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?

I don't think I understand, you have a 24 bit CDR and 24 bit DAT?

Can you play either and get it to play all the way through on either or just on one song at a time? Ether way, make anouther copy and compare them. See if the copy plays all the way through and if the quality is differant. And what Eric said... How are you going to get to 16 bit?

Jeremy I've been here... just lurking instead of talking. Actually, the last 10 days I was doing the Miss California Pageant. Lots of pre-production editing and LATE rehearsals with some pretty great lookin' 20-year-olds.

Someone had to do it....

Tren,

May I suggest that you disconnect the DAT machine from any other digital device and see if your tape plays via its analog outputs or headphone jack. At least you'll be able to sleep at night knowing your hard work is OK.

Thanks for the input and concern everyone.

I called Tascam and they seem to think it's a problem with the machine and that my tapes are probably fine. (my machine is practically brand new by the way, less than 4 hours total user time)

My conclusion: The Tascam DA-45 is a waste of $1300.00

I feel totally ripped off.

Anyway, the mastering engineer told me he encounters this same problem a lot with the DA-45. He feels my tapes are fine. He has three of the DA-45's and feels confident he can get it to play back on at least one of them.

BTW, the DA-45 has an option that sends output at 16 bit if selected.

I also burned every mix to CD-R at the same time, but I'd rather use the 24 bit DAT master instead of the 16 bit CD-R (my CD burner, a Marantz, sucks also, I HIGHLY DON'T RECOMMEND ANYONE WASTE THEIR MONEY ON THIS PRODUCT!!!!!!

Can't anyone make something solid and reliable for a change?

Also, the only bad thing I heard about the Masterlink was that their were some jitter problems (this may have been fixed with a software update) I heard this about 8 months ago...

Hey Trenselva,

Does the Marantz CD Recorder suck based on the way it sounds or are there other malfuntions?

As far as the Marantz goes, it worked fine the first month or so, after that, it never finalized correctly. Currently it usually takes 2, 3, or 4 times of me trying to finalize before it does it right. This amounts to a lot of wasted time (it takes 2:10 for each attempt).

Also, I would say 35-45% of the time, the songs recorded to the Marantz CDR play back with severe static/distortion. Thus, it's very hard to hear the actual music. This is not a subtle thing, any 2 year old could notice the severe static/distortion that is created. The static result usually happens for about 7 to 10 days straight, then the burner is fine for about 2 or 3 weeks. It burns fine, no problems. Then it gets back into its static phase for another 7 to 10 days.

That's the frustrating experience I've had with the Marantz. It is still under warrantly, but I haven't taken it into the shop to see what is actually going on with it. I bought this brand new for $499 at GC. I should've spent the extra $50 for the Sony CD burner....