Re: [ARSCLIST] 12 bit non-linear DAT and Sony LP mode

[Bob Olhsson <olh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
>From Dave Rice: "... By preserving the digital information from the  
DAT tape we have the potential to recreate the original recording in  
the future. Doing a digital to analog to digital conversion is making  
a new recording, related to the original, but less exact than a  
digital transfer.
	In addition to the sound there is other data on the tape, recording

times, info and when the recording started and stopped. This data has  
helped me enormously when tapes are poorly labeled or hard to  
identify by audio alone. The metadata on the DAT tapes should be  
preserved as well."

A digital transfer is certainly a very good idea to do in addition however
if you genuinely seek to preserve exactly what the original recordists
heard, based their production decisions upon and believed they had recorded,
a digital only archive will not always accomplish this.  Early digital
formats often used analog processing in their A to D and D to A stages with
no expectation that anything other than the original type of machine would
be used to reproduce the audio. As the consumer machines involved disappear,
so does the possibility of accurately archiving what they recorded.


Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com