DAT-Heads Digest #935
Contents:
Re: Re: M1 renumber problem (Charlie Brush)
mic suggestions please (s l)
Looking For ANY "Chase" Recordings, Bill Chase (early 70's) (Jerry Zigmont)
trades (Paul deLima)
Re: TDK "data cartridges" (Jeff Lester)
Re: Normalization and 24 bits........... Digest #932 (pkmin@rsc.rockwell.com)
Phil And Phriends Tree Structure (ChinaDolll@aol.com)
M1 SCMS-problem ("")
Damn bit argument (Alexander W. Chin)
CDR's for whoever has this show (ZAndersson@aol.com)
DAT life ("Johan")
From: Charlie Brush <charlieb@cwix.com>
Subject: Re: Re: M1 renumber problem
Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 19:31:17 -0400
I had the same problem with my M-1 when I used Sony DGP DAT tapes. Some
ppl. haven't had any problems with these tapes though. It would flash
"UNLOAD" sometimes when I Fast Forwarded the tape-if I pressed FF again, it
would work. It had loading problems with DGP's as well. I haven't had any
problems with Maxell HS-4's(unlabeled & labeled).
Charlie
http://members.tripod.com/~groovin/index2.html
>From: Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
>Subject: Re: M1 renumber problem
>Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 09:26:28 -0400
At 02 15 04 30 1999 EDT, Jim Kish <jkish@mind.net> wrote:
>From: Jim Kish <jkish@mind.net>
>Subject: M1 renumber problem
>Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 09:58:48 -0700
>
>I've had a few instances of my M1 acting up during the renumbering process
>after assigning track IDs. At certain points on the tapes it will shut
>down, read "unload", then "load" and refuses to continue renumbering. It
>has attempted to eat two tapes doing this. Has anyone else had this happen?
From: dangerbird@webtv.net (s l)
Subject: mic suggestions please
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 18:47:32 -0500 (CDT)
any comments on the following:
shure axs3
ocktava mk012
akg c1000s
akg c3000
thanks
From: Jerry Zigmont <zigmont@mindspring.com>
Subject: Looking For ANY "Chase" Recordings, Bill Chase (early 70's)
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 19:57:39 -0400
Looking for any "live" recordings of the jazz/rock group Chase. Circa 1969-1974
Anything out there? Their appearance in Newport 71/72 perhaps? Would love
to trade for anything that anyone has.
Thanks,
Jerry Zigmont
From: Paul deLima <pdelima@dreamscape.com>
Subject: trades
Date: Mon, 03 May 1999 19:58:39 -0500
I'd like to trade for some Galactic, MMW, Charlie Hunter, JMP, Derek
Trucks Band or anything else in this genre....... I've got about 1200
digital hours which includes many dats of these bands. Also have recent
masters of MMW and Derek Trucks Band(Schoeps>Lunatec)from April.
thanks
Paul
pdelima@dreamscape.com
From: lester@gandalf.sp.trw.com (Jeff Lester)
Subject: Re: TDK "data cartridges"
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 18:40:55 -0700 (PDT)
"Goeby Family" <goeby@bigpond.com> asks:
>I am only new to the DAT world having recently bought a D3 with the intention
>of using it for binaural stereo recordings (after I build a decent low noise
>mic preamp for it).
>A couple of questions:
>1. Somebody has just given me a box of unused TDK DC4-90R "data cartidges".
>I have tried one in the D3 and it worked OK. Are there any problems in using
>these?
>2. In the Digestifier I don't recall seeing any mention of TDK tapes. I
>normally buy TDK DA-RXG (readily available in Melbourne, Australia). Are
>TDKs not favoured for some reason?
Data cassettes are generally acceptable to use in your DAT machine, however:
1) Those DC4-90R are 90 meter (3 hour) tapes and the D3 is not really designed
to handle anything longer than a 2 hour tape. They make work for awhile, but
eventually you may start having problems if you use them a lot, especially
since it is an older machine and you don't really know how much use it has
had (or do you?).
2) TDK tapes have generally been frowned upon because they have a history of
shedding the magentic material on to the machine's heads and clogging the
heads. Whether or not this is still a problem with their tapes I can't say,
but many people avoid them for this reason, even if it happened many years
ago.
-Jeff Lester
From: pkmin@rsc.rockwell.com
Subject: Re: Normalization and 24 bits........... Digest #932
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 19:11:54 -0700
"Knowing where to set levels to get overall quality maximized with any
particular system will also vary a bit with the type of music or sound
recorded. For example: Conservative level settings may work best with
continuous music rock style while for classical or acoustic music having VU
peaks maximized may produce the audibly superior results with using the very
same DAT system."
Or vice versa. Forgetting the style of music(I wouldn't want conservative
levels from the tapers section of a rock show in a huge stadium with very little
dynamic range, nor would I want to push my levels too much (for fear of audible
clipping during the loud parts)at a classical concert with lots of dynamic
range), what's impt is how much dynamic range the show contains and the duration
of the peaks. Ultimately what I want in my recordings is to have the highest
levels when averaged over the entire recording, yet not ever be able to hear
clipping (even to those with really good hearing).....Pete
From: ChinaDolll@aol.com
Subject: Phil And Phriends Tree Structure
Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 23:15:13 EDT
The structure is finished and is up at this location.
<A HREF="http://members.aol.com/ChinaDolll/INDEX.HTM">PHIL AND FRIENDS TREE
</A>
if the link doesn't work the url is this:
http://members.aol.com/ChinaDolll/INDEX.HTM
Enjoy
Jordan
From: "" <gribbenille@hotmail.com>
Subject: M1 SCMS-problem
Date: Tue, 04 May 1999 01:11:06 PDT
Hi,
I purchased the PCM M1 some months ago, and I’m wondering if anyone out
there knows if it possible to get rid of the SCMS-protection on tapes with
copy code ID6 10.
The manual tells me how to adjust the copy code when recording (digital
input). But not digital output. Isn’t possible to make clones with the M1,
if the tape you are going to clone already has got ID6 10?
Any help would be appreciated.
AJ
______________________________________________________
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From: alex@gerulf.acsu.unsw.edu.au (Alexander W. Chin)
Subject: Damn bit argument
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 18:31:46 +1000
Hey everybody,
You all remember me.... well... I've been silent for a while. Been overseas
and been catching up with the digests. I'm nearly done now.
If you all remember from the past, all my best posts come from during times
of stress, normally exam stress.
Well... just had some developments that has lead to immense stress... so
this is a good time for me to contribute to the digest.
Beware... I'm not in a good mood.... so now...
I've been reading bout this argument regarding bits and so on.... how
misinformed you all are. Damn.
It's really like the blind leading the blind who thinks that being blind is
the industry standard. Grr.....
Now let me set the record straigt. Grr.... this really has been pissing me
orf.....
As you all know already, I'm the EE, and also the D7 Guru... don't know?
Don't believe me? Fine. Piss orf... or go ask somebody else on the list. I
don't care.
For those that really do know, you know I know. And for those that think
they know, they don't really know. And for those who don't know but think
they know... I tickle myself reading their posts.
This should be the final thread in this bits, 14, 12 and 16 and 24 thing. I
want this damn farken thread to *DIE* *DIE* *DIE*
It's getting out of hand, spanning like 10 digests or something. Even my
mum isn't that long winded. 120 meter tapes, they don't last that long.
Even Volvo engines break down sooner. Grr... enough is enough.
Now, the long and short of the A/D process and the corresponding D/A
process is to enumerate the analog signal.
For all practical purposes, we shall assume scaling of the analog signal to
be perfect. In reality, it is quite good. Most OP-Amps and high quality
equipment have very good front ends. Therefore, one can scale (amplify, or
attenuate [pad]) signals in the analog domain with little error or loss.
You'd only get noise that is added, and perhaps some non-linear distortion.
Nothing major. My food has more bacteria in it than the amount of analog
contamination the signal goes through. At least at 16 bit quantization.
When you start talking higher bit resolutions, however, like 20 bit A/Ds
and 24 bit A/Ds... then the analog domain noise and distortion starts
becoming significant.
But we'll get into that later.
The argument is basically that a 16 bit A/D gives similar performance
regardless of recording levels. It maintains the same resolution no matter
what the levels peak at.
My comments on this.
Bullshit.
One word.
We engineers try and strive to make a better and better A/D as well as D/A
converters. Now why the hell do we do that? Perhaps we have nothing better
to do in real life hey?
The concept of resolution and the 6 dB/bit thing is true for the most part.
I think from memory it was 6.02 dB/bit given standard white noise dither.
The reason we all want to go to higher bit sampling, is of course partly
having greater dynamic range, as somebody pointed out. A 24 bit recorder
would be good that you'd not have to hawk eye the meters all the time and
worry about clipping.
The problem though is if you kept the signal levels too low, you'd more
likely get more errors because the last 3-4 bits will almost certainly be
analog domain noise. You could possibly end up with less resolution than a
straight 16 bit with proper input levels. But I digress... ignore last
paragraph.
The way to look at the problem and argument is to consider this:
Assume the analog signal is perfectly scaled. Lets consider a nice smooth
sinewave. Draw it out on a piece of paper. Very nice and smooth and sexy
huh? This signal can be scaled big or small, but it always retains its
smoothness.
The A/D process basically converts this smooth sinewave by quantizing it.
Now lets suppose you take a piece of graph paper. A transparent one.
Put it on top of our nice smooth sexy sinewave. Let's assume your graph
paper has 1 cm squares, now try to trace out the sinewave, bearing in mind
that you can only follow the grid lines. You now get a jagged squared up
sine wave. It still bears *some* resemblance to a sine wave, just not a
very good one.
That's your low bit converter, 8 bits, 12 bits or whatever. Any smooth
details in your curvy sinewave, they are lost forever. Gone. Home to mama.
Never to be seen again. Your error now is 0.5 cm. You can't resolve
anything smaller than it. So suppose your sinewave had a 1 mm kink. It's
gone. You've got nice squares instead.
You don't think so? You want to argue. Sure, we all believe you. Go away.
Now, lets suppose we take a piece of 1mm graph paper instead. And we lay
that on top of the sinewave. We can now trace a much better approximation
of the so called wave. Probably close enough that it even looks remotely
curvy and sexy.
The argument goes on. If you take a graph paper with even finer divisions
(not that we go below 1 mm in Australia), you get a better and better
looking curve. This relates to a higher bit A/D.
Now, the reason we want to maximise the recording level, it is very
obvious. If our sinewave were not at optimum, even with the 1 mm paper,
with a 10 mm sinewave, you'll still get the jaggies. But, if the graph
paper were big, and you drew the sinewave very nice and big, hey! you'd get
an almost perfect representation of it right?
So there you go. That's the concept of resolution for you. Don't come and
argue to me that you can get good resolution with small level signals. It
don't happen. I know. You can't bluff me. You can confuse some people, but
not me.
A higher bit A/D, well, it has more squares. A lower bit one, well it has
less. In the grand scheme of things, to be fair, we should normalize the
sine wave so it fits both graph papers. Then it becomes obvious why the
lower bit converters have more errors.
Now, if you were to argue that by peaking a 14 bit converter, and having a
16 bit peak at -12 dB, gives the same results, consider:
>From our graph paper argument, you're feeding a full sized sinewave to the
14 bit graph paper.
And you are feeding a smaller sine to the 16 bit one, which has more
squares. So the error in theory works out to be about the same. In both
cases.
In practice though.... things can be different. All A/Ds show error,
usually in the last bit or 2 bits. All things being equal, I'm more
inclined to believe the 14 bit one will give worse performance. I've
forgotten the maths regarding A/Ds now, that was 3rd year stuff. Call it
laziness (those books, they are under my bed now). And you know what?
They're staying there.
Go ask somebody like Seth or Jean-Luc or some others who know. They know. I
know they know. They know I know. We know we know. You know who you are.
I'm going for dinner soon, but for arguments sake, I'll mention briefly the
higher bit converters.
In reality, when you go higher bit, you'll find that the fine kinks in the
sinewave - some of them, they are noise. The scaling process is not perfect
due to thermal noise in electronics. Anybody who knows hands up. I just
remember Boltzmann's constant was involved. And eKT. T was temp in kelvin.
So, the long and short is you'll come to a stage where the graph paper,
small as the squares are, is no use. This is because even if you could
resolve such small squares, the artists hand drawing the curve, it shakes
too much. Where's the point?
In reality, there exist 24 bit A/Ds and D/As. Very expensive. And very
cool. I can only afford 20 bits of D/A so far. I may eventually afford a 24
bit D/A. 20 bits is good though.
One final point.
Somebody mentioned normalizing the signal after the record process. Heh.
Very funny. (lifts arm up to show tickle marks on ribs).
In reality, normalizing the signal, to put it bluntly, makes it worse. (I
was about to say farks it up, but we don't swear here).
Try taking the picture of the 1 cm graph paper with 10 squares, then fit it
into one with 13 squares at 0.77 cm size. Yeah... take the already jagged
picture, and redraw it. See if it gets even better.
Right.
If it were already sampled too softly, I'd leave it.
Of course this is an over-simplified argument. But it seems here, there are
only a handful of us who really know. The rest... hrm... you make me read
all kinds of bullshit.
So now, I hope this is simplified enough that all of you get the point. And
this thread... it should *die*. Dammit... it must *die*.
We should go back to talking about mics and Nagras and music.
Yeah... that's it.
Ok... I'm hungry. You all can buy me a steak given the time I sat here to
write this up.
If anybody got pissed off - well, the truth hurts. Deal with it. Right now,
the truth is I'm hungry.
This thread is now *dead*.
Oh! My D7. It's broken. It's now chewing up my tapes. And the other day I
made a clone. The clone was a backup. It got chewed. So I have a faulty
backup now. Mine has seen about 5000 hours anyway, guess it is about time
to pull the guts out and change some parts.
Now I am really *gone*.
You will get some more interesting posts from me in the future... and my
regards to Klay, Seth, Gary, Francisco and the lot of you. Sorry for being
quiet so long.
Cheers
Alex
=========================================================================
How many Microsoft Engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
- none, they just define darkness as the industry standard!
Alexander W. Chin (alex@gerulf.acsu.unsw.edu.au)
From: ZAndersson@aol.com
Subject: CDR's for whoever has this show <PHISH 4/4/92>
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 05:09:23 EDT
Hello,
First person to respond with this show analog or DAT will receive a fresh 3
CD clone of Dave & Tim 3/13/99 or anything else I've got.
Any Takers?
Thanx 4 the B/W.
Zach
P.s. any lurking MD users know what the error -255 means on the SonyMzr30?
From: "Johan" <johan@malmoskivhandel.se>
Subject: DAT life
Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 13:37:40 +0200
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My oldest DAT recordings just celebrated 10 years. Recorded on May 2 and =
3, 1989 they play just fine.
Doesn't mean I haven't started making backups of my master tapes but =
still not bad. I remember analog cassettes from the seventies that =
didn't exactly play fine 10 years later.
Johan
>> Someone recently told me that cdrs, like dats, may have a limited
>> life span.=20
>
>Sure; I'd definitely advise not sitting on them.
>
>> Now Ive been told dats have a life span of anywhere from 9 months
>> (accordingly to Owsley a/k/a/ Bear - see Deadheads Taping =
>Compendium,
>> Vol. 1) to 5 years,
>
>I have 8+-year-old dats that play just fine.
>
>> and my friend told me cdrs may only have a life span of 5 years.
>
>or, they may not.
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<META content=3D"text/html; charset=3Diso-8859-1" =
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<DIV><FONT size=3D2>My oldest DAT recordings just celebrated 10 years. =
Recorded on=20
May 2 and 3, 1989 they play just fine.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2>Doesn't mean I haven't started making backups of my =
master=20
tapes but still not bad. I remember analog cassettes from the seventies =
that=20
didn't exactly play fine 10 years later.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2>Johan</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=3D2>>> Someone recently told me that cdrs, like =
dats,=20
may have a limited<BR>>> life span. <BR>><BR>>Sure; =
I'd=20
definitely advise not sitting on them.<BR>><BR>>> Now Ive been =
told=20
dats have a life span of anywhere from 9 months<BR>>> (accordingly =
to=20
Owsley a/k/a/ Bear - see Deadheads Taping >Compendium,<BR>>> =
Vol. 1) to=20
5 years,<BR>><BR>>I have 8+-year-old dats that play just=20
fine.<BR>><BR>>> and my friend told me cdrs may only have a =
life span=20
of 5 years.<BR>><BR>>or, they may=20
not.<BR><BR><BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>
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