How to save music from DAT Files

[PeterSt]

2 minutes ago, mansr said:

Or you build one of these and hook it into any player:

 

LOL. I Couldn't think of that back then, and I didn't think of that right now.

 

I suppose you didn't make that (up) for this thread ?

Anyway, nice ...

[PeterSt]

And thinking of it further ... indeed that would work nicely, not requiring a driver and such (just serial processing).

[PeterSt]

6 minutes ago, mansr said:

I got the impression these were original recordings made to DAT.

 

I missed that one. Thanks for the correction.

Yes, assumed that these were direct recordings (microphone to DAT), it will be OK (not copy protected).

[mansr]

12 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

LOL. I Couldn't think of that back then, and I didn't think of that right now.

 

I suppose you didn't make that (up) for this thread ?

Anyway, nice ...

No, I made it for other purposes.

 

12 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

And thinking of it further ... indeed that would work nicely, not requiring a driver and such (just serial processing).

It does work quite nicely. It's simply a DIT4192 chip that connects to any I2S signal and outputs AES-3. You still need a computer with a digital input, of course.

[TJtennispro]

On 5/21/2019 at 6:12 AM, PeterSt said:

Small advice from me: Don't have high hopes you will be able to copy anything from that Sony DAT via the digital out.

https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/W000/W0003935M.pdf

See page 22 under #3 (top left).

 

The general consensus back then was that it was allowed to make your digital copy from CD to DAT, but you could not copy that through to a next generation DAT. Or computer for that matter, although that was not the target. But the mechanism is the same: the digital out will be blocked when the recording from CD is detected (and it will in your case).

 

Back at the time special DAT players were available with a hack, or which allowed to be hacked regarding this. I recall a Tascam (I think I still have it, but it died) and a certain model of Technics (stolen from my house).

 

What I have laying around for more than 10 years is a specific brand of computer backup DAT drive with driver and cables for PC control and "rip usage", which does not have the copy protection and moreover allows ripping at twice the speed normal. I never got around to get it going for real, hence still over 400 DAT tapes laying around for ripping.

 

Something else is that DAT tapes for audio are quite useless for the first one or two tracks, because the small pillar that connects the beginning of the tape to the spool sticks out a little which implies a too hard pressure at that spot per winding (I refer to the full spool now and thus actually the end of the tape). This means a scratched sound per (de-)wind, hence molested digital data. One prerequisite to let this happen: don't play the tape for a year or so.

And you know what ? this would make backup tapes (what out of all DAT was made for) useless just the same. Not that people knew (that I ever heard of). But same thing: try a restore from a DAT tape not used for a year, and it is worthless.

 

So much for the bad news. I don't have any better.

Blurp.

 

These are not second generation recordings. These are the only ones I’ve n the world that exist in soundboard. 

 

I was/am in the band we just never did anything with the DAT’s. We had a show Saturday with Jupiter Coyote and Bloodkin. Matt Mayes and I were having a conversation about how all his DAT’s are in his garage. He doesn’t know if they will play. Mine play perfectly. 

 

Maybe I’ll hire someone to do this. I just didn’t think it would be this hard. 

 

The current Railroad Earth sound engineer ran our board back in the day. Copyright has nothing to do with this. Please will someone not imply these are recordings of another band illegally. 

[esldude]

On 5/21/2019 at 5:38 AM, mansr said:

I got the impression these were original recordings made to DAT. There should be no problem exporting those.

 

Or you build one of these and hook it into any player:

I could be wrong, but didn't some of the old Audio Alchemy reclockers give you the option to turn off the flag that prevented copying DAT?

[mansr]

20 minutes ago, esldude said:

I could be wrong, but didn't some of the old Audio Alchemy reclockers give you the option to turn off the flag that prevented copying DAT?

I'm not familiar with those. However, it would require access to the digital signal from a CD player or whatever. If the protection flag is already set on the tape, and the player due to this disables the digital outputs, such a device won't help.

[marioed]

Hi TJ,

 

I mentioned in an earlier post the Well Tempered Computer site listed some spdif to usb convertors. This one, http://artproaudio.com/product/usb-phono-plus-project-series/ , seems to be readily available, https://www.amazon.com/ART-USB-Phono-Plus-PS/dp/B000BBGCCI/ref=sr_1_2?crid=28I45C3VIRYNP&keywords=art+usb+phono+plus&qid=1558574662&s=gateway&sprefix=Art+USB%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-2 . It has both a toslink & coax spdif digital in and has usb out to your computer and appears to be compatible with Mac's . It's not too expensive and might be just what you need.

 

Since your dat's are boards I don't think copy protection would be a problem. If the Art usb phono plus works I don't think you'll find doing the transfers will be that bad. Splitting the files into tracks can be a PITA but when you get to that point there some tips I can pass on. 

 

Regards,

Mario

[PeterSt]

5 hours ago, TJtennispro said:

Please will someone not imply these are recordings of another band illegally.

 

Nobody said or implied that. And most certainly not me ...

Apologies if that suggestion was created somehow.

 

 

Anecdotal and off topic:

 

It must be 25 years or so ago that me and a colleague both bought the same (Technics) DAT deck with the objective of first copying each other's CDs. Next we asked around at customers we both visited regularly as consultant whether we could borrow their CD's. This is how I ended up with my 400 DAT tapes (800 albums) and my colleague the same. Of course we agreed that at some stage we would copy the tapes from the one deck to the other, so we would have ~1600 albums each. To date this never happened (and the colleague is still colleague).

 

The original copying went by means of just playing the CDs. At work in the office we had two CD players plus the two DAC decks and a couple of alarm clocks. Say that this was (maximum) 8 CDs per day per deck. Months and months it took and soon it was not funny at all. The worst part of it was that we had decided to make photos of the front and back of the CDs so we could nicely archive what was on the tapes. I also wrote software so we could type the track titles and lengths and retrieve which was where and at which location (like with me or with my colleague). Each day ended with that pain of making photos and typing over track titles.

[TJtennispro]

15 hours ago, marioed said:

Hi TJ,

 

I mentioned in an earlier post the Well Tempered Computer site listed some spdif to usb convertors. This one, http://artproaudio.com/product/usb-phono-plus-project-series/ , seems to be readily available, https://www.amazon.com/ART-USB-Phono-Plus-PS/dp/B000BBGCCI/ref=sr_1_2?crid=28I45C3VIRYNP&keywords=art+usb+phono+plus&qid=1558574662&s=gateway&sprefix=Art+USB%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-2 . It has both a toslink & coax spdif digital in and has usb out to your computer and appears to be compatible with Mac's . It's not too expensive and might be just what you need.

 

Since your dat's are boards I don't think copy protection would be a problem. If the Art usb phono plus works I don't think you'll find doing the transfers will be that bad. Splitting the files into tracks can be a PITA but when you get to that point there some tips I can pass on. 

 

Regards,

Mario

 

I somehow missed the original posting but I’ll try this device. I hate ordering off EBay New Media. That’s a me problem. I told them band I would get the files off the DATs and our lead guitarist will separate the WAV files into tracks. I guess we will see. 

 

If any of y’all like Southern rock, Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Widespread Panic , Derek and the Dominos, the Meters etc we’ve got some shows on the internet archive. Hannaward Pass is our name. 

[marioed]

Hi TJ,

 

Thanks for the tip on your band, I'll check it out. If you do decide to give the ART device a try you might want to see if using usb power or an external power supply makes a difference. In general with this type of device I've found using external power seems to work better.

 

Regards,

Mario

[DavidL]

Just picked up this thread and see the subject has been pretty thoroughly covered but my experiences may have some value.

I had a large number of recordings on DAT tape, made with a Sony DTC-55ES - some off-air radio, others from CD.

I got a USB audio interface to do transfers digitally SPDIF to USB to a Mac computer. I also paid for an audio editor Peak (no longer available; now replaced by TwistedWave). Easier to use and more facilities than Audacity.

 

[new_media]

 

51 minutes ago, DavidL said:

Just picked up this thread and see the subject has been pretty thoroughly covered but my experiences may have some value.

I had a large number of recordings on DAT tape, made with a Sony DTC-55ES - some off-air radio, others from CD.

I got a USB audio interface to do transfers digitally SPDIF to USB to a Mac computer. I also paid for an audio editor Peak (no longer available; now replaced by TwistedWave). Easier to use and more facilities than Audacity.

 

 

Actually, you can still buy a "legacy" version of Peak and I am still using it. I've been using it since 2003 and I've never been able to find a replacement that I'm totally happy with.

 

https://peak-audio-editor.myshopify.com/

 

Unfortunately, Mojave is the last version of macOS that will support 32-bit apps, so that will probably be the end for Peak. I'm going to keep running Mojave on my iMac for as long as it will hold on.

[DavidL]

15 hours ago, new_media said:

 

 

Actually, you can still buy a "legacy" version of Peak and I am still using it. I've been using it since 2003 and I've never been able to find a replacement that I'm totally happy with.

 

https://peak-audio-editor.myshopify.com/

 

Unfortunately, Mojave is the last version of macOS that will support 32-bit apps, so that will probably be the end for Peak. I'm going to keep running Mojave on my iMac for as long as it will hold on.

 

I used Peak Pro 6 - one of the main reasons for choosing it was the excellent quality of its sample rate conversion.

 Twisted Wave has very similar capabilities and AFAIK supports 64 bit:

https://twistedwave.com

 

[TJtennispro]

I’ve got the converter and will try tonight! 

[marioed]

Hi TJ,

Great, let us know how it goes. What software are you going to use?

Regards,

Mario

[gmgraves]

On 4/29/2019 at 7:23 AM, TJtennispro said:

My favorite band had a reunion show this past weekend and I was given 50 DAT tapes and a Sony DAT player to listen and transfer the DATS which are full shows to external storage or CD. Anybody got any helpful hints for me? 

I have an Otari Studio DAT recorder called a DTR-80 (with balanced AES/EBU ins and outs) and long ago, I transferred all of my analog master tapes to DAT (Had to. I used Ampex Grand Master 456 tape with the “anti-slip” coating on the back of the tape and the binder from this coating turned into goo after a while! I was lucky to be able to play each tape one more time to transfer it by holding Q-tips soaked in isopropyl alcohol against the back of the tape to remove the goo as I shuttled the tape onto a take up reel (tapes are commonly stored “tails-out”) for play.) I then have been able to transfer the DAT tapes to CD using a TASCAM CDRW-900 Studio CD recorder. The DATs are 16/48 but the CD recorder allows for down-converting the S/PDIF to 16/44.1. If you don’t have access to a studio audio CD recorder, Then I suggest that you copy the DATs onto your HDD using Audacity and then write the CD from your computer, letting Audacity convert the DAT format from its native 48 kiloHertz to the Redbook 44.1 kiloHertz. Be advised, that it is possible with some DAT machines to record at 44.1 instead of 48, and whoever made the tapes that you need to convert to CD might have made them at 44.1 and you can just dub them directly. The display on the DAT will tell you the sampling rate so there would be no guessing on your part. Hope this helps.

[TJtennispro]

On 7/2/2019 at 2:50 PM, gmgraves said:

I have an Otari Studio DAT recorder called a DTR-80 (with balanced AES/EBU ins and outs) and long ago, I transferred all of my analog master tapes to DAT (Had to. I used Ampex Grand Master 456 tape with the “anti-slip” coating on the back of the tape and the binder from this coating turned into goo after a while! I was lucky to be able to play each tape one more time to transfer it by holding Q-tips soaked in isopropyl alcohol against the back of the tape to remove the goo as I shuttled the tape onto a take up reel (tapes are commonly stored “tails-out”) for play.) I then have been able to transfer the DAT tapes to CD using a TASCAM CDRW-900 Studio CD recorder. The DATs are 16/48 but the CD recorder allows for down-converting the S/PDIF to 16/44.1. If you don’t have access to a studio audio CD recorder, Then I suggest that you copy the DATs onto your HDD using Audacity and then write the CD from your computer, letting Audacity convert the DAT format from its native 48 kiloHertz to the Redbook 44.1 kiloHertz. Be advised, that it is possible with some DAT machines to record at 44.1 instead of 48, and whoever made the tapes that you need to convert to CD might have made them at 44.1 and you can just dub them directly. The display on the DAT will tell you the sampling rate so there would be no guessing on your part. Hope this helps.

 

I was able to get the files onto my HDD but I’ve got this annoying clicking sound during playback? 

[gmgraves]

On 7/7/2019 at 12:06 PM, TJtennispro said:

 

I was able to get the files onto my HDD but I’ve got this annoying clicking sound during playback? 

Your guess is at least as good as mine. If the tapes were momentarily over-modulating on peaks, that can result in clicks every time the record volume exceeds 16 bits or 100% modulation (0 Vu). Other than that, I can’t imagine what would cause those clicks (I have encountered that phenomenon before, however).

[mansr]

On 7/7/2019 at 8:06 PM, TJtennispro said:

I was able to get the files onto my HDD but I’ve got this annoying clicking sound during playback? 

Could you post a sample showing the clicks?

[TJtennispro]

It might be the metronome. I need to try again.