Tascam DA30 SCMS Defeat

The following is Mike River's response to this age old question (as well as a couple of other related issues). Thanks Mike!

From: Mike Rivers
Subject: DA-30 SCMS Modification
Reply-To: mrivers@d-and-d.com
Date: Tue, 04 Jul 95 14:31:18 GMT KeithJ4937@aol.com writes: >

I have the original Tascam DA-30. I am want to defeat the SCMS. What an appropriate topic for Independence Day!

Remove the cover and locate the digital PC board. Looking at it from the front, this is the large green board to the right of the transport mechanism. Locate the jumper labelled W402 near the left front edge of the digital board. With a small pair of cutters (or a soldering iron if you're skilled, cut or remove the jumper. That's all there is to it. Removing the cover is a test. If you're stumped, that's your sign to take it to a professional repair shop. You don't have to take it to a TASCAM shop to do this modification, just provide these instructions to your local TV repairman, if he'll do the work for you.

Understand that this will not make your DA-30 completely SCMS-free. If you have a tape that's recorded with any SCMS restrictions and you try to copy it digitally to the DA-30, your DA-30 will still obey the code that's on the tape. What this modification does is produce "clean" tapes that are recorded from the analog inputs. It's useful, essential even, for someone using a DA-30 as a mixdown recorder from an analog source, but it might not help you in your copying.

-- I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)