Tascam AQ-65
A twelve-pin cable runs from the locator to the tape deck, and the transport obeys a numeric keypad instead of your wrist.
Overview
The AQ-65 is not a recorder, a mixer, or anything that passes audio. It is a programmable multipoint autolocator - a box that sits on the console meter bridge and tells a tape machine where to go. Tascam's own documentation calls it a programmable multipoint locator that allows computer-precision transport control from a distance. Ten digit keys let an engineer write cue times directly into memory. Pre-roll is programmable and runs up to 19 seconds. A two-point repeat cycles the transport between a TAPE TIME point and a LOCATE TIME point, which is the loop you want when you're punching the same bar over and over at two in the morning.
The unit belongs to the Studio 8 ecosystem. Tascam's manual for that machine describes the AQ-65 as the optional multifunction Auto Locater/Tape Transport Controller that plugs into the Studio 8's Accessory jack. That jack is a 38-pin connector, the deck's gateway to synchronization and computer transport control. Paired with the Studio 8, the AQ-65 gives you ten-point memory, programmable duration pre-roll, two-point repeat, and a complete duplication of every transport control function on the recorder. It doesn't just locate. It fully mirrors REW, F.FWD, STOP, PLAY, and REC, so the deck's own transport buttons become optional.
The two control paths are easy to confuse, so here they are apart. The Studio 8's separate twelve-pin REMOTE connector accepts the RC-71 Remote Control Unit and handles basic transport from up to 5 meters - sixteen feet - away. That's a remote, not a locator. The AQ-65 lives on the 38-pin Accessory jack, and that jack is shared. The same connector accepts SMPTE/EBU controllers and synchronizers from Adams Smith, Audio Kinetics, Timeline, Cypher, Convergence, ISC, Videomedia, and others. Tascam's manual is explicit that the AQ-65 is one option among several for that port, not the only one.
The Studio 8 documentation carries one caveat: optional equipment often changes the operating procedures required for basic tasks. The manual's advice is to learn how the AQ-65 works during downtime rather than under pressure with the tape rolling. Owners who treat the locator as plug-and-play tend to discover otherwise.
The trade press shows the locator in real rooms. A studio listing in Mix-Magazine (March 1986, p.141) inventories a Tascam AQ-65 alongside an Otari MX5050 and a Studer B-67 in a working control room. The same magazine, in a November 1985 issue (p.94), noted that the AQ-65 matches the autolocator to the ballistics of the particular tape machine in use. It also identified the 38-pin SMPTE connector as the interface that can link an MS-16 to the optional AQ-65. The locator has to understand how the deck starts, stops, and coasts, or the locate points mean nothing.
The available documentation gives no manufacturer-published price, production run, or specification set - no dimensions, no weight, no power figures. What survives is the functional description from the Studio 8 manual and passing mentions in studio gear inventories. Anyone shopping for one is buying on reputation and compatibility rather than a spec sheet.
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