp), that was what normally drove those speakers. That would really sound good.
IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE VELVET PANCAKES!
Also, I've played for years, always wondered how amps work. Your videos are I formative and entertaining as well. While I still don't understand the electric magic that's happening, I enjoy the hell out of trying to figure it out.
sounded like the beginning of a Moody Blues album
Interesting... Which part? Only MB intro I remember is that poem from Days of Future Passed.
I had one of those teac units back in the 80’s
guitar amp!
I say take more Lortabs and roll the dice... win win. Then a couple more Lortabs.
haha... chug 'em down with whiskey. Good times.
The Guitologist duh.. you got to chew em up real good first.
You should try the belt material that can be cut to size and then heat fused together. I think that was really the only stopping point at the restoration, the cabinet was rough but very worth restoration. You definitely got a great amp going tho... Sounds great 👍👍 really enjoy your videos !!
Didn't know it existed. My want to restore the RTR was more sentiment than anything. I have about 10 RTRs in storage already.
It comes on a roll of all different diameters. There's a fixture that clamps and holds it also a glorified soldering iron with a flat blade to melt the two ends together. If you do replace belts often it would be a great tool for your shop. Should be available thru Grainger. I'll see if I can find it anywhere else. I'm just north of Louisville. 👍
You need to put up a website on your posts so we can buy this stuff. I would love to get one of your amps
Ty Schmidt if you see something you want, let me know.
I wouldn't bother restoring the reel to reel machine, but I would make it functional again. maybe make it dual purpose so you can put samples on the tape mechanism or use it as a tape delay. I'd definitely restore the model 55 though
guitar amp, lol
Back in the day, Telectro was considered to be an entry-level, bottom-of-the-barrel quality tape recorder. In the didja know
department, you can send Shure microphones back to the manufacturer in Evanston,IL, for rebuild/reconditioning. The
mike you have is a Shure model 55S. An updated version of the 55S is still being made today for those who want a classic microphone look.
Guitar amp!
I always put my magnets in the magnet room. I have to lock myself in there on Fridays and Saturdays ,for I am a babe magnet. owwww (slap my own butt and then snapped) They gave you lor for your back. They dont do that in this state. They barely do that for major surgery. My mom just did knee surg and they gave her Tylenol 3. WTF. Now docs are going too much in the other direction The G.D media did this sh$t.
killkill120 I agree. Real pain needs real drugs. Anything less is cruelty.
Parts man...I don't know could always salvage something from junk I swear.
What about making a guitar amp, and using the tape mechanism as a built-in echoplex style reverb/delay effect with a speed control and mixture pot with bypass?.....That would be better than a reverb tank....And probably sound cooler......Just use an endless loop of tape.
Nice haul off that with the bugle boy, i found a 6dj8(12AT7) a while back and i just scored a hunch of Mullard 12au7 and 12at7 in an old TV dot and bar tester today for $20 :)
I like the "Sex with a Zombie - Only $19.95" advertisement. lol
My Dad had one similar to that reel to reel in which church music was recorded and played back over the PA system..those were the days!! You should have made both the amp and the reel to reel; that would have been awesome.
I have about nine more of these, so I'm sure we'll get another swing at one.
The Guitologist . You should try to make one with the guitar cord output connected to the recording head via switching on the side of the reel to reel case. A three way switch (record, playback and guitar amp) would be cool. If I ever find one of these reel to reel gems, I certainly will try this. Thanks!
Brilliant! Sounds great. I think you did the right thing saved a bit of history and made something useful. Thanks for sharing.
Ever sometimes wish you could go back to when you were like 17 and keep your guitar chops. Remember that guy that was like that? Man.
I'm 20x the player now, even though that's still not saying much. Could you imagine going back with all the knowledge about the opposite sex you've accumulated? Oh wait, never mind.
My guitar chops were shit at 17 as I'd only been playing a couple years..i'm 52 now and play much much better..and improving daily..you should practice more if your not improving
Amp it out. 19 Mins in...too much hassle man. I would make an amp but Im a lazy shit. ;)
The hassle won in the end. I was defeated by the hassle.
With the bad back & moving house nobody needs extra hassle man. Lol. They say moving is one of the most stressful things in life. Cheers big ears. Nice one Brad. ;)
Guitar amp
Guitar amp
Make a 36 channel mixer out of it...
I thought about fashioning a goat's bladder to the top and a torch to the bottom and making a hot reel balloon.
Speakers do make a big difference. I am still hanging on the my home made speakers that I threw together back in 1978. Wow, it has been a long time. Anyhow, they each have of 15 inch woofer, two mid-range, and four tweeters.
Sticky grommets are probably the rubber-band in the penny-jar effect.
Metal having disintegrating effect on rubber through some chemical reaction.
Maybe because it’s something that sounds so familiar but the old 1.5k/820 and 25uf bypass caps always sound good. Usually start there and don’t go far away from it. Getting more and more into pentode preamps have been fun because it’s not so well documented in guitar amps on what works best.
Make a amp
You could use the tape to try and break the world fly casting record of 32 ft, using it as a fly line. I hold that record from 1980 when I was on the US casting team. Just one option!
Here we go Brad does Dubstep haha
Needed a light show. And some E.
Neat
some sort of tape echo guitar amp would be cool.
Would be, but not really feasible on this model.
Wish i had been in this one when it was first posted.
I had a Telectro R-R i found in the trash back in the early 70's. It was a cheaper version of what you have of you can believe that. It was a one speed
I used it to record songs we were going to do in our little HS band. I had one R-R for each guy in the band.
It was a wise decision to not repair the tapepart of that unit as they were pretty crappy when new. I think i see a permanent magnet for the erase head. That's your first clue it was really just made for the average consumer to novelty play around with at home. I'm sure the wow & flutter even when new was horrendous.
Anyway, good thing you got your$20 back out of it cause even as a working reel to reel it is worth less than $20.
To make it a tape delay would have been an interesting idea with built in flutter😂.
Very fun to watch the whole process. Very much enjoy all your efforts and education.