[Scott Dorsey]

JackA wrote:

Rich, I didn't even know there were DAT machines offered to public!! Probab=
ly high cost associated with them.
I ASSUME they were used for the very first digital (Pop music) recordings? =
Not sure how many tracks they typically offered? Made me wonder how they di=
gitally mixed, but as you mentioned, output was analog!

And once again, everything you think is totally wrong.

The DAT (which we should really call R-DAT) was originally intended as a
consumer recording medium. It never really took off, but it became a sort
standard professional format in spite of being kind of flaky. R-DAT is
a 2-track format with no ability to record the channels separately.

The first digital pop stuff was almost entirely multitracked... and really
digital recording (in the form of the horrible 3M, Mitsubishi, and DASH
machines didn't take off in the pop world at all.

In the pop world, there was really no reason to go the digital route, and
while a few folks used it, analogue production remained popular even decades
after the classical guys had all gone digital.

In the pop world, digital recording came in at the low end of the market
with the bargain basement ADAT machines making it possible for small studios
to have a lot of tracks for cheap and making running costs much cheaper.
The lower budget pop stuff was done digitally because it cost so much less.
Mind you, the ADAT gear didn't sound very good, but things improved.

It's just that I see many external devices used have greater or max DC offs=
et, but maybe caused by the computer, not strictly grounding.

Once it's in the digital domain, there's nothing to add DC offset to a signal.
Ground problems cannot add DC offset. DC offset is an artifact from the
conversion process, and it's one that was a lot more common back in the DAT
era than it is today.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."