Well I am trying to set up a portable recording rig that I can bring to our bands gigs to record them. I don't feel like lugging my DAW everywhere with me and it would be nice to have just a 4 or 6 rack case that would hold everything. So I was looking at getting 1 or 2 ADATs because there prices are coming down and it seems like they would do what I want them to. Anyone have any experience good or bad w/ the blackface ADATs, I would go for the LX or the XT but they are a bit out of my price range. I am looking at a couple on ebay, and previous ones seem to be going for around $200.00, is this a good price? How many hours are these good for? One of the ones I was looking at had around 500hrs and the other didnt mention any hrs but said that it had had the heads re-aligned by an Alesis tech. Anyways any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
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Thanks Kurt, I just won a Blackface Adat on ebay, and should be
Thanks Kurt,
I just won a Blackface Adat on ebay, and should be getting it anytime. It has 490hrs and I paid $230 including shipping, not sure if thats a good deal or not but oh well. I wanted 2 just to have 16 channels but after thinking about it I decided to just go with the 1 like you said, I will just have to mix the drums down to 2 channel stereo and hope its right! I have a gig this weekend so I think I am going to try it out and record it! I can't wait!
thanks
Brett
Originally posted by Kurt Foster: Brett, I personally would
Originally posted by Kurt Foster:
Brett,
I personally would go for an OF Blackface over an XT 20 because they don't keep the tape against the head when the are shuttling
There are two modes to the "Stop" feature of the XT / XT20 - The first time you hit the stop button the tape remains engaged so if you FFD or RWD extensively it can be a litle rough on the tape (this can actually keep the heads cleaned though). If you press the stop button a second time then the tape is retracted into the shell and transport controls can be used without the tape touching the heads.
The 2nd and 3rd gen machines are MUCH more reliable but also suffer from the idler wheel problems.
Brett, A single ADAT might be a good solution for what you wan
Brett,
A single ADAT might be a good solution for what you want. Multiple ADAT systems are a pain, as these machines “don’t play well with others”. Getting and keeping them in sync can be problematic at best. I personally would go for an OF Blackface over an XT 20 because they don't keep the tape against the head when the are shuttling. 500 hours is very low as I have ADATs with 5000 hours on the drums that still run. $200 is a good price and it would be hard to go wrong with that. The problem with ADATs is they require constant cleaning and it has to be done correctly or you can damage the heads. They also need to have the idler tires replaced once in a while with the frequency of this increasing as you use the machine more. When I was running ADATs everyday in my studio, I was replacing idler tires at least once a month. Kurt