Panasonic RS-760S

My dad brought this recorder back from overseas in 1968 and it really launched me into tape recording in a very serious way. From this recently found paperwork, my dad bought this while he was overseas and sent me the brochure as my Christmas present to let me know I'd receive it upon his return, which I am guessing was sometime in 1968.



It changed how I dealt with recording, after all, it had:

7" reels
stereo
3-speeds
internal speakers
line outputs
line inputs
DIN jack
jacks for external speakers
automatic shutoff
ability to record left and right channels separately

I loved this machine and put it to work right away recording from radio and television, copying vinyl, and even other tapes (8-tracks and reels.) It became the "music machine" for many of our teen-age get-togethers where I provided the music from the many mix tapes I would build. Sometimes we would put on dances and hire a local band. I would take my recorder to a band practice so I would have an audition tape of sorts. I still have the recording of one of those bands, The Knightbridge Peddlers. The two songs are playable below.

As I got into collecting old time radio shows this recorder was a great asset to my limited budget for blank tape as I could record the left and right channels separately and use the lower speed of 1-7/8 i.p.s. Yes, that does reduce the sound quality but that was not really a concern of mine back in those days. When KPPC ran a 24-hour old time radio marathon in about 1971, I recorded most of it, using reels of 3600', flipping reels over every 6 hours. Those were the days. A few samples of those recording are found below.

I used this machine for EVERYTHING. As I mentioned on the main page of this site, I even used it as the electronic end of an 8-track recorder. Not having an actual 8-track recorder didn't stop me from making my own 8-track tapes. After all, I had an 8-track player to provide the mechanical transport and I had a reel-to-reel that did have the electronic recording function so why not marry them together? Yes, I de-soldered the wires from the head of this Panasonic and connected those wires up to the head on my Muntz 4/8-track. Easy, right? Hey, it worked and I still have a box full of those tapes that I made using this method and they sound pretty good, considering.

I went into the army at the end of 1972 and left all my gear behind. Once I got settled into a not-so-permanent duty station on the East Coast I sent for my recorder and tapes. It was like having a little bit of home when I was far away. I didn't do any recording but surely listened to the many hours of tapes I had made. I dug through my photo albums and this was the only picture I found of it taken when I was in New Jersey. I am into photography and was doing a time lapse to get a blur shot of the reels spinning.

The Panasonic RS-760S Today


Click on an image to enlarge it.

Sample recordings made on this machine

Cousin Zino, AKA Harvey Tow, from KPPC, 1971

Recorded during the Old Time Radio Marathon

Click to play(1:11)

Cousin Zino, AKA Harvey Tow, from KPPC, 1971

He backannounces the Jack Armstrong Show

Click to play (1:11)

The Jack Armstrong Show

Recorded during the KPPC Old Time Radio Marathon

Click to play(13:26)

The Knightbridge Peddlers perform "Don't You Care" from about 1970

Click to play(4:30)

The Knightbridge Peddlers perform "Badge" from about 1970

Click to play(5:00)

 

Updated December 2020.