How can I convert DAT audio tapes to Mp3/CD/WAV easily?
I would do the following. Get a USB sound card thing that has a digital input that matches the output of your DAT player. After that, I think the recording software is the problem. I’ve never done this kind of thing, but there has to be software that will react properly to changing sample rates. Try Adobe Audition (expensive), ProTools (expensive) or Audacity (free). I know that Audition will allow you to change the sample rates losslessly. So you could just record the stream, and then go in and slice and dice the tracks, and then change the sample rate. Because as far as I know, the sample rate is just a header in the sound file that tells the player how to output the data correctly. I would also get into the dat player and clean the heads. Failing that, you might have to get a piece of equipment to go in between the DAT and the computer. I have a stereo receiver that, I believe, does this automatically. It will accept various input rates and, again, as far as I know, only output at w
You are in for a shock. You can’t buy a new DAT deck, I don’t think. Last I checked the only one on the market was a $12K broadcast unit. You can get used ones on eBay, usually. But you want a reasonably unused one that’s been well cared for. Why? DAT decks have limited head life and notoriously finicky mechanisms (there are still shops that work on them, however (ProDigital, for example). If you literally have hundreds of hours of tape, you might want to start by scouring the market for a couple of component decks with either optical or coaxial digital IO. The sampling rate problem is one you will have to deal with track by track if you want to make a digital copy. For what it’s worth, I do this on a Mac Pro G5 running Leopard and recording (via built in optical) through Audacity all the time, and don’t seem to have stop/start or “confusion” problems. But rather predictably, some DAT tapes will play on some decks and not others. It’s a mess.
I just eBayed for component DAT decks and found tons of them running from $100-500. Personally, I think it’s probably a nightmare to try to do this with DDS drives, to try to update the firmware on them, etc. Guaranteed headaches. And I wonder about the head alignment issues. DAT cartridges for data archiving use much thinner base tape than DAT audio tapes do. It might work, but you’d be better off getting a few used decks until you found one that worked well, if it took that long. But then, some people like pulling their hair out at 3AM while wondering if they’ve just lost all their data.
I should also mention I’m pretty familiar with audio equipment and computers in general. So I understand matters like Digital ins and outs, and the relative merits of Hi-Fi VCRs as audio recorders (hey, I even have some shows recorded there too… another pain to convert those!) Feel free to get technical on me, I can take it! I’m really attracted to this Audio-compatible DDS drive idea someone mentioned. Anyone have more info on that? With all the sample rate issues I’ve had (I have Soundforge to convert files once saved) I’m tempted to just do Analog dumps. Just hit play… walk away, come back 4 hours later.
