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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Recording Media => Topic started by: BradM on December 10, 2013, 10:53:23 AM
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I found some DATs that I made over 10 years ago (and which haven't been played since), and I want to transfer them. Assuming I can find a DAT player, do I need to do anything special to the tapes before I try to play them back? One is a Sony "PDP-95", and the other two are TDK "DC4-60" 4mm Data Cartridges ("DDS/60m").
Thanks,
Brad
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FF and RW... That's all I do to the ones I get and they play just fine...
Terry
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For the last few years at work, I've been doing a project transferring about a thousand audio DATs covering 1989 to 1999.
For 10 year old DATs, you have much less chance of problems. Yes, FF and rewind each tape. Use the digital output and copy digitally, using the same sample rate and making sure to clock from the DAT player. Players seem to do less error correction out of the digital output than the analog out. I prefer to see the problem areas and fix them rather than getting too much correction and masking, but occasionally, I do have to resort to some analog copying. Having access to several players is helpful many times, as alignments and hear wear will vary. Listen to the entire transfer carefully for dropouts. If you get a dropout, you can try cleaning the head and replaying that section, even several times. Sometimes you can get the playback on a troublesome dropout to play back OK, and you can splice it back in.
I am always prepared to clean heads, first a cleaning tape, then to disassemble and use video-chamois sticks.
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Everything that was just said by GLouie is a good idea. Seeing that they haven't been played in over a decade, I'm hoping they've been stored in a decent climate otherwise you can expect all kinds of shedding which will lead to digital break-up/noise/etc. Unpacking (FF / REW once before transferring) is strongly recommended. Depending on whether you recorded anything in LP mode as well, you can expect that to be problematic as different decks will read those tapes differently (i.e., I've got a Nine Inch Nails show from '94 on DAT that I've yet been able to get transferred because all decks that have tried to since read this tape haven't been able to -- it was recorded on a TCD-D7 portable at 32kHz). :(
As GLouie also said, be prepared to clean the heads somewhat regularly.
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Im currently transferring a bunch. My main recommendation is to fast fwd to the end and rewind at least once. This will help to give you a smoother run when you transfer and greatly reduce error rate.
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My main recommendation is to fast fwd to the end and rewind at least once. This will help to give you a smoother run when you transfer and greatly reduce error rate.
I keep a "bitch" deck around, to just do the ff/rw........it doesn't read worth a damn, but it excels for this job.....keeps wear off my good PCM-R500.
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if they are one-of-a-kind/masters/etc transfer them twice and invert take b over take a in an audio editor. it should cancel to zero. any noise spots are easy to spot using this method.
dats seem to be all or nothing. they hold up pretty well all things considered but some brands were just garbage from the get go
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(i.e., I've got a Nine Inch Nails show from '94 on DAT that I've yet been able to get transferred because all decks that have tried to since read this tape haven't been able to -- it was recorded on a TCD-D7 portable at 32kHz). :(
My Sony PCM-R500 has always read thos LP tapes great. Have you tried an R500 or R700?
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(i.e., I've got a Nine Inch Nails show from '94 on DAT that I've yet been able to get transferred because all decks that have tried to since read this tape haven't been able to -- it was recorded on a TCD-D7 portable at 32kHz). :(
My Sony PCM-R500 has always read thos LP tapes great. Have you tried an R500 or R700?
Yep, I have one or two 32kHz DATs that read AOK on my R500, also...
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My main recommendation is to fast fwd to the end and rewind at least once. This will help to give you a smoother run when you transfer and greatly reduce error rate.
I keep a "bitch" deck around, to just do the ff/rw........it doesn't read worth a damn, but it excels for this job.....keeps wear off my good PCM-R500.
I support this. I have 2 bitch decks and only 1 deck that actually plays tapes well.
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Be careful with "bitch" decks as the tape still runs across the heads when RW and FF on all DAT decks I know of and if the bitch deck is having problems it can still eat/damage a tape just FF and RW.
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I've got a Nine Inch Nails show from '94 on DAT that I've yet been able to get transferred because all decks that have tried to since read this tape haven't been able to -- it was recorded on a TCD-D7 portable at 32kHz
You should talk to H20 about Transferring this DAT. He did a couple of 32k DATs for me via DAT>WAV. I know my r500 could play them, but my HD-P2 doesn't record 32k... I don't know of any modern deck that does??? Anyways, he can do a 32k transfer via digital...
Terry
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Terry I can understand wanting a bit perfect transfer...BUT...is there really anything gained since it cannot be played as 32KhZ on anything? At the least it will be turned into 44.1. Well unless you play it in some DAW? But I am pretty sure most computer players wont play 32. I could be wrong.
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Terry I can understand wanting a bit perfect transfer...BUT...is there really anything gained since it cannot be played as 32KhZ on anything? At the least it will be turned into 44.1. Well unless you play it in some DAW? But I am pretty sure most computer players wont play 32. I could be wrong.
Yeah, the 32k will have to be upgraded to 44k in order to be functional (at least w/ today's methods)... H20 sent me 44k files at the end of the day...
I just wanted to Transfer the DATs digitally rather than running them through an ADC...
Terry