Opinions On DAT?

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Sonic Surgeon

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I recently acquired a used DAT recorder in excellent condition, hence my request for opinions on the format.

Before you respond, know that I'm well aware of that fact that it's a dead format and virtually obsolete (or at least moving in that direction). I realize too, that Hard Drives and DVD-R's are a much more convenient method of storage and backup.

Aside from those things, what are your opinions on DAT? I used to mix down my sessions from the analog Tascam way back in the day on one (back in it's hay day). I guess my main questions are:

1. Has anyone ever experienced any low-end (or any frequency for that matter) loss when bouncing to DAT?

2. With computers as unreliable as they are (hard drives, in particular), having a DAT backup as safety copy - this isn't such a bad idea, is it?

Any other experiences, wisdom, or insights are surely appreciated.
 
I always liked DATs. I kind of wish they had taken off instead of CDs. I like the fact that you could program the title of the song and other information on them too. I used to mix down to DAT as well back in the early-mid 90s. I think I had a Tascam DA-20, which was one of the lower end models, but I never had a problem with it and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Sure, you didn't have instant access to different songs like a CD, but the FF and RW was very quick.

I don't ever recall a loss of frequencies during mixing to DAT, but then again, I was a bit of a neophyte back then and so probably wouldn't have really noticed it if it was there.

I still miss having a DAT though and often think about picking a used one up for cheap.
 
Dats what I'm talking about!

I still have my original DA30MKII in my rack. I use it occasionally. I like the DAT format also. I find it easier to do a mixdown on it and then just go digital to digital in the CD burner.
VP:)
 
Thanks guys. Glad to see I'm not alone in still using DAT! I really like the format. And like I said, I feel like it's a good way to have a cohesive safety copy in the event of unexpected computer or hard drive failure (which I have for sure had happen to me more times than I can remember).

Anyone else?
 
I had a Panasonic SV-3800. It sounded fine when things worked, but I had problems with errors and terrible digital dropout noise. Might have been the media. Anyway, it was why I bought an Ampex AG-440B-2! :) YMMV.

Cheers,

Otto
 
The worst sale I ever made was unloading my Tascam DA30mkII. I got it in late 1993 and used it to do external bounces and mixes. The first time I bounced four tracks from my 424 to the DAT and back to a fresh tape on the 424 I was blown away. So much better than an internal bounce!

But after I got a Tascam CD recorder a few years later I used the DA30mkII less and less until I stupidly sold it. I still have DAT tapes I'd like to transfer to CD and shit, I wouldn't mind having another DAT deck at all! The prices I've seen on the Bay have me ready to jump on the next nice Tascam I see.

If you still use an analog multitrack, DAT is a great medium to mix with or do bounces on. The blank tapes are still widely available and are pretty reasonable.

AudioTools.com has a great article on the history of DAT and some links to current tape manufacturers.
 
JRSIV said:
The worst sale I ever made was unloading my Tascam DA30mkII. I got it in late 1993 and used it to do external bounces and mixes. The first time I bounced four tracks from my 424 to the DAT and back to a fresh tape on the 424 I was blown away. So much better than an internal bounce!

But after I got a Tascam CD recorder a few years later I used the DA30mkII less and less until I stupidly sold it. I still have DAT tapes I'd like to transfer to CD and shit, I wouldn't mind having another DAT deck at all! The prices I've seen on the Bay have me ready to jump on the next nice Tascam I see.

If you still use an analog multitrack, DAT is a great medium to mix with or do bounces on. The blank tapes are still widely available and are pretty reasonable.

AudioTools.com has a great article on the history of DAT and some links to current tape manufacturers.
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Right on, man. I think DAT is one of those things that you don't realize how much you missed until you get a recorder again. There's people however, that will argue to the contrary - That they're glad to see the DAT days gone, etc.

I did some bounces straight from Pro Tools to DAT via digital coax cable, and then ran them back into the computer for a closer inspection. I found absolutely ZERO noise, and a super-clean and accurate transfer. The DAT recorder captured everything exactly as I had mixed it, completely.

I'm a proponent of DAT for the simple fact that after having a few hard drives crash unexpectedly (as they ALL will do so, eventually), and getting tired of losing valuable and important audio, I found DAT to be a smart idea for backup. Not to mention that I just love the machines, functionality, and playback.

If my drive crashed tomorrow, I'd be safe knowing I had a super-solid digital copy on DAT of everything recently recorded tucked away.

I also have DAT tapes from nearly 13 years ago, and they play as good as the day they were recorded. If you keep them in their poly-plastic cases and stoerd good, they're more reliable than a DVD-R or CD-R that can scratch easily. My personal opinion.
 
Couldn't agree more about the archiving Surg'. I'm always hearing about optical media failures and low shelf life but I don't see why a DAT tape well cared for couldn't last multiple decades. And take it from me after fussing around with CD/RW's when I want to record multiple mix takes and record over them. It was much easier just rolling the tape back and pressing record. I'm keeping my eye out for one, no joke. If I could get a DA-30mkII at a good price I'd scream like a monkey...:confused:me tired...
 
So how does a DA-38 or DA-88 fit into the scope of a DA-30? There is a DA-38 for sale locally that I've been eyeing. Is the DA-30 a newer generation than the 38/88?
 
Sonic Surgeon said:
If my drive crashed tomorrow, I'd be safe knowing I had a super-solid digital copy on DAT of everything recently recorded tucked away.

I also have DAT tapes from nearly 13 years ago, and they play as good as the day they were recorded. If you keep them in their poly-plastic cases and stoerd good, they're more reliable than a DVD-R or CD-R that can scratch easily. My personal opinion.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested to know if there is any research on how well DATs hold up. Remember that DAT operates differently from analog machines. The signal on tape is basically saturating and recording zeroes and ones. The failure mode will still be characteristic of a digital machine, i.e., it just goes, totally. My experience with Panasonic brand DATs was not good and did not give me warm fuzzies about how playable my mix tapes would be in ten or twenty years. YMMV.

Cheers,

Otto
 
I've got DAT masters from fifteen years ago that still play just fine on my DAT machine. Not that they get played much. They have had no special storage. Personally I can't really see the point in using DAT any more unless you're looking to record two track in an environment where what's being recorded goes down directly so if there's a power cut you haven't lost everything. I understand that Radar does that in a multitrack digital environment now anyway so even that DAT capability is redundant there too.

We used DAT in our studio back in the mid nineties because that was the only viable digital medium for mastering for cd production and we didn't have a two track reel machine. The first cd burners were starting to come out then but they were $10K a pop and way out of our reach.

To me DAT now offers no benefits over the current generation of media less (or re-usable) digital mastering and storage options and all the disadvantages of needing relatively expensive and environmentally challenging tape based media.

Analog, sure, it's the analog feel that keeps us working with it and buying tape stock in it's various forms but DAT? I think we've moved on a long way from that.
 
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No offense intended to anyone who likes DAT but to me there's nothing similar to analog about the format, despite it being on tape. It's basically digital information being stored on a less than reliable medium (both the DAT and DAT machine) vs a CD-R / CD burner, IMHO. I'd still pick the latter despite its noted shortcomings.
 
jjones1700 said:
So how does a DA-38 or DA-88 fit into the scope of a DA-30? There is a DA-38 for sale locally that I've been eyeing. Is the DA-30 a newer generation than the 38/88?
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Those are Tascam's versions of multitrack (8-track) ADAT, but using Hi-8 videocassette instead of S-VHS.

For me personally the DAT/ADAT era was a nightmare from an archiving perspective. Analog has outlasted it. I still backup to analog and high resolution digital to hard drive. The digital backups are just that… something to fall back on, but analog is still the best bet.

The generation loss of analog-to-analog is nothing compared to what you lose going to the 16/48 digital of the DAT format.

:)
 
cjacek said:
No offense intended to anyone who likes DAT but to me there's nothing similar to analog about the format, despite it being on tape. It's basically digital information being stored on a less than reliable medium (both the DAT and DAT machine) vs a CD-R / CD burner, IMHO. I'd still pick the latter despite its noted shortcomings.
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I agree.

I still have the original TASCAM DA30...and I'll use it once in a blue moon...like if I don't have the DAW fired up, and I'm doing some analog stuff and I want a quick test mix...I might go to the DAT because it's quick-n-easy.
But I don't use it for any final/archive purposes at all anymore.
It's much safer to go to an external drive, and if it's more critical, I'll burn a CD or a DVD...or analog tape, of course.

But the DAT still sounds pretty darn nice for a 16 bit tape medium.
I bought a box of a dozen DAT tapes like 10-15 years ago, and more than half of the tapes are still unopend.
I thought about putting up on eBay...but no one really wants them anymore....
 
The only bad things about the sound of DAT were the internal converters and it was only 16 bit. (they came out with 24 bit dats, but it was at the end of the dat era)

I have a library of dat tapes from the 90's. Some of them work, some don't. Some half work and are just flakey.

I would go with CD's, DVD's and hard drives for a few different reasons.

1. new 24 bit converters sound better than old 16 bit converters
2. maintaining a dat machine is expensive when something goes wrong. (Pouring hundreds of dollars into a machine that you have a hard time selling for $50 isn't good for your self esteem) Parts will get hard to come by pretty soon.
3. media is expensive and hard to find compared to CD's, etc...
4. reliability. These things were far from bullet proof when they were new, now that they are all at least 10 years old...
5. Having a library of music archived in a dead format is a bummer. Since they don't make the machines any more, eventually, the world will run out of working ones and the music will not be retrievable any more.
 
What happens if you put a DAT tape in a DAT160 drive? Would you be able to stream the raw data off it?

**EDIT**
(Looks like the DAT-160 is only backwards compatible to DAT-40, so probably not)
 
Farview said:
5. Having a library of music archived in a dead format is a bummer. Since they don't make the machines any more, eventually, the world will run out of working ones and the music will not be retrievable any more.
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Sounds like another format we love so well...:(
 
jpmorris said:
What happens if you put a DAT tape in a DAT160 drive? Would you be able to stream the raw data off it?

**EDIT**
(Looks like the DAT-160 is only backwards compatible to DAT-40, so probably not)
Click to expand...
Nope. That would be like trying to play a VHS tape of your wedding on an ADAT machine.
 
Not sure if anyone reading this thread is ready to keep their DAT machine, or throw it out of the nearest window but........

Something that helps if you are using a DAT recorder, is if you have a brand new tape, and load it up for the first time, be sure to completely fast-forward all the way to the end, and rewind back to the beginning again. In fact, if you have time do this process a second time.

This helps to stretch out the tape just a little bit, potentially preventing the tape from stretching during the first past of recording and playback in the transport. It also helps to "sand down" any snags on the edge of the tape where the tape was cut, preventing the edge of the tape from getting caught on the transport, and potentially losing contact with the heads for a split second (both of which are REALLY bad things when using a DAT tape, trying to record a solid non-stop digital signal.)
 
Muckelroy said:
Not sure if anyone reading this thread is ready to keep their DAT machine, or throw it out of the nearest window but........

Something that helps if you are using a DAT recorder, is if you have a brand new tape, and load it up for the first time, be sure to completely fast-forward all the way to the end, and rewind back to the beginning again. In fact, if you have time do this process a second time.

This helps to stretch out the tape just a little bit, potentially preventing the tape from stretching during the first past of recording and playback in the transport. It also helps to "sand down" any snags on the edge of the tape where the tape was cut, preventing the edge of the tape from getting caught on the transport, and potentially losing contact with the heads for a split second (both of which are REALLY bad things when using a DAT tape, trying to record a solid non-stop digital signal.)
Click to expand...
+1

This is also good advice for those using ADAT and DA88 machines as well. I assume it will work for any cartridge based tape system.
 
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