Transfer entire label Catalog From DAT. Best Solution?

[Chrisac]

Im about transfer a substantial catalog from a now defunk label (group of labels) consisting of approx 700 titles. Everything is on 16 Bit DAT tapes.

Im going to transfer all tracks for storage on to hard drives. Many of the tracks will eventually be remastered for some MP3 sites.

I want the easiest route but I remember reading somewhere that the tracks should be upsampled to 24bit. This doesnt fathom with me and seems to be adding needless conversion processes but I could be wrong an dthere may be a perfectly good reason to upsample?

The DAT machine I have is a TAscam DA30mk11 and as far as I know the optical outputs are 16 bit so the upsampling would have to be done in the computer anyway.

Or would I be better taking the outputs from the dat through some sort of analog board and recording that way?

Any suggestions appreciated, but Im not looking for rocket science solutions. Just looking for the simplest way becasue this is going to take a very long time as there are many mixes of the same songs which will all have to be recorded and matched with the originals.

Thanks

[rufus13]

I would go from DA-30mkII s/p-dif to flash recorder. No analog.

I have this exact set up. It should work fine and be a PITA for a long time (real-time), just like DAT is. Each DAT is a $20 transfer for me.

Dump onto hard disk from Flash, edit and burn disks. Don't adjust levels of the masters. Burn data disks to save, RedBook to listen.

DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT.

[fifthcircle]

No need to add bits... You aren't going to get anything out of it. I'd look at going SPDIF out of the DAT into a program that can recognize the DAT ID's in the SPDIF subcode. I've used Samplitude and Sequoia extensively for this, but I'm sure there are other programs that can do it as well.

--Ben

[Chrisac]

Dump onto hard disk from Flash

What do you mean by Flash?

I'd look at going SPDIF out of the DAT into a program that can recognize the DAT ID's

Is there a difference between Spdif and Coaxil. Is one better than the other?

[fifthcircle]

Originally Posted by Chrisac

Is there a difference between Spdif and Coaxil. Is one better than the other?

SPDIF can be transmitted on either a light (Toslink) or Coax cable...

--Ben

[orange]

when I did mine I dumped them out of the DAT via spdif into a PC running wavelab.

As fithcircle said, you can get the software to read the start IDs which makes the job a little easier. You need to make sure that your soundcard will support subcodes too - I was using an RME card which did.

You simply let the DAT run from beginning to end and ended up with one large WAV file which I cropped with the help of the start IDs.

As mentioned DO NOT add extra bits at this stage you are simply doing a digital copy of the DAT. Some of my DATs were recorded at 48Khz (?) and I converted these after the transfer, to 24bit and did a sample rate convert and dithered back down to 16bit. I thought it best to try to get everything in the same format, even though I kept the original transfers just in case.

In wavelab you can do this as a batch process so you can leave it to do the job itself.


si

[rufus13]

Unless you have an extra computer, using a CF recorder like Tascam HD-P2/ Sound Devices 700-series/etc, will be far less annoying. You should get markers this way, too. Importing a couple GB's from a CF card takes a minute, as you exercise DAT tape.

Most of my DAT's are 2/3/4 hour, so even 700 2-hour tapes is going to make a good dent in a year!

Set up a work station that does nothing else. Streamline the process. Employ any available children to keep the tapes flowing.

[danasti]

Originally Posted by Chrisac

Or would I be better taking the outputs from the dat through some sort of analog board and recording that way?

Thanks

No, don't go analog and back again. Hopefully all the dats still play and play correctly.

Go spdif into whatever sound card you have. Setup a stereo track in your DAW and hit play on the dat / record on the DAW.

I would get the machine checked out and cleaned for an important job like that.

[Legacy]

DATS can be tricky especially ones recorded over long periods of time on different machines. With use (and irregular maintenance) the head alignment will change on the record machine(s). Transferring them years later on another machine you might find that the head alignments are different enough that you'll get some nasty bursts of noise as the heads read the subcode section of the tape as audio or the audio was originally printed too high / low on the tape.

In addition to what others have said I would suggest you proof all transfers very carefully and might need to have a couple of dat machines around to try if you run into noises like this.

Digital transfers of this size and importance are never simple nor can be responsibly done "in the background". As Bob Katz says, "never turn your back on digital".

Best,
Silas