Dave wrote:

Appreciate any help on this topic.

I have a few DAT tapes I want to record onto my computer. I recently
purchased an Edirol UA-1D and an optical cable. I'm borrowing a
Panasonic SV-3800 DAT player from a friend. I hooked up the optical
cable to the DAT player and the Edirol and plugged the Edirol into my
Mac (I've tried on both my iBook and my G4 desktop) using USB. I
opened system preferences, set the audio input to Edirol and see
nothing on the meter with I play a tape. I know the Panasonic works
because I can plug in headphones and hear the audio.

I have also tried a used Sony DAT player I bought on ebay and I can
see audio input in the System Preferences :: Audio panel when I use
that machine, but the deck is unreliable and skips portions of the
audio. I have tried recording using Audacity
(http://audacity.sourceforge.net/), but it won't work with the
Panasonic. I do not want to use the Sony anymore because I don't
trust it and the tapes I'm using are very important.

I am reasonably sure the optical cable works and the Edirol works
because I can see the Audio on the mac. I cannot, however, manage to
get the audio to play on the mac speakers, nor can I record.
Actually, I may have been able to record using the Sony and my iBook,
but I can't remember and it's not really relevant because the Sony is
essentially unusable.

So, I have questions:

1) Am I missing a setting on the Panasonic that will cause it to
output to the digital output port? Is there anything on the Panasonic
unit I am doing or not doing that will get it to work?

2) If the problem is not the Panasonic, am I missing something in the
audio settings of the Mac that is causing it not to get the digital
input through the Edirol?

3) Has anybody tried to do what I'm doing and can you offer some
assistance or suggest tools/programs/hardware/whatever? I want to try
and not spend any more money (although I will if I have to) and use
the existing equipment to transfer this audio onto my computer.

The fact that you can see audio input from Edirol with the Sony device
suggests that the Mac settings are fine. I don't know the Panasonic
device but it might be something as simple as hooking up the cable to
the wrong port.

To record, try Amadeus II. Dig into its Record panel and make sure that
it is requesting and getting 48 KHz sampling from the Edirol device; you
want the sample rate to match that of the DAT. m.

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