Topic: DAT transfers done right

[rocksuitcase]

Don't break the deck    Quite a range in there.

I know. I should get my own DAT player to do this. There are way more tapes than I thought.  This was box one of 4 or 5.  He also has these slightly larger digital tapes.  Looked like 8 tracks from the notes in the tapes..  he recorded those from a van I believe.  No idea what format or how those could be transferred.

Jesse, those are more than likely ADAT tapes. They used to be used for "professional" Multi-track DAT recording if the company/band didn't wish to use (afford) multi-track Reels via a digital PCM unit.
I wasn't the recordist (Dave Swanson was), but I was the microphone "consultant" for the official release Blues Traveler Live from the Fall which used 32 channels of ADAT for their entire fall West Coast tour. The Trick is/was that each ADAT tape only held 8 tracks, so to do 32 tracks it took 4 machines synced and timecoded together.
The bigger trick was in the transfer/editing because it was such a biatch to do with the 4 machines, especially when your crew had some issues taking notes during the recordings!

I'm following your thread because I don't have a working DAT deck anymore and am watching what folks say about the best DAT decks for playback. I have about  4-600 untransferred DAT's from the mid-late 90's, but many of them are Panic, Mule or PnF which already exist somewhere else. There is that Derek Trucks with Gregg Allman Band Ft. Worth TX 1994 when Derek was 15 I'd love to have transferred......... 

[twatts (pants are so over-rated...)]

There is that Derek Trucks with Gregg Allman Band Ft. Worth TX 1994 when Derek was 15 I'd love to have transferred......... 

I can do that for you... 

Terry

[Jhurlbs81]

Don't break the deck    Quite a range in there.

I know. I should get my own DAT player to do this. There are way more tapes than I thought.  This was box one of 4 or 5.  He also has these slightly larger digital tapes.  Looked like 8 tracks from the notes in the tapes..  he recorded those from a van I believe.  No idea what format or how those could be transferred.

Jesse, those are more than likely ADAT tapes. They used to be used for "professional" Multi-track DAT recording if the company/band didn't wish to use (afford) multi-track Reels via a digital PCM unit.
I wasn't the recordist (Dave Swanson was), but I was the microphone "consultant" for the official release Blues Traveler Live from the Fall which used 32 channels of ADAT for their entire fall West Coast tour. The Trick is/was that each ADAT tape only held 8 tracks, so to do 32 tracks it took 4 machines synced and timecoded together.
The bigger trick was in the transfer/editing because it was such a biatch to do with the 4 machines, especially when your crew had some issues taking notes during the recordings!

I'm following your thread because I don't have a working DAT deck anymore and am watching what folks say about the best DAT decks for playback. I have about  4-600 untransferred DAT's from the mid-late 90's, but many of them are Panic, Mule or PnF which already exist somewhere else. There is that Derek Trucks with Gregg Allman Band Ft. Worth TX 1994 when Derek was 15 I'd love to have transferred......... 

Don't ADAT's look like VHS tapes?  These were literally just a touch bigger than a dat tape.  I had a double take when I first saw them, they looked like dat tape.   

[jefflester]

Don't break the deck    Quite a range in there.

I know. I should get my own DAT player to do this. There are way more tapes than I thought.  This was box one of 4 or 5.  He also has these slightly larger digital tapes.  Looked like 8 tracks from the notes in the tapes..  he recorded those from a van I believe.  No idea what format or how those could be transferred.

Jesse, those are more than likely ADAT tapes. They used to be used for "professional" Multi-track DAT recording if the company/band didn't wish to use (afford) multi-track Reels via a digital PCM unit.
I wasn't the recordist (Dave Swanson was), but I was the microphone "consultant" for the official release Blues Traveler Live from the Fall which used 32 channels of ADAT for their entire fall West Coast tour. The Trick is/was that each ADAT tape only held 8 tracks, so to do 32 tracks it took 4 machines synced and timecoded together.
The bigger trick was in the transfer/editing because it was such a biatch to do with the 4 machines, especially when your crew had some issues taking notes during the recordings!

I'm following your thread because I don't have a working DAT deck anymore and am watching what folks say about the best DAT decks for playback. I have about  4-600 untransferred DAT's from the mid-late 90's, but many of them are Panic, Mule or PnF which already exist somewhere else. There is that Derek Trucks with Gregg Allman Band Ft. Worth TX 1994 when Derek was 15 I'd love to have transferred......... 

Don't ADAT's look like VHS tapes?  These were literally just a touch bigger than a dat tape.  I had a double take when I first saw them, they looked like dat tape.

Maybe DA-88 recordings. Like ADAT, but to a Hi-8 (8mm) video cassette instead of SVHS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DA-88

[Jhurlbs81]

Yup, that looks like the type.

[rocksuitcase]

Ahso. Sorry for misinformation guys. Without a picture I didn't know the size. Of course I forgot about Hi8. ahhh, the memories of the digital "stone age"!   
thanks Jeff!

[Jhurlbs81]

Well, I guess I should have listened to H20.  I popped in a Bela Fleck tape, uncirculated show from 8/8/1998, and the deck displayed a "CAUTION" warning.  I looked it up in the manual, and it says there could be moisture in the deck.  I know that is not the issue.  The tape will not eject.  Ouch. 

What are the chances I could pop the top off and get the tape out intact? 

[H₂O]

Well, I guess I should have listened to H20.  I popped in a Bela Fleck tape, uncirculated show from 8/8/1998, and the deck displayed a "CAUTION" warning.  I looked it up in the manual, and it says there could be moisture in the deck.  I know that is not the issue.  The tape will not eject.  Ouch. 

What are the chances I could pop the top off and get the tape out intact?

Pretty good - but you have to be very careful - may want to look up on Internet to see if there is a suggested method - I have manually loaded and unloaded mech's a number of times on a few decks but never the R300

Make sure the tape isn't caught on anything first or over tight (over tension)

usually you can hand crank the gears (carefully and make sure you apply only very slight pressure in the correct direction - start by only very slightly cracking in each direction to see if the tape is unloading or not) - you may have to hand feed extra tape out of the deck if the tape has spun off into the transport (under tension)

[Jhurlbs81]

Richard-

Can you elaborate a bit on your two step process? 

I do DDS drive > SCSI > Win XP Laptop first then :
 - 44.1 or 48khz tape >  7040 > hs-p82
 - 32 Khz > R700 > JB3

Is the first pass through your DDS drive just to check for errors or is that the actual transfer?  I'm assuming not since step two is run the tape through your 7040.  Just trying to understand a bit better. How would you know if a tape supports A-Time?

Thanks as always for your insights..

[H₂O]

Richard-

Can you elaborate a bit on your two step process? 

I do DDS drive > SCSI > Win XP Laptop first then :
 - 44.1 or 48khz tape >  7040 > hs-p82
 - 32 Khz > R700 > JB3

Is the first pass through your DDS drive just to check for errors or is that the actual transfer?  I'm assuming not since step two is run the tape through your 7040.  Just trying to understand a bit better. How would you know if a tape supports A-Time?

Thanks as always for your insights..

DDS pass is for the xfer as well - it reads the audio right off the tape and converts to a WAV file - similar to how EAC reads a CD

[Jhurlbs81]

Why do you run it through your DAT deck after the DDS drive?  Are the DDS drives more reliable and less likely to eat/jam a tape?  If the DDS option is more reliable and can transfer at 2x speed maybe I should hunt down a Win XP laptop with a PCMCIA slot.  Does the DAT2WAV work the same over PCMCIA? Also curious about the A-TIME you mentioned and how you'd know if a tape supported it, and what the downsides are if it does not.  Thanks for your help!   

[H₂O]

DDS transfer is much faster (twice as fast as normal playback) and very reliable (the DDS3 Sony's are better then the older DDS1 Archive's and DDS2 Archive/Conner/Seagate models)


Plus you get a file showing you where ever there are errors on the tape


Also IMO the transfer is more pure since you are effectively reading the data right off the tape versus reading it, retiming the information, and then sending it out onto a digital cable.


A-TIME = Absolute Time and is the Base Timing used on DAT tapes -> DAT2WAV tracks the A-TIME and although you can have DAT2WAV read the entire tape it works best if the A-TIME is consistent across the tape - this is a limitation of the DAT2WAV software


A-TIME is written when the tape is recorded to - but it is not transferred between tapes - anyway back in the days of DAT recording it was quite easy (especially on the Sony portables) to record without A-TIME as you could mess it up when you keep rewinding and restarting the recording (common back in the day when you where always trying to conserve tape and didn't know exactly when the band was coming out)

[Jhurlbs81]

I'm pretty sure most of Toni's masters were recorded to either a DAP1 or HHB. I may take you up on your offer if I can track down an XP box with either SCSI OR PCMCIA. Which connector type is your SCSI cable looking for?

[Jhurlbs81]

Cool video that shows DDS drives being used to transfer DAT tapes and various DAT ripping software like DAT2WAV, wavDAT, and one other.  Pretty cool stuff. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faUh4v2VMqI

[rocksuitcase]

^^^^
Great link- Thanks!