Newbie bit depth question - original format/drivers

[Estelle]

Hi all! I am a newbie to digital recording and I have about 50 hours of DAT tape of animal vocalizations that I will be using for a bioacoustics study. They were recorded on a Tascam DA-P1 at 16 bit, 48 kHz. I'd like to transfer them to my hard drive without any modifications (is that even possible?).

I have the DAT deck connected to an Edirol UA-25 through a coax/optical converter, and am currently using the Cakewalk Sonar LE software that came bundled with the UA-25.

1. After purchase and setup, I realized that the Edirol only seems capable of recording in the following driver modes:

=> 16 bits and 44.1 kHz (standard driver mode)
=> 24 bits and 44.1/48/96 kHz (advanced driver mode)

I wanted to preserve the original format of my tapes (16 bit/48 kHz). Should I get another piece of equipment?? Or would it be OK to record at 24 bit/48kHz?

Thank you =)

 

[XLR]

Since no one who's used the Edirol UA-25 has commented, I'll just say that as a general rule, a digital signal with a 16 bit wordlength can be recorded at 24 bits without problem or degradation in the transfer. You'll just have a file that's half again as large as a 16 bit file. Check the transfers carefully though after they’re done for glitches (stutters, skips, crackles), as USB can be unstable for audio if the computer system hasn’t been carefully tweaked specifically for it.

Tim

 

[Estelle]

"Since no one who's used the Edirol UA-25 has commented, I'll just say that as a general rule, a digital signal with a 16 bit wordlength can be recorded at 24 bits without problem or degradation in the transfer. You'll just have a file that's half again as large as a 16 bit file."

=> Ok, Thanks, Tim! That's what I wanted to know =) As a side-note, do you recommend using data DVD's for storage?


"Check the transfers carefully though after they’re done for glitches (stutters, skips, crackles), as USB can be unstable for audio if the computer system hasn’t been carefully tweaked specifically for it."

=> Ok. I'll be careful about that. What kind of system tweaking? I'm running XP Home. I'm sure you could go on for days, but maybe there are some big things I am missing. I followed the instructions in the Edirol's manual to prioritize background services, etc. I guess it would also be a good rule of thumb to disable unnecessary programs and services? Does this also mean I shouldn't be doing other computer work (even if it's not memory-intensive) while I'm recording?

Thanks so much for your help =)

Estelle

 

[XLR]

Re archiving, I can't answer about DVDRs as I only use CDRs. Maybe someone else will jump in. With CDRs though the high quality makers such ad Taiyo Yuden (Microboards) are more reliable than generic brands, IME.

It seems generally accepted though, that the lifespan (beyond 10 yrs) of recordable discs is still an unknown, since the medium is so new. You may not care about long term storage but if you do a good approach is to archive important files to two different types of media, and you've already got the DAT.

When recording during the transfer you'll likely have the most success if nothing else is happening on the computer at the same time. For system tweaking a good info source is http://www.musicxp.net/ Regarding general system stability for recording audio, the best situation (though not practical for many) is a system that does nothing but audio. Every app (screen savers, MS Offfice, etc) that gets its fingers into the timing aspects of the processor tends to, at unpredictable times, cause problems - not just when they kick in with an action, but just being there keeping track of the timing. With one or two channel recording though, as you’re doing, you'll more than likely be fine just with general system tweaking.

Tim

 

[Estelle]

Thanks so much, Tim! I might use CD-R's too, I guess it depends on my file sizes. I'll keep things on multiple media and plan on incremental archive backups.

I had no idea an XP tweak site for music even existed - it didn't even *occur* to me to look! Awesome resource, especially since I don't at this time have a dedicated system for audio processing.

Thanks again,

You guys are great here!