Technics 1210 (1200) question.

Hi all,

recently been going through some serious RGAS, was fed up of only using midi controllers having gone from mixtrack pro to twitch and now onto a full blown DVS set up.

anyways, Bought some 1210's locally of some guy got a decent pirce £400 in physically near mint condition and with ortofons carts and needles. recently discovered a problem. the nti skate on one of the decks doesn't work atall.

For example i float the tonearm then change the anti skate from 0-3 and it doesnt budge, but with the other deck it works beutifully. Is this a serious problem or will it still be usable untill i can afford the dollar for a whole new tonearm assembly ?

would try and test it but havnt got round to getting a soundcard yet.

any advice ?

(sorry for the ridiculously long post)

Get a record and test it. You don't need a soundcard.

The only records i have atm are badly warped 7" 45's , cant really test scratching and such with these :P

You can test the anti-skate without scratching. Just put the record on, and let it play from start to finish. If it plays through, it's likely that if there is any damage, it's only minor, and a service might just sort it....

few things to look for....take the silver plate off the bottom of tonearm assembly then:

(1) move anti-skate knob with it upside down...you should see a thin silver wire move when you are adjusting the anti-skate... when on 3+ the wire should be against the tonearm post....this is what holds it in tonearm-rest position when doing the test

(2) move anti-skate setting back to 0...wire should go back out of site...this is when the tonearm should float across record

if you don't see that wire or if it's on the wrong side of post you need to take tonearm our and re-position it, sometimes tonearms are put in incorrectly by people that have no idea what they are doing

i'll take a pic later and post to explain better

if the above is correct then the screws that pivot the tonearm need to be adjusted which is a bitch, b/c sometimes they will not budge...that needs to be done by a pro...sometimes its easier to pay $50 and replace the tone-arm but without making sure it's installed correctly you will have the same problem

I own a pair of straight arm tt's myself (no anti skate) but I was under the impression that most people turn the anti skate to 0 when DJing (back cueing or scratching) so a shot anti skate wouldn't be that big of a deal? (Obviously it would be good to get it fixed though for resell value or ripping vinyl)

there are a lot of other factors in setting a 1200 up for scratching...tonearm height, anti-skate, cart position, etc... i always have my anti-skate set on the highest setting

thanks for all the repsonses,

went to a local record shop and bought a fair few Dnb recrods and after having a few mixes and whatnot it doesnt seem to be causeing any issues, so it's most probably better if i just leave it for the time bieng :)

If it ain't broke, and all that...

If you're going to be doing a lot of cueing and scratching, it's best to leave the anti-skate off, anyway. Anti-skate is there to ensure that the stylus fits nicely in the groove of the record when it plays in its ordinary clockwise direction. Lots of cueing and general anti-clockwise movement of the record = anti-skate more harm than good. Anti-skate I find is generally a feature aimed more at the 'record listener' consumer who wants top-possible sound reproduction.