RE-TENSIONING OR PACKING YOUR DAT TAPES
by Edwin J. Somers, CAS

We have heard many horror stories about drop outs on professional DAT machines. This is referring to high error rates that exceed the error correction capability of the machines. Some machines are more prone to these problems than others, and some tapes are more prone than others.

Clay Reeves, one of our regular customers, mentioned that with his Fostex PD-2, he was experiencing many dropouts using various brands of tape, most of them being 120 minutes in length. In his research, he found that most studio recording engineers re-tension their tape prior to use (re-tensioning means fast-forwarding to the end, and fast rewinding to the beginning). Clay decided to try re-tensioning to see if it would help. He reported that the dropout problem has all but disappeared.

This makes perfect sense. After re-tensioning on your recorder, that tape is tensioned exactly for that specific tape machine. I recommend that all DAT recorder users faithfully re-tension their DAT tapes just prior to use. I think you will see a marked improvement with dropouts and errors.

Think about it for a second: Re-tensioning is standard practice everywhere except in the film industry. I think there are two reasons why it is not done in our industry; the NAGRA running on batteries takes forever, and the other more important reason is it is not necessary on the NAGRA - it is just so forgiving that it makes no difference.

Well, we are not in Kansas anymore. Tape tension in DAT recorders is rather critical, with very narrow tolerances. The tapes you purchase are allowed to sit for months, and they are shipped (and bounced) all over the world, no telling what the wind is like when you try to use them.

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