Recording to DAT-- your experience?

[jaguarundi]

I'm about to record a simple acoustic album--voice and guitar. i've decided to record the tracks simply analog from my mic preamp to the DAT player. 2 channels, so one track is on the R and the other on the L.

Then later go and dump ther good takes into my DAW.

I'm wondering if there's any blatant red flags about doing this I haven't thought of (i'm doing it on location away from my main studio).

Or if anyone's had positive experience with this.

I also figure it's a nice way to have hard backups afterwards of the orginals.

comments?

thanks,
Adam

[jc]

DAT!

[djdrake13]

It is a nice way to have hard backups.

The negative is how good are the A/D's on the DAT. That might be a consideration.. gettin some good A/D's. ya heard!! holla!

[JGriffin]

I've done it a bunch and it works fine. Have fun!

[bloodstone]

I used to mix everything to DAT or outboard CD-R. Then I got the bright idea that I'd get better results mixing to PC via a PCI sound card @24 bit. Guess what? So far, nothing I've done to PC can stand up to what I mixed previously to DAT or CD-R 16 bit. You'll be fine. My only advice is to leave maybe 1dB of headroom on the DAT tapes. That will give you some flexibility if you need to tinker with the wave files once they get to computer.

[joel hamilton]

I STILL use DAT as the redundant backup for mixes going to analog 2 track.
We use a panasonic 3800. I mixed a bunch of records to 1/2" that we actually wound up choosing the DAT for production! That was in the days when we would mix to DAT,1/2", and MAYBE SoundTools at the same time.
There is certainly something about the sound of DAT that kind of rocks sometimes. They have a sound, for sure. Regardless of the stats (16 bit) I like it sometimes. I do have a 20 bit ADAT kicking aound that I will mix to sometimes as a backup format, and it has sounded great as well (at 48k).

Go for it! Why not? Why not print to everything you got and compare?

[Rigsby]

I'm still with DAT for anything i consider worth doing a proper mix of, i'm not entirely into digital (though that's mostly what i have) but i like the sound of my DA20, i think it's good digital. Mostly i'll mix to CD-R when i'm just doing rough mixes for playing on other systems etc. Recently i've gone back to using DAT more for recording, especially improvising over ideas i've previously put together on the mac and have really liked the results, good clean fun. I don't forsee any issues as long as the signal to your DAWs worth it's weight.

[percussion boy]

The thing they told us at school, and you may know this already, is to record 30 seconds of silence at the beginning of a DAT tape -- apparently that's the most error-prone part.

Dunno if this is scientifically correct, but thought I'd pass it on. YMMV.


[edited for clarity]

[Rigsby]

The thing they told us at school, and you may know this already, is to skip the first 30 seconds of the DAT tape -- apparently that's the most error-prone part.

Dunno if this is scientifically correct, but thought I'd pass it on. YMMV.

It's the same on any tape i believe, beginnings and endings are most prone to dropouts etc.

[bloodstone]

I also thought the reason for the space at the beginning (I usually use a full 60 seconds) was in case the tape broke at the spool, it could be repaired.

[jaguarundi]

great. it sounds like your experiences are generally good. that's encouraging.

i've just gotten a little burnt out on the "all digital straight into computer" thing. it's just so....robotic. i like pushing tape buttons. it seemed like an acoustic album would be a good oppurtunity to revert.

thanks very much and happy holidays!

Adam

[AGCurry]

[quote="i've just gotten a little burnt out on the "all digital straight into computer" thing. it's just so....robotic. i like pushing tape buttons. it seemed like an acoustic album would be a good oppurtunity to revert."quote]

Well, DAT is no less digital than "straight into the computer." Not knocking it, but there shouldn't really be any difference due to the two different media. There may be difference in sound due to the conversion processes.

[joelpatterson]

There's one thing that DATs have which can't be discounted-- I may sound stupid saying this, but I always felt like my DAT machines were really, earnestly, pulling for me, you know? Such tiny little tape, such microscopic tolerances, and yet, with the heart of a faithful sidekick, struggling and coming through, you know?

But then the flip side is, evetually the machine will break down, even its brave heart is not enough to save it from someday failing. Its ambitions were just too huge, you know? That's why I treat my surviving porta-dat like a creaky old grandparent, I work it slow and easy when I have to. Bless 'em.

[bloodstone]

One thing about DATS. I had read on some forum that they can start to degrade in as little as 7 seven years. I never believed it, but now some of my DATs that are newer than that are starting to show signs: little brief "drop outs" and occasionally little digital noises appear when I play some of my tapes. I've started a program of archiving all the stuff on PC and backing it all up to DVD-R (which is supposedly reliable for about 100 years if kept in a climate controlled environment).

[Mark Alan Miller]

DAT tape can deteriorate, but so far, I've had very few problems.(I am expecting this to be a problem in the future, though..!)
More likely, is trouble playing back the tape on a machine that doesn't have its alignment within the same tolerances as the one that recorded the tape in the first place. (I've had to play some client DATs back on my Denon portable, turning it upside down to get it to track properly!)

The comment about mixing into the computer being worse that mixing to DAT can clearly be attributed to lesser A/D conversion.
That's where most weaknesses of digital can be found: the quality of A/D and also, bit depth and sampling rate.

Back on topic, there's nothing wrong with the method of tracking to DAT first, as long as it isn't degrading the sound as opposed to tracking into whatever system you're gonna bounce that DAT to eventually anyway...