Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Gear Acquisition Syndrome: A tendency to purchase more equipment than justified by usage and/or price.

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Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by crochambeau »

So, in mindlessly surfing facebook marketplace I have stumbled across an Akai DR4d digital four track hard disc recorder from 1993.

My curiosity was piqued by the SPDIF output, and the possibility that this unit could serve as an analog to digital front end for my MPC (to exploit earlier generation mojo). I still have no idea if that will function, but then I watched the video manual here:



..and between the programmable punch in/out, destructive editing, and the edit mode jog wheel acting on the recorded media just like pulling analog tape manually across the heads I've decided I don't care if it won't also serve as a A/D converter for sample creation, I've decided to just buy the fucking thing this afternoon.

Curious if anyone else has spent time in this rabbit hole recently.
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Re: Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by crochambeau »

I have a feeling that I'm speaking into a vacuum here, but I'll follow up for posterity sake.

The analog inputs of the Akai DR4d do indeed fold directly out the SPDIF connector when that input channel is armed to record (ie: anything being monitored shoots out of the digital output) meaning I can fully use this as an A/D converter for the Akai MPC 2000xl (which requires IB-M208P output expansion card for SPDIF functionality).

Whether or not this makes any difference remains to be seen. I plan on comparing stock MPC converters, the DR4d converters, and my Echo Layla converters to see if there is any discernable difference in the sample quality of the MPC.

I do know that when I port the SPDIF output of the MPC through a Yamaha DDP-1 surround processor there is a distinct shift in audible quality, though I cannot rule out processing in the Yamaha for this feature.
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Re: Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by Indeterminacy »

crochambeau wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:57 am
The analog inputs of the Akai DR4d do indeed fold directly out the SPDIF connector when that input channel is armed to record (ie: anything being monitored shoots out of the digital output) meaning I can fully use this as an A/D converter for the Akai MPC 2000xl (which requires IB-M208P output expansion card for SPDIF functionality).
How does this benefit?
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Re: Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by crochambeau »

Indeterminacy wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:25 am How does this benefit?
crochambeau wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 10:57 amWhether or not this makes any difference remains to be seen.
That said, it is a known fact that different circuitry can impart different qualities.

Among circles of MPC users we can find loads of threads and comments comparing different eras of the sampler (just like we can read up on DOD compared to Digitech Death Metals). As an example, my MPC 2000xl (1999) was manufactured in China, and I have read numerous comparisons to the earlier MPC 2000 (1997) which was made in Japan and theoretically has the same sampling engine. Those comparisons tend to result in a favourable view of the earlier model, but is this mind trickery?

So, I'm having a go at seeing if there's any merit to this by using a different converter yet, earlier by a few years (1993) but still spec'd out at 16 bit 44.1 kHz.

I do know that the sound when played through the Yamaha DAC is a lot more high fidelity/euphonic, and I am hoping for subtle differences that I can exploit in patterns (by say, firing a series of sample of the exact same source, just round robbin style from different source paths to build in nuance differences between hits).

This machine (the recorder) also has a jog wheel function that plays like slipping tape over a head, so I can manually pull a recorded sound backwards and just sample that.

Ample justification for such a large footprint, I do need to do something about the SCSI hard drive though, spinning platter whine similar to a server is less than ideal in a live mic environment.
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Re: Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by timdrage »

Looks fun!

We have a yamaha 16 track digital recorder which we got off the back of having borrowed one to record this + being happy with how convenient and nice sounding it was:

I feel like a lot of classic harsh noise sound comes from misuse of early digital recording gear, despite some people's obsession with analog gear :D

I do need to do something about the SCSI hard drive though,
Seems like there are a lot of good SD HD replacements about these days yeah. I'm horribly tempted to get a SCSI emulator thing for my Mac Plus which I basically don't even need due to already having a floppy emulator... still would be kiind of nice to have two 80s-unimaginably huge drives in the thing :D
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Re: Digital four tracks, archaic monsters?

Post by crochambeau »

timdrage wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:48 am Looks fun!

We have a yamaha 16 track digital recorder which we got off the back of having borrowed one to record this + being happy with how convenient and nice sounding it was:
That sounds great!
timdrage wrote: Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:48 am Seems like there are a lot of good SD HD replacements about these days yeah. I'm horribly tempted to get a SCSI emulator thing for my Mac Plus which I basically don't even need due to already having a floppy emulator... still would be kiind of nice to have two 80s-unimaginably huge drives in the thing :D
Yeah, I'm going to buy a SCSI2SD before long. I won't benefit by going super big with storage media though, there is a firm limit of 24 hours record time maximum. I think it has to do with the SMPTE time code-esque positioning system in the Akai. Still, better than the 200MB drive it came with.

Agreed that it seems super easy to go really harsh into digital as opposed to analog. Stacking the two domains is on my to-do list, hahaha.
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