Digital

The Advantages Of Digital

1) No tape hiss, meaning no noise introduced at all.
2) No degradation, meaning the sound never degrades no matter how many times it gets played.
3) Full frequency response.
4) No print-through, meaning no magnetism transferred.
5) No cross-talk between channels, meaning no picking up of the sound off adjacent tracks.
6) Possible to bounce to adjacent tracks, meaning track 15 can be bounced to track 14 or 13, etc.
7) Drop-ins are inaudible.
8) Error Correction, this feature uses a speculation method to guess missing information.
9) Higher dynamic range (Digital = 90dB, Analogue = 60dB).
10) Total erasure when you are clearing a track.
11) No wow or flutter.
12) Higher total harmonic distortion (Threshold at which different frequencies start to distort).

The Disadvantages Of Digital
1) No warmth in the sound, unlike analogue tape.
2) Prone to dropouts.
3) If a large error/s occurs, this will result in big dropouts or the data may not work at all.
4) Very expensive.

Digital Formats

1) DASH (Digital Audio Stationary Head)

48 Track 1" - SONY DTM 3348
32 Track 1" - Mitsubishi X8 80/50
24 Track 1" - Studer, Otari
Mastering 1/4"- 2 Track Mitsubishi,Otari, Studer etc.

2) RDAT (Rotary Digital Audio Tape)

8 Track - VHS, A/DAT, Alesis
Hi8 Tape - Tascam DA338 (Must format tape before use)
DAT - 2 Track has no need to be formatted before use,

These can be synced to other DAT machines for mixing purposes.


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