i acquired a box of DAT tapes today. tons of GD, all eras, 60s-90s. also some classic stuff: jorma, zappa, mickey and the hartbeats, and tons more.. will a DAT recording device play the DAT tapes? i want to listen to these. i have a feeling the sound on these is something special. i would also like to convert them into flac or wav and put them on hard disk.

All you need is to get them converted to digital to put them on your hard drive. A DAT player should do that.
Then you can convert them to any file you wish. I recommend uploading any good ones to Etree.

these puppies are in perfect condition, most of them the single or one of two clones from the master. all neatly cased with typed setlists and everything.

DATs are a fragile medium. They seemed to deteriorate quickly. Flaking from the stratum, oxidation, and such. There must be some discussion out there. I'd email Charlie Miller, GEMS, etc. There's also always the Trader's Den tracker. or this place:
taperssection.com/index.php

yea if anything is rare/unreleased you might want to see about getting it out to someone who's worked on that stuff before, so there's no chance of messing anything up/losing anything... just a thought, no offense meant. If I had anything rare I'd send it to Miller before I even tried to listen.

I taped 270+ shows from 79-92; I have a very large number of DATs as well as cassettes. I'm not sure if it's because the DATs deteriorate or if heads get out of alignment over time, but I've had a problem with diginoise (crackling noise and such) , especially if I try to play DATS recorded on one deck on another deck.

To transfer I connect my DAT player to my Mac via a digital cable and then just use a program like Soundstudio or Audacity to record them to WAV/AIFF, etc.

One of the biggest problems at this point is geting a good DAT deck, if you don't have one. The best scenario is if you can play tem on the deck they were recording on.

MushroomMan wrote:


I'd be amazed if they were something really unusual. Something really rare would more likely be on Reels.

Get in touch with Charlie Miller. He's the man to do the transfers. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

hopefully something not found in the Dead's vault could show up lol

in which case SEND THOSE TO THEM

right?

I am more than willing to transfer some DATs if need be. Just let me know.

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