Digital recording, mixing Need professional help.

Once upon a time, our friends at the RIAA threatened to sue anyone who introduced a medium which could faithfully copy a CD... so, when DAT was being introduced it was greatly delayed because of fear of retaliation from the music industry. It was introduced with what is known as SCMS (Serial Copy Management System) as a compromise with the RIAA where only a single digital copy would be allowed on a consumer DAT. Professional machines were not restricted by the agreement with the RIAA. The first company to introduce a consumer DAT was Nakamichi with the 1000 but its cost was sky high (around $10K) and avoided problems with the RIAA. Eventually, the delay of DAT had killed its application as a consumer medium and became supported only in recording studios. CD-R followed close enough that it became the digital medium of choice for copying and we all know what has happened to the RIAA fears of piracy in the meantime.

For recording sessions, when doing a live 2 channel recording the CD-R is a very poor medium to use (dropouts, errors writing the CD-R, etc...). Therefore, DAT is very popular for this and has kept its foothold in studios and location recording. It is much cheaper to use than analog, much more robust than CD-R, and very convenient.

And to add to the above...I think it also became a victim of the constant format wars that plague the audio industry. At the time the DAT was being introduced (by Sony?? I'm not sure), Phillips was pushing their own digital cassette format. Besides that, Sony seemed to be pushing their own mini-disc format for many of the same consumer uses as the DAT. Who knows...it may have successfully replaced the cassette if all of the companies (record labels included) embraced it, but the recordable CD was inevitable and it's certainly more convenient for home users.

Thanks to Slartibartfast for the DAT bit rate info. I knew that Tascam (or Alesis?) came out with a 24/96 DAT a few years ago, but I wasn't sure what format the older DATs used.

And to Marakanetz...in the end it seems like the DAT has become one of the official replacements for the reel to reel recorder (though many people still prefer the analog feel and tape compression of a reel to reel recorder). Pros and enthusiasts use them to record live music...musicians used them for mix downs, and most studios, mastering houses, and CD duplicators accept them as a standard format. Many people have been slowly replacing them with CD burners and hard-drives for mix-downs, but they're still very useful for live recording.

Kudos..Would you guys do a series on digital recording and playback.... Sampling, jitter, aliasing, dynamic range, ect...the whole 44.1k yards. Just kidding... great posts folks.

I remain,

Nicely done! DAT101 course is almost complete. As to reproduce performance can DAT be better than CD-player or transport-DAC combo if used in the consumer media?

A top analog machine is still superior to 16 bit digital (even with high quality 24 bit A/Ds). The big reason analog has been overshadowed by DAT is mostly a financial issue. A high quality analog mastering machine will cost between $5-15K depending on how nuts you go. Couple that to the fact that a 2Hr DAT tape is only a few bucks and 25 minutes of 1/4" 10" reel of Quantegy 499 is $20, you can see how people have moved away from analog. Its also kinda hard to pick up a 200 lb Ampex and throw it in the car.

As far as DAT v CD as a transport, it is all relative. It is subject to the same jitter issues as a CD transport. The medium doesn't inherrintly reduce the jitter and in reality, the most popular early DAT was the Panasonic SV-3700 which has some horrible jitter specifications and was used to record a rather large amount of music.

People have also questioned the long term shelf life of a DAT so I would be hesitant to use it as a long term storage format. Analog tape is still the best for this and is what the Smithsonian and various others recommend for long term shelf life.

When doing live recording, hard drivers or DAT is still the medium of choice. The CD-R is too prone to dropouts and is not reliable for live recording.

And Clueless- Already done them all minues the jitter tests... Results: winner - 2 track analog. As far as digital goes though, you can get a darn fine recording with an Apogee 24 bit A/D dithered to 16 bits with the built in UV-22. The key to 16 bit recording is using a high quality 24 bit A/D so you can keep the bit rate high. A straight 16 bit recording never makes good use of the 16bits and you usually get a resolution no better than 14 bits (especially with classical).