On the usefulness of ADAT in today's recording environment

Status
Not open for further replies.
Ok I'll get back on the subject ...ADATs or whatever Tascam called there 8 milimeter tape version which i thought was much cooler cause of smaller tapes. But I myself was already looking at a MSR24S at the same time the ADATS and DA-88s were coming out.I was already a reel to reel guy and decided on the 1" format (MSR24S (dolby S) I ordered it brand new and loved it from day one, it ran so smoooooooothe and looked gorgeous !! Had a local music store (mom and pop) order it for me and one of the sales guy there the day it arrived ,did not even want to look at it cause he was so GUNG HO on ADATS......he thought I was nuts !! Grant it,I made many great 24 TK. recordings with it easily and much less hassle than using 3 ADATS!! Think about trying to keep track with what tape/s had what songs on them ....man what a hassle !!! I still have the MSR24S but been in storage after a divorce for lack or room BUT.....its in super good shape and all aligned perfectly and i also have the Tascam M-3500 (24X8X2) IN-LINE mixer to go along with it and would LOVE to set it all up one day again......I miss it so much!! :D
 
The biggest letdowns for adat were the crap sounding converters ( one of the big reasons why a lot of people branded digital "harsh') and the fact that they broke down all the time. The tascam Da series was much better in both of those regards, but still sounds like crap next to a stock 24 bit modern soundcard.
The only uses for these types of machines is to play tapes that your old band recorded in the 90's or, in the case of the tascams, as a robust live recording rig. The adats didn't travel as well as the tascams, so touring was out of the question unless you had twice the amount of adats that you needed.
 
I did not use ADATs. Interesting that their converters were poor sounding compared to, I assume, good digital converters of that time. I guess you only got what you paid for.

Unfortunately, one still hears the cry, even today, that all digital is harsh.

Tim
 
Tim Gillett said:
I did not use ADATs. Interesting that their converters were poor sounding compared to, I assume, good digital converters of that time. I guess you only got what you paid for.

Unfortunately, one still hears the cry, even today, that all digital is harsh.

Tim
Click to expand...
Im not sure they were that bad compared to dat machines and other things like that at the time. In the early 90's you needed to get into the tens of thousands of dollars to get really good sounding converters. adats were cheap and good converters were not. Using those converters now would be a waste of time because they are worse than even the cheapest 24 bit sound card.

Of course, plenty of successful albums, movies and tv shows were produced on these things and it didn't seem to matter.
 
The main reason the OG ADATs sounded the way they did was because of the analog filtering on the output
of the D2A created increasing phase shift the higher the freq. ,which would generate non-harmonic partials up around 15-20 KHZ .and be interpreted as "harshness".Later designed D2As with" brick wall" digital filtering exhibite less extreme phase shift.That and the fact the ADAT read head track width was probably 10X as big as the record head track width for tape compatability,ADATs used a analog linear tracking system,vs. the Da-88s which had the tracking info embedded in the digital recorded signal, which let the Da-88s use narrower tape and not have the tape compatability issues that the ADAT had, and doomed tha ADAT in the Video Post market.AFAIK most of the parts are unavailable for the ADAT,while the DA series machines are still being supported by Tascam. That being said, it's a good idea for a working studio to have both a ADAT and a DA-88 for those re-mastering and transfer "bread and butter" jobs.
 
Tim Gillett said:
Jay,

Can you name a few examples of commercial releases which had been recorded to ADAT?

Thanks,
Tim
Click to expand...
Jaged little pill - Alonis Moressette
cure - wild mood swings
Lisa Loeb album with "Stay" on it
The Queensryche album with "I am I" on it.

They were pretty ubiquitous in the mid to late 90's
 
Thanks for those examples. What do you think of these as productions, especially considering they were recorded using ADAT?

Tim
 
Last edited:
elbandito said:
Why would anyone want to incorporate an archaic device like this into their modern recording setup?
Click to expand...
Any machine, regardless of how "archaic", if it is capable of recording voices and instruments, is useful to the person utilizing it. A Morris minor morrisminor.jpgis not sleek and aerodynamic by today's standards, doesn't have all the mod cons that we take for granted.......but will get you from A to B just as well as the car made yesterday. Lots will laugh at you but they can laugh all they like the day you drive by while they wait for the bus.
We all have our reasons for the recorders we use. And they are all valid and true and real and important. Paradoxically, so are our reasons for those we don't use.
Great recordings are done on every conceivable recording machine, modernity be damned.
 
grimtraveller said:
Great recordings are done on every conceivable recording machine, modernity be damned.
Click to expand...

Maybe but there are limits too. A Morris Minor is still a great little car - cheap to run and great for parking in a tight spot, but even in its day a Jaguar was a much better bet for speed and comfort, if you could afford it. Any device needs to be up to the task demanded of it, regardless of the era. Horses for courses.

Tim
 
Tim Gillett said:
Thanks for those examples. What do you think of these as productions, especially considering they were recorded using ADAT?

Tim
Click to expand...
My personal taste? I don't like the queensryche one, but that is probably more because the songs aren't that great and the adat was paired with a mackie 8-bus.
All in all the adats didn't seem to keep the albums from selling (how many albums did Alonis sell?)

for the most part, converters will not make or break a recording. Metallica's black album was mastered from the backup dat and sold over 20 million albums and is one of archetypes for what a metal album should sound like.

People often ask why old albums from the 50's and 60's sound so good when they didn't have the equipment we have now. For the most part, they don't sound better, the songs are really good and the production worked within the limitations of the equipment at hand to form something timeless. The song and performance trumps everything.
 
I had been out of the business quite a few years, from 1989 to around 2002. I loved Tascam machines and was always thrilled with my 38 deck, MS-16 and a pair of M308 mixers. But when I started up again, I really wanted to have 24 tracks available. Tascam had the DM24 mixer and DA-78's selling like hotcakes. It was apparent that nothing could begin to touch the sound and flexibility that they were making available for less than $15K for 3 machines, the mixer and options. I have never had one person object to the sound of the DA-78. The convertors are very nice sounding. I eventually wound up owning 5 machines and the RC898 remote control for the machines although every necessary function could really be controlled from the DM-24. My only objection is the dang transports. Flaky flaky flaky. And yep, they would eat a tape in a heartbeat. It was a shame that such good sounding machines were so troublesome.

My 2c worth.
 
The DA 78's were 24 bit converters that were designed 10 years after the original ones. Even the 16 bit converters in the DA-88 and DA-38 sounded better than the ADAT converters.
 
Tim Gillett said:
Maybe but there are limits too. A Morris Minor is still a great little car - cheap to run and great for parking in a tight spot, but even in its day a Jaguar was a much better bet for speed and comfort, if you could afford it. Any device needs to be up to the task demanded of it, regardless of the era.
Click to expand...
I think this point is essentially answered by this one;

Farview said:
People often ask why old albums from the 50's and 60's sound so good when they didn't have the equipment we have now. For the most part, they don't sound better, the songs are really good and the production worked within the limitations of the equipment at hand to form something timeless. The song and performance trumps everything.
Click to expand...

The point I was making Tim, was that whether or not a piece of gear is limited and there are better pieces of the same gear around is rather irrelevant if the user of the limited gear likes what they are using and essentially get the same results. A Jag was faster {comfort is more subjective} than a Morris but an awful lot of people dug their Morris and I'd bet when driving every day most of them weren't pining for a Jag or thinking how uncomfortable their Morris was. Similarly, the ADAT may be thought of as an archaic piece of crap ~ and indeed it might be. But it's largely irrelevant if someone wants to use it and knows or learns how to utilize it to make good recordings.
I know people living in parts of Africa that don't have the super sophisticated equipment that many home recorders take for granted. So they'll make do with whatever they can get their hands on. It may be ancient or a first edition but nonetheless, good recordings will still come forth. I'm from the "if it's still working, work it" school !
 
I agree with you. I invited Farview to comment on the ADAT recordings for a reason which perhaps you misunderstood. Farview ended up saying exactly what I had hoped he would say. I couldnt have said it better myself.

Cheers Tim
 
I had a studio based around da-88's and a soundcraft ghost, which I considered a step up from the mackie and adat setup that a lot of people were using. I made some really good recordings on that, even if they were thinner and less big sounding than what I tend to turn out now.

Now, I still use the ghost for drums, but everything else goes through outward preamps (I really dig the five fish preamps that I have) but Im using motu i/o into nuendo, uad plugs instead of dbx compressors, and I've got almost another 20 years of doing this under my belt. I should be turning out better stuff now than I was...
 
Thanks for the info on your setup Jay. It's obvious you know the tools and how to use them, but arent carried away by gear issues either.

Tim
 
Farview said:
for the most part, converters will not make or break a recording. Metallica's black album was mastered from the backup dat and sold over 20 million albums and is one of archetypes for what a metal album should sound like.
Click to expand...

Wait, Farview, are you telling me that they tracked in analog, mixed in analog down to DAT, then mastered from the DAT to presumably a stereo master tape? Please correct the parts I got wrong, I'm just interested to know since as you say, I consider it to be one of the best recordings of the era. I'm also curious what your source is for the info (feel free to omit this or PM me if somehow sensitive info). Once dat became a standard in studios at the time, was it standard procedure to record on tape and then mix down to dat instead of staying in the analog realm?

On an unrelated note, the TDIF PCI card you sold me has helped me successfully transfer many dozens of hours of content from the two DA-38s I've got. Total lifesaver.
 
My source is Bob Rock in an interview on Classic Albums. They were trying to mix down to a higher end digital format ( too early in the morning to recall the name. 3690??? It was something lime that. it was a common digital midtown medium at the time.)
anyway, there was a clocking issue and clicking all over the master, so they had to use the dat backup to assemble the album.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top