Can you Rip DAT audio?

Alisdair McDiarmid asks: "I'm working at my family record company, designing a web-interfaced system for creating custom CDs from their entire collection of recordings. Most of the music is already on CD, so reading those tracks in is no problem, but a significant amount is still on Digital Audio Tape. Is it possible to rip music from DATs? "

Comments

Ripping from DAT

[Ater]

Yes, it is possible to rip from DAT's I have yet to actually do so myself but here's a link to a thread on mp3.com's forum that should explain the process.

http://bboard.mp3.com/mp3/ubb/Forum1/HTML/000531 .html

Hope that helped

Re:Ripping from DAT

[weston]

It looks as if this thread describes how
to rip a cassette tape, not a DAT.

Basically, if you're in this situation
-- ripping any analog recording -- then
obviously the only way to do this is to play
into a sound card of some sort that'll do the
AD conversion.

But with anything recorded digitally, you obviously shouldn't do this, since you've already got the bits... you just need to get them to
the HD and get something that understands the
format they're written in.

The suggestions below seem good to me.

Re:Ripping from DAT

[weston]

It looks as if this thread describes how to rip a cassette tape, not a DAT.

Basically, if you're in this situation -- ripping any analog recording -- then obviously the only way to do this is to play into a sound card of some sort that'll do the AD conversion.

But with anything recorded digitally, you obviously shouldn't do this, since you've already got the bits... you just need to get them to the HD and get something that understands the format they're written in.

The suggestions in the post below seem good to me.

Re:Ripping from DAT

[Anonymous Coward]

This site has info on hacking archive/conner DAT drives to rip audio...
http://www.rsi.co.uk/~ar/dat-dds.html Have fun!

Re:Ripping from DAT

[Anonymous Coward]

This site has info on hacking archive/conner DAT drives to rip audio: http://www.rsi.co.uk/~ar/dat-dds.htmlBreak out your eprom burners and have fun!

Audio CDRs from DAT

[HHaygood]

From the CD-R FAQ:

Buy a card that will allow you to go from DAT to hard disk digitally. Make sure you get one that can handle the same digital standard the DAT recorder uses, i.e. S/PDIF (Sony/Phillips Digital Interface Format, sometimes referred to as "domestic") or AES/EBU ("professional").

Some of the solutions for the PC are the DigiDesign AudioMedia (see http://www.digidesign.com/), the Zefiro Acoustics ZA2 (see http://www.zefiro.com/), the AdB Digital Multiwav Pro (see http://www.adbdigital.com/), the Digital Audio Labs CardD+ (see http://www.digitalaudio.com/products.htm), or the Turtle Beach Fiji (see http://www.tbeach.com/products/fiji.htm). The CardD+ comes highly recommended. There may be newer versions of these products, so be sure to check out the web sites.

Visit http://www.digitalexperience.com/cards.html for a feature comparison of many different models.

A cheap S/PDIF card available from Computer Geeks (http://www.compgeeks.com/) was evaluated by some newsgroup readers. Apparently there were some problems with the physical dimensions of the card (too wide for some PC slots), the documentation is poor, and the voltage level for both input and output was TTL instead of standard S/PDIF. You're probably better off with one of the established brands unless you're sure about what you need.

You should record from the DAT onto your hard drive, and then record the CD from there. If you try to record directly from DAT you'll likely end up with a lot of wasted CD-Rs due to buffer underruns or minor mistakes. You should use Disc-At-Once recording for best results; Jeff Arnold's DAO software is recommended for this on the PC.

One issue you need to be aware of is that some older DAT recorders can only record at 48KHz, while CDs are recorded at 44.1KHz. If this is the case with your equipment, you will have to do a sample rate conversion. The DSP on cards like the ZA2 will do this for you, or you can use an audio editing program like CoolEdit or Sound Forge.

There *are* CD-R drives that have analog inputs, and can record directly from audio sources. See section (5-12).

If you use a DAT and haven't been to the DAT-heads home page, you should definitely check out http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rdp/dat-heads/.

If you want to manipulate audio DATs directly from your computer, you need a DDS drive with special firmware. The SCSI DDS drives that are typically sold for backups don't have the firmware required to handle DAT tapes. Most SGI workstations can do this, and Mac users should check out http://www.demon.co.uk/gallery/StudioDAT.html. If you have an Archive Python DDS drive, check out ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/DATlib.

An interesting combination of technologies is the DAT-Link from http://www.tc.com/, which connects to the digital connectors on the DAT machine (or MD, DCC, or CD player) and the SCSI interface on a computer. The device can be controlled from other computers on a network.

If you're interested in mastering production audio CDs, you should take a look at http://www.sadie.com/.

Re:Audio CDRs from DAT

[barleyguy]

There are a few more solutions that you could go with.

The first company I would check out is SEK'D. (http://www.sekd.com/) They have a series of cards called Prodif that allow you to hook your DAT directly to your computer and transfer all tracks simultaneously. (via SPDIF or AES/EBU) The cards also include a basic version of Samplitude, which allows you to remaster and burn directly to CD.

If you have an Alesis ADAT, there is a company called Aardvark that makes the ARC 20/20+ card, which has an ADAT Optical IO interface. It also has an optical interface for Sony Minidisc, if you ever have a need for it. (www.aardvark-pro.com)

If you want 8 channel analog, by far the best deal is the Gadget Labs 8/24 card. (www.gadgetlabs.com) It is 8 channel, 24 bit, and comes with Cool Edit Pro basic (with an upgrade deal for the full version). This is what I use for my recording studio. Just hook it to the buses on your mixer board, pan everything to the seperate buses, and press record. Great stuff. Cool edit has awesome effects, noise reduction, etc. for tweaking your recordings.

Good Luck.

Re:Audio CDRs from DAT

[snowbike]

I've been wanting to rip audio from SCSI connected DAT drive under Linux for quite some time, and finally it comes up on /. Thanks for the info so far!

So I have a few questions yet: I've found a Python Archive 4324RP for $285 from DriveStock (any better vendors to recommend?). I've got an Adaptec 2940 SCSI controller. Would I be good to rip w/ this configuration? The DATlib README says something about "'esp' or 'fas' hardware and with audio-firmware." What does this mean? (Or more importantly, does the Python 4324RP/Adaptec 2940 satisfy this requirement? It looks like esp/fas is only needed for fastforwarding the audio DAT anyway (non-crucial). Is this true?

It appears I really need to carefully ask for the audio firmware. Anyone been shipped a Python w/o the audio firmware and had to hassle to get it?

Is there a pointer to a DATlib README.linux (looks like what they've got is still fairly Sun specific, but not horribly hard to do under Linux). If there's linux specific documentation, that'd be great. If not, I hope to have my experiences written up in about a month!

Thanks.

What about an SB Live!?

[Zule_Boy]

Wouldn't an SB Live! take care of that for you? It is a common card, and it is fairly cheap in comparison to some of the Digital IO cards I have used in the past.. Besides, the 3d sound makes games really kewl.

Re:What about an SB Live!?

[Anonymous Coward]

The SB-Live sucks because it resamples all input, even streams that are already 44.1k. It's impossible to make a bit-for-bit clone with it. Kinda defeats the purpose of digital recording, eh?

Yes, it is, I've done it in Linux, BUT:

[Wakko Warner]

It's possible to rip music from audio DATs, even in Linux. There's a program for Solaris that I managed to get to compile on Linux which happily spat out 1200 MB worth of 44khz, 16 bit audio for me. In one big file.

The problem? You need a certain kind of DAT drive. The ONLY kind of DDS drives that have audio capabilities are Archive Pythons, which are now made by Seagate, formerly by Connor. Any other drive -- I tried it with my Digital DDS-2 drive to confirm it -- absolutely will not work.

The reason? SGI managed to convince Archive, back in the day, to include audio capabilities in the drives they manufactured for them. Ever since then, Pythons have been the only computer DAT drive that'll rip audio.

DATlib, the set of programs you can use on Linux for ripping DAT audio, is available at ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/ pub/DATlib.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Re:Yes, it is, I've done it in Linux, BUT:

[gabrieltss]

I have one of the old connor Archive python 4mm dds 2gig DAT drives. Where do I find more into on how to use this audio capability? I didn't even know it could do audio! I have been using it for backing up my system for the last 7 years.

What I've Done

[GooseKirk]

I've only done this with Windows, but here's my setup...

First, naturally, you need a big fat hard drive. SCSI's better, of course, but I have gotten good rips with IDE.

A SoundBlaster Live! with the S/PDIF inputs has worked just fine for me. Some people will say it's no good for professional-quality stuff, but I have no complaints. Besides, a lot of those "professional" cards seem to have other nasty quirks and issues surrounding them. I'd have to hear a side-by-side comparison before I'd be convinced to shell out the extra bucks and deal with the potential extra headaches for one of those cards. My Live! has always done everything I've asked of it without a glitch.

For the recording and mastering, SoundForge with CD Architect has worked like a charm for me. I record a huge .wav file using SoundForge, then assign track numbers and burn straight from CD Architect. Again, I've never had a glitch with this software combined with either a Yamaha 4216 or a Plextor 8/20. CD Architect is a terrific little program - simple, relatively intuitive, and it'll do practically anything you can think of.

CD Architect: http://www.sonicfoundry.com/Products/ShowProduct.a sp?PID=13

My musician friend and I have burned dozens of live shows from DAT using this setup and we've been very pleased with the results.

DAT -> Hard Drive

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that another device to go S/PDIF is the SonicPort, it connects to a USB port. check out www.etree.org for more info on dat -> hard drive. etree.org is a community of people involved with ftp servers of music like the grateful dead, phish, and other bands who allow taping. they all at one point do a DAT -> hard drive conversion and people there will be MORE than happy to help. a lot of them are linux users and all trying to figure out ways to go DAT -> hard drive without windows.

Takes a bit of looking...

[Wakko Warner]

I looked around all over once I found the drive in the SGI could do audio; I figured, "Okay, if this thing can do it, why can't mine do it at home?" Turns out my Dec drive couldn't, so I swiped the SGI's DDS drive and managed to find some Linux/Solaris software that would handle it. The link I gave is probably one of the more helpful things I've found on the 'net -- there really isn't all that much information available for doing audio with DDS drives. Admittedly, it isn't a very common practice, but it works very well nonetheless, certainly better than hooking a rack-mount DAT player up to even a high-end sound card.

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

DAT ripping

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, all this talk of using sd/pif is ridiculous just use the RCA outputs and goto the 1/8" input jack on the back of any sb16 or compatible card. Yes, its an analog solution but only the most nit-picky(anal) of listeners ould even hope to notice the difference. These guys make it seem like u need mucho $$$ to rip it when all you need is a 5$ cord from radio hack peace.hochiminh

Re:DAT ripping

[Anonymous Coward]

Every Analog to Digital step causes a quality loss, that is why once it is digital, it needs to stay digital until it is played. This is also the reason that 56k modems get 56k bandwidth at all, because they avoid an extra A->D step by using digital lines from the ISP to the telco.

It doesn't cost a whole lot to get a card with a digital interface. An SB Live! has the SP/DIF inputs you need and you just need a standard RCA cord to connect it to the SP/DIF out on the DAT. If you need to convert from AES/EBU or Optical to SP/DIF you can get a converter.

The same logic also goes for MP3s... Please use a good Digital Audio Extractor and a good encoder and encode at 160k/s. When MP3s are ripped this way you can almost not tell at ALL the difference between the MP3 and the CD (although some Dave Matthews songs are better at 256k/s bitrate).

Note that using Windows Sound Recorder to record the audio coming from the CD-ROM is a bad idea. You basically route the audio from digital to analog, through a $.50 unsheilded audio cable in an environment with a lot of electrical noise, back to digital, then encode it (with all the noise you just introduced) with probably xing because if you were stupid enough to use WSR you are probably stupid enough to use Xing.

-Jimithing DMB (don't have my Login/Password because I am at school downloading RH 6.1 ISO onto 7 Zip disks.)

The reason why the SB Live is "no good"

[mosch]

the SB Live samples only at 44.1 which is fine if all your recordings are 44.1, however in the case of somebody who has an archive, there's likely to be a lot of stuff recorded at 48 in there. Also, even when you go 44.1->44.1 with the SB Live, it does NOT do 1:1, bit-accurate sampling.

There's a bevy of inexpensive devices (the Midiman CO2 comes to mind) which are capable of reading digital audio in to a machine. Or on the higher end you have things like the Zefiro ZA2 (bad with higher bus speed machines) and any number of high-end cards like the Motu 2408, etc (these guys will set you back a pretty penny and offer capabilities you're probably not interested in though. read: overkill)

Also is the issue of outs, I believe the SB Live only has a coaxial s/pdif in, whereas he might need to come from AES/EBU on XLR, or S/PDIF on optical. I know converters even for optical->coaxial (Fostex COP-2, I think? not sure) run around $85. This plus the cost of a live is enough to purchase something with a better input if they're interested in doing something other than coax.

And now for content... http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~aa571/dat2wav.htm contains info on reading from DDS drives to wave files.

Look harder

[ader]

Au contraire, I have been down this singularly unrewarding path before and have assembled all the info I found on DDS/DAT here. That includes advice, links, READMEs, software, threads, searches, firmware, etc.
In summary: you can do it, but it ain't easy. Finding a suitable DDS drive is the biggest challenge.
If you have any more, let me know.

Ade_
/