Topic: DAT tape conversion

[parkerjh]

I have a slew of old tapes I am looking to convert to digital.
I figured out the cassette > WAV conversion with Audacity.

Now, I am looking to convert my DATs to either WAV or directly to FLAC.

Is there a good tutorial somewhere on how to do that?
Thanks.

[datbrad]

Not sure what kind of gear you are using, but as long as your DAT machine has a spdif output, and your computer has a digital sound card with spdif input, you are all set. Clone away!!

You can use the search function in the computer section of this forum, and find volumes of work flows and tips to archive DATs as both wave and flac files.

Good luck!

[parkerjh]

thanks for reply...

I have Tascam DA30(?) and Panasonic 3700 decks. They are, obviously, 15 or so years old so I am really not sure what type of outputs that have. 

Is there an easy way to know if your computer's sound card is digitally capable?

[greenone]

There aren't many PCs that come with a digital input on their soundcard by default - you'd be looking for a S/PDIF coax or optical input on the card. The most recent iMacs have optical in, I think back to 2007. Before that, no digi-in on any iMacs. The other option would be to pick up an external USB device, run digi into that and then over USB into your computer. I used the predecessor to ESI's U24 XL for all my DAT transfers, and it treated me great. It's tiny, very portable, would work with either your desktop or laptop, and has both optical AND coax inputs. Runs about $95 on Amazon. Check it out: http://www.esi-audio.com/products/u24xl/

[parkerjh]

Check it out: http://www.esi-audio.com/products/u24xl/

Thanks! I think that is exactly what I want/need. On my way to hunt one down.....

[greenone]

Oh, and two more things - the U2A, which came before it, was demonstrated to be bit-perfect, and you can also set it to resample on the fly from 48kHz to 44.1kHz if you don't want to do that on your machine. So I'm guessing the U24XL can do both of these as well. Happy converting!

[H₂O]

FWIW - I had a U2A back in 2001 and had problems with it dropping frames (i.e. it would loose digital audio making the track shorter than it actually was).
 
I returned it and got the PCI version instead and had no problems. Waveterminal 2496 (replaced by http://www.esi-audio.com/products/maya44/)
 
Now I use computer DDS drives and DAT2Wav for my xfers.
 
 

[tree]

thanks for the information, I need to do the same thing and wasnt sure how to go about doing it.

[SparkE!]

I've found that the digital input to a Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 will allow bit literal transfers via optical S/PDIF.  I, too, have a Tascam DA30.  It has coax S/PDIF outputs which I run through a S/PDIF coax to S/PDIF optical converter box (HOSA ODL-176) and into the NJB3. The first few bits of the recording are never the same, but once the DA30 syncs up to the tape, everything is bit literal.

[H₂O]

As mentioned above you could use a JB3 or Microtrack or other flash/harddisk recorder with digi in and these cost about the same as a decent sound card.

[greenone]

Good point. I actually run to my Microtrack right now...the MTII is about $150 now and you can get a 4GB CF card for under $15...