Platter problem Hi im having trouble with one of my turntables, last night while i was mixing i noticed that the pitch adjustment light was staying on even though I moved the slider up and down it didnt stay as bright as in the zero point but faded a little, then all of a sudden  my platter started going crazy i moved the slider up & down and the platter stuck then went backwards & forwards & it's been the same ever since. Can anybody help me out at all?

This could be the result of pitch adjustments gone awry. Also, you may have both the 45 and 33 1/3 buttons pushed down which cause it run at 78. Here are a few trouble shooting tips and you can find the full manual for the TT at the link posted below:

Record sounds too fast or too slow. 1.) Turntable is set for wrong speed. Make proper speed selection for record type being played with platter speed buttons. 2.) Variable pitch is engaged. Depress quartz button or return pitch adjust slider to center detent position to engage quartz lock. Moving pitch adjust slider produces no effect. If the LED next to the pitch adjust slider center detent position remains green when the slider is moved, quartz lock is engaged. Depress the quartz button to disengage the quartz lock and activate variable pitch. The LED should turn RED

There's a variable resistor with the name pitch besides it... first clean it and then you put your pitch fader in the middle and turn it with a screw driver, put your platter on the unit, the plastic black plate you only have to unscrew and take off , nothing else., but like i said , but the platter on it and watch the strobe lights. Determine first which way you have to screw, it's just whole the time :taking of platter and turn screw a bit(don't forget to take of the electricity when you remove the platter), put it on and do that until the strobe stays steady.
greetings richard

Try spraying the slider with Servisol Video 40.

how do you know theres power to the unit if theirs no strobe light pitch adjuster light & the platter doesn't spin?
the power comes in & to the transformer first,then through the strobe switch, the transformer is what blows when you short the target light out.....i've seen this many a time when people try & change the target lights to blue neon.

lift the platter and check the belt is on correctly. [email protected]

You should be fine with this. Here is the spec:

Quartz lock large blue LCD display showing: speed, pitch & platter direction, locking platter reverse button, located in battle position, 3-speed design: 33, 45 & 78 RPM, 7 grams of anti-skate adjustment, adjustable pitch control+= 10 & pitch bend buttons, locking reverse button, hi-tech tone arm with height adjustment, feather-touch start/ stop control, strobe illuminator, pop-up target light, headshell, slipmat and dustcover included . 115V/230V switchable. 17.75"w x 6"h x 14"d. Weight:27lbs.

You need to calibrate your pitch control. This requires a small precision screwdriver (similar to something you would repair eye glasses with). If you look under the turntable where the pitch control is you will find 2 small holes, 1 marked 33 and 1 marked 45. Turn the turntable on and set the pitch control lever to zero pitch. While the turntable is spinning insert the screw driver into the pitch calibration hole under the turntable and twist the potentiometer back and forth until the turntable pitch is zero (I believe clockwise is faster, counterclockwise is slower as you look up from the bottom of the turntable). This is a fine tune adjustment and will not require much turning to adjust the speed (1 or 2 mm's) either way should start to bring you into zero pitch. The platter speed can be verified by the little dots on the rim of the platter. They should appear stationary in strobe light on the power switch when you are at zero pitch. When you are adjusting the speed you will observe the dots on the platter rim spinning clockwise and then counterclockwise as you adjust the fine tuning. Fine tune the speed until the dots appear stationary and you will be back to zero pitch. You have to adjust the turntable at both speeds 33 and 45 using the correct fine tuning hole under the turntable. My personal experience is it is easiest to do this with 2 people. 1 person to hold the turntable level and running, while the other adjusts the fine tuning. Hope this helps.

Hi, first thing you need to do is check your strobe lights , if you look near your power on/off you should notice a little guide with +6 0 -3.33 etc, set your pitch to 0 for instanceand watch the platter by the light on the on off switch, the big dots on the plater should stay stationary whilst the smaller dots above it and below it move around it, if the big dots don't stay still it may well be a problem with your pitch control,, these arent too hard to replace and arent that expensive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRE6LvWrhbs
Is difficult for me to say without looking at them
But if it seems like your decks are holding pitch then it might be somthing more complicated and you might need to take it to your local technics repair centre, you can find this by typing in the name of your town / city and technics service/repair
Bare in mind that you can get a kind of warble when you leave the pitch fader really close to zero but not quite on zero and it wil flicker between 0 and +1
A useful resource is http://www.turntabletech.com/ have done a few services myself of info off this site
last thing dont get ripped off by the service centre, i.e paying £300 to repair a technics probs aint worth it when you could buy a refurb one for less.
Good luck

Not a pitch issue. This is a drive issue. The drive circuits are located underneath the turntable platter, on the main PCB. They usually go bad, more recently then before, unfortunately.

Not an easy fix, but not an expensive fix either, as the components are relatively cheap. It is time consuming, and if you have someone work on it who doesn't know what they are doing, could run up a nice tab on the repair. So be careful where you take it to. Ask them if they've worked on Drive Issues on 1200s before. If they look at you like, huh? STAY AWAY.

- Davis
DIGITAL ANALOG THERAPY
www.repairnyc.com
www.1200s.com

sounds like the pitch needs replacing or tighting. Get them serviced. Ask your equipment supplier shop. Good way to check the decks are in sync is to place the pitch on each marked seting ie 0 / 2/ 4/etc making sure both decks are set to the same pitch adjustment speed. Look at the light from the on/off switch and check the 4x circles on the deck platter and make sure they are the same as each other. If you never used this before. set your eyes and pay attention, you will notice the pattern. I mix this way to get tunes roughly in time without listerning to the track - DJ EZ helped me with this years ago. peace DJ Nyce