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Gear / Technical Help => Recording Gear => Topic started by: renedebos on April 13, 2022, 01:42:40 PM
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Transferring my DAT tapes. I have a Tascam DA-40 and a DA-30mkii. Original tapes were recorded on either a Sony TCD-D7 or D8. Getting setup now to maximize time and trying to use both machines at the same time
I have 2 paths :
A) DAT player -> SPDIF Coax -> Microtrack II -> laptop/audacity
B) DAT Player -> SPDIF Coax -> Roofull SPDIF/Coax-Optical converter -> Hifime UR23 Spdif Optical to USB -> laptop/audacity
Questions :
1. Setting for the Microtrack. Assume I will use Channels=[STEREO] and Link L+R Gain=[ON]?
2. Setting for the Microtrack. Is it overkill to use Bits[24] if the tapes were recorded at 16?
3. Using Microtrack as bit bucket... when using SPDIF input there is no need to set the L/R levels?
4. Path B with the converters. Any risk losing quality with converters involved?
5. Audacity. I always save a backup file using export to WAV with 32 bits. Is this overkill and could/should I just use 16 bit WAV?
6. Any advantage in trying path : DAT Player -> AES/EBU -> solid state recorder with AES/EBU input? [Balanced vs Unbalanced]
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It's been quite a while since I used a Microtrack so can't really comment on that other than I don't think you have to do anything with the gain. It just records the incoming SPDIF stream at the gain present on the digital input.
Increasing the bit depth won't really gain you anything. I suggest keeping your bit depth and sample rate the same as the source material.
I did the same thing as you - two decks at the same time - and used a toslink to coax converter on my Fostex D5. Worked fine.
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Ooh it's been a long time but let me take my shot
1 - yes stereo, and linked, but it might not matter on digital input, please see my response to #3
2 - yes it is overkill. Run a test at 16 and then again at 24, then invert and compare to see if there is anything of value if you would like to see for yourself.
3 - digital should run direct and exact bits so no need to set level. (been a long time since I ran the MTII but #1 might be covered by this)
4 - you might get a sample or two of latency so they may not arrive to your workstation at the same time if you try to do all of this simultaneously, but if you compare the bits from the rips, you should see exact correlation (maybe once you line up the start or end points if they are different total length for some reason like starting or stopping at different times)
5 - Yep, that's total overkill. Again, do a test by inverting one and adding them together, to see what's left, if you wanna check for yourself.
6 - should not be any difference, but have I got a suggestion for how to find out!? Let me guess, invert and add? Yah.
:-)
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Increasing the bit depth won't really gain you anything. I suggest keeping your bit depth and sample rate the same as the source material.
Chiming in with this opinion.
#2 No need to upsample if the original files are 16 bit.
#5 Way overkill. What I do is Export the file in the original bit setting it was recorded on. (32 bit float is essentially for editing purposes re Audacity- same concept, different animal than recording in 32 bit float using Mix-pre devices)
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Thanks all... much appreciated!