Topic: Occasionally losing a channel on DAT

[marod70]

I run SP-CMC-8's through an SP bat box into a D8.  I have recently been randomly losing a channel.   I taped Queensryche in Feb and the entire right channel was gone when I listened to the tape.  I figured I would just transfer it anyway and copy the left channel to the right side.  When I transferred it to the computer, both channels were there.  I taped Alison Krauss two weeks ago with no problems whatsoever.  Wednesday I taped the Dylan show including Amos Lee and Merle Haggard.  On the first tape of Lee and Haggard the left channel is gone on most of Amos Lee, pops back for a bit, cuts out at the beginning of Merle and then comes back again.  I taped Dylan on Friday night with no problems whatsoever.  When I tried to transfer the Lee/Haggard tape to the computer the parts where the channel cuts out now do not transfer. 

So, am I looking at a DAT problem, mic problem or something else?  I'm just looking for some input before I just send everythng in to be checked.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark
marod70@hotmail.com

[Steelcorner27]

The 4 problems I can think of right off the top of my head other than a problem with the mics  would be these:

1: a worn out female mini jack in the dat
2: A bad connection in the mini jack plug in or out of the batt. box
3: a loose wire or bad solder in the batt box
4:(this one is rare but I've had it happen) bad dat tapes. I've had it where I had only a single chanel a or 1 clean chanel and one with complete digi  noise because the tape is not in alingment with the head is my best guess.

Brad

[balou2]

Anyone have a clue how much it costs to replace the female 1/8 jack on a D-100 player?  Is this easy enough to do at home?

[dgale]

When you say you are losing a channel, do you mean you look down at the level display on your D8 and only see one level meter going?  Or do you mean all looks fine when you are recording but one level is MIA when you listen on playback?  Also, you mention that one channel reappeared when you transfered the show?  Does this mean is wasn't there upon playback when you first tried and subsequently was there on the same deck when you played the tape to trasnfer?   

I'm trying to get a sense of whether the problem is with your D8 or the tape, or if the problem is with the mics/jacks/cables.  If the channel was MIA on one playback but there on the next, that would eliminate any problem with the mics/jacks/cables etc (i.e. it's obviously not a permanent flaw that took place when you recorded the show but rather this would lead me to believe you have a problem with your deck such as head alignment or worn heads or else a bunk batch of blanks). 

The first thing I would suggest is to hook up your gear and crank your stereo up in your house and record some of it while you wiggle cables, jacks etc. all the way from the mics to the deck and see if you can make this problem occur.  My guess is not based on your description but this is simple to do so you might as well check.  Another thing I suggest you try is playing your master on some other decks - hopefully you have some friends who also have decks you can use - I suggest trying a few dfifferent makes/models if possible as I've had success transfering tapes in the past that gave me problems on my Sony portables that played fine on my R500 on Denon DTR-80P.  Many of the pro decks will give you some sort of "error" message if your tape has issues (I know the R500 does this).

If you narrow it down to problems with your deck (more likely IMO then a batch of bad tapes), I suggest you try your best to get your tapes trasnfered before you send in your deck - I once sent in a deck for a similar problem and they either re-aligned or replaced the heads (I can't remember which) and many of the masters I had made with the problem heads would not play right on the properly functioning heads (even though most had played fine on the funky heads) - my best guess is that they were recorded out of alignment or something to that effect and would only play back properly on the same deck with the same heads.   

If you do send it in, I personally wouldn't send it to anyone but ProDigital as they've always done me right for the past several years/several DAT decks.

[neutrino]

You might try giving Pro Digital a call and get an estimate on the repair. They have a bill rate of 75$ an hour and I would imagine it costing you that 75$ plus parts. If I were you in this situation I would bite the bullet and send it in to a recognized repair shop and have them do the repair and give your DAT a clean bill of health. It would be worth more than the cost of repair in piece of mind knowing you had a quality repair shop fix the problem, rather then wondering if your next show is going to be ruined by a bad line. Good luck.

  http://www.prodigitalinc.com/

[Genghis Cougar Mellen Khan]

I run SP-CMC-8's through an SP bat box into a D8.  I have recently been randomly losing a channel.   I taped Queensryche in Feb and the entire right channel was gone when I listened to the tape.  I figured I would just transfer it anyway and copy the left channel to the right side.  When I transferred it to the computer, both channels were there.  I taped Alison Krauss two weeks ago with no problems whatsoever.  Wednesday I taped the Dylan show including Amos Lee and Merle Haggard.  On the first tape of Lee and Haggard the left channel is gone on most of Amos Lee, pops back for a bit, cuts out at the beginning of Merle and then comes back again.  I taped Dylan on Friday night with no problems whatsoever.  When I tried to transfer the Lee/Haggard tape to the computer the parts where the channel cuts out now do not transfer. 

So, am I looking at a DAT problem, mic problem or something else?  I'm just looking for some input before I just send everythng in to be checked.  Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Mark
marod70@hotmail.com

Do the levels show a signal when you play it back? I'd doubt that it was the jack or mics if the one channel wasn't there, then was there, unless you were transferring it with the line out. If you were transferring it digitally, perhaps the tape didn't load correctly.

[marod70]

Thanks for the responses so far.

When I look at the level meter on the DAT there is a channel that is not there.  This "missing channel" is always when looking at the DAT meters.  Since these are all stealth tapes, I cannot really say what the meters look like while recording.  On playback one channel is missing on the level meter.  When I transferred the Queensryche show, the DAT level meter was still missing but on the computer in SoundForge it showed that both channels were there (or that is how it appears, I am not sure if SoundForge took the single channel that was coming out of the deck and "copied" it to both channels on the computer; if that makes any sense).  I have put in other tapes that I had made prior to this problem and both meter levels show up on the DAT, so this is just happening with these three tapes. 

I actually did try cranking the stereo and wiggling connections.  This didn't seem to reproduce any problems but I also did not want to get to aggressive with wiggling stuff around in case I actually caused another problem. 

I didn't know that a tape could possibly cause this sort of problem.  3 of the 4 problems have occurred with Maxell 60 m tapes.  When I ordered my ususal Sony tapes the company (I think Cascase Media) was out of them and sent me the Maxell tapes instead. 

Thanks,

Mark

[dgale]

When I transferred the Queensryche show, the DAT level meter was still missing but on the computer in SoundForge it showed that both channels were there (or that is how it appears, I am not sure if SoundForge took the single channel that was coming out of the deck and "copied" it to both channels on the computer; if that makes any sense). 

Out of curiousity, are you sending an anolog or a digital feed to your computer when transfering?  Soundforge would not copy one channel onto the other without you telling it to do so and even then it wouldn't do it "on the fly" while you transfer - you would do it after the fact with the "channel converter" function.  Have you listened to the WAV file that resulted from the transfer and does it sound okay throughout?  I'd think you would be able to hear some differences between the two channels to know they are different - try listening between songs for people in the crowd yelling - this usually shows up stronger in one channel then the other - it would be obvious if it wa a mono recording but I really don't see how that could happen based on what you said you did.  Seems odd that the DAT deck shows only one channel but both are showing up when you transfer.  When you only see one level on the deck, have you tried listening with headphones on your deck to see if it realy isn't there or if it's just the level display going wacky?

As for the blanks, there's nothing wrong with Maxell 60m blanks - certainly there have been funky batches of tapes in the past but that could just as easily happen to Sony DDS and Maxell DDS.  Do you unpack your tapes before use (fast forward to the end and then rewind them back to the beginning)? Always a good idea to minimize misloads and other problems with tapes.