I have mixed down 16 songs to DAT after almost two weeks of hard mixing. I'm using a Tascam DA-45 DAT machine.

The problem is, now I'm trying to make a backup safety copy to CDR from my DAT machine and when I play the songs, they keep cutting out on me (from the DAT machine) in various places.

The weird thing is that it will cut out on me (i.e. no sound for a few seconds) during one part of the song, but then if I rewind it and play it back again, it plays that part of the song fine but will cut out on me during a different part of the song. Every now and then it will get through the whole song with no cutouts, but it cuts out on me about 75% of the time...

Is this normal? Am I doing something wrong here?

I'm worried because I'm sending it to the mastering engineer this week and I'm guessing he might have the same problems with my DAT tapes???

Or maybe it's my machine, but my machine is pretty much brand new (less than 2 hours of user time)

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Yes, my rocky mountain high friend, you have a missmatch. Check your clocking and cords and bits and samples.

I'm not sure where I went wrong.

Everything in the chain is set at 24 bit, 44.1 KHz (including the DAT player). I terminated word clock at the DAT connected with a BNC cable from the DA7.

None of the songs cut out like this before. After I mixed-down to DAT, I checked 75% of the songs after the went down to DAT and never had this problem. Now all of a sudden, it's cutting out on me all the time.....

Maybe I should've just used my analog outs from the DA7 to the DAT??? I just didn't want to lose any quality using the analog XLR cables...

Maybe it just doesn't like you. Or it could be the dat player itself. I've had trouble with my DA45HR right out of the box. I hardly use it now, that's a trashcam for you.

Try a diffewrent tape and re-record the songs.

To TrenSelva,

I have read, on another forum, about problems with the DA-45 so, I'm not suprised. I have the Tascam 40 series and have encountered problems with the 'auto-end-marker' on numerous
mix down sessions and have experienced similar problems as you. If the unit is still under warranty, have it checked out ASAP. Also, checkout the Tascam website for DA-45 / DAT issues.

Just as a sidebar; all of the engineers in my area have switched to the Masterlink for convenience sake and reliability and / or have incorporated sometype of PC mixdown platform; Wavelab etc.

Good luck and keep the faith.

Radovic

Well, that just sucks if it's an equipment problem.

I would hate to have to re-mix all of these songs, I spent so much time mixing them the first time.

Does Tascam really suck that bad? I heard negativre things anout the masterlink, that's why I went with the DA-45...

If it is/was my own fault I guess I could live and learn the hardway from my own clock, bit, etc mistakes, but I have checked everything and everything seems to be in sinc.....

Life goes on I guess...

Is there any hope that these tapes will work fine for the mastering engineer...?

Tren ,
If you must have a DAT machine , the one to have is the SV-3800. Why , because it's a Panasonic product of course , and therefore is awesome !
Regards

To TrenSelva:

1) Do you know of anyone in your area that has a DAT that you could check the Mix on?
This way you could proceed to finalize your session with a reasonable level of confidence
knowing that the your mix is stable but the DA-45 is in need of relief, or visa-versa, or somthing to that effect. You still need to investigate whether or not the DAT tape is "OK"

2) What negative 'things' have you heard about the Masterlink? Tha original v.1 units were distributed with software bugs but were fixed soon after. The only downside that I know of is directed at the small harddrive provided with the initial purchase. Although, the HD can be swapped for a larger one if and when necessary with little effort

Radovic

What kind of digital input is on the CDR and are you having the DAT do any dithering? If not, you'd better figure out a way to get it to 16-bit. Doesn't the CDR have a builit-in SRC... not that you're doing SRC but it may do dithering for you on-the-fly.

Eric, your back! Where have you been yo? On vacation? Living large in your new facility?
Or are you just on another level now than the rest of us grunts slaving away?