ADAT Tape

Jim Marquard

New member
I just went to Ed's web site. No wonder he made all the suggestions he did, the man actually makes money with music. Hey Ed, if your married, tell me, does that make your wife more understanding when you want to buy new equipment? Oh well, I could only wish. Anyway, here's my question--What are my choices of S-VHS tape to use with this machine. I've checked out the Alesis web site and looked at their manual but I don't normally see these particular tapes at Best Buy. Am I able to use S-VHS tapes that run $7 a piece (can you tell I am price conscientious)? It's not that $12 a pop is bad, but two tapes for the price of one? What is anybody's experience shown them?

Peace, Jim
 
USE ONLY THE HIGHEST QUALITY SVHS TAPES YOU CAN FIND WITH ADAT'S!!!

I cannot stress enough the importance of only using high quality SVHS tape in a ADAT. Doing otherwise can cause severe damage to your machine.

The problem with those lower quality tapes is that they are not designed to hold up to the demands you will make on it for audio recording purposes. In regular video use, you press play once and watch the show. You then rewind it to the beginning.

With audio recording, you will be starting and stopping and rewinding, and fast forwarding a lot. This stress's the tape. Having cheap tape can lead to massive tape failure. In some cases, you can damage the machines tape heads. Currently, it costs about $400 + shipping for Alesis to replace the head stacks. This will probably cost you more at a local shop that MAY be an authorized Alesis service shop. Let's also consider the fact that if a tape breaks, you lose all the music on it. The bottom line is that using cheap tape is not worth what you are saving in the long run.

"If you buy cheap, you buy twice".

By the way, I am not married. But my girlfiend of 2 1/2 years often only barely understands my need to improve the studio... :)

Ed

[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 09-17-1999).]
 
Back
Top