Re: CD recorders

[Adam Levin <alevin@ari.net>]

On Tue, 13 Jan 1998, Kim Flint wrote:

> uh, did you guys somehow miss the point that this particular Philips box
> records directly to both CD-R and CD-RW? With both digital and analog 
>audio
> I/O? And only costs $600? CD-RW media is expensive now because it is new,
> same as CD-R disks were three years ago. So you could use the cheap CD-R 
>now
> and switch over whenever the price and extra convenience of CD-RW makes 
>you
> feel happy.
> 
> For me, as someone beginning to contemplate a serious home studio, I had
> been wondering when abouts I should seriously consider getting a DAT deck
> for master mix downs, live recordings, etc. I would much rather get
> something that can go directly to CD. With that I can easily listen to 
>it in
> the car, in the boom box at the park, in the stereo, at a friend's house,
> etc, none of which I can do with DAT or hard disk. I can store it in a
> shoebox in the garage and not worry about tape oxidation. I can pop it in
> the computer and pull up the data directly and easily. Why would I ever
> consider DAT now? 

As someone who just bought a CD-RW drive, I'll tell you why. With a DAT,
if you screw up, you can just hit rewind and start again with minimum
fuss. Or if you want to pause for a few seconds (or days) and then
continue recording where you left off, you can. With CD-RW, you only get
one pass through. If you screw up, you have to perform an erase on the
media and start all over again. There's no hitting a pause button while
you switch guitars or your drummer leaves his throne to visit the ...um...
throne.

The way I see it, DAT is the tool for initially capturing the material. 
The CD-RW is the tool for putting it on the CD when you are relatively
happy with your results. 

-Adam

---
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