Thread Attn. DJ's - Which is better DAT or CD ???

I am not sure about either of those, but since nobody else has replied, I thought I'd give my opinion. We use a laptop with a USB hard drive to dj with. 320kb.s mp3 files sound as good as any other solution.
Don't know if that helps but thought I'd try.

LOL!!! - thanks for the reply. i'm just considering going from conventional taping to dat or cd and you suggest i jump straight to the laptop. that's a bit of a technology leap for me. i'm just an old fart who isn't quite ready to give up my turntables just yet. i also use cd decks but jumping to just a laptop is too much for me. when you play from a laptop, do you still use the mixer or do you use mixing software in the computer ? see, ........completely in the dark. ( ;> i'm just more into a more organic experience i guess. thanks anyway

We have a small PA system for DJ-ing with an 8 channel mixing board. You simply use a cord to plug the line out of the laptop to two channels on the board. (stereo). You can then use the same eq or whatever else you used before. The laptop simply plays the music file.
If you are techy enough to find and post on this forum, you can do the laptop dj thing.
free software for playing mp3 file:
www.winamp.com
Or T-Player at https://tinyurl.com/bnxm4
It is a great free dj software application.
We currently have over 20,000 songs stored on the laptop external hard drive.
Guess how much that would weigh in cd's?
If you need to know exactly what to get (assuming you are interested), let me know.

Brian,

You have to weigh the pros and cons of both formats. Off the top of my head, these are some I could think of:

DAT

pros - 48/44.1 Khz 16/24-bit recording (depending on model), extended recording times, there are portable players/recorders out there, track naming functions on most recorders. Depending on how it's stored, your data should last forever (as long as you store the DAT player/recorder with it too).

cons - medium should be stored in temperature/humidity controlled environment to prevent fungus/mildew, exposure to strong magnetic fields could destroy data, data stored in linear fashion - fast forward or rewind does take time, try auditioning your DAT mixes in your car stereo. Depending to locale, recording media may be hard to find. Limited primarily to audio recording only.

CD/CDR

pros - readily available recording media, non-linear data access - could easily access next track within seconds, up to 74 mins recording time, could readily play in your car stereo, you could store almost any form of data on a cdr.

cons - exposure to strong sunlight/UV radiation COULD render data unreadable (though I've personally never been able to prove it), 74 mins recording time max., some older cd players do not accept track-at-once (TAO) recordings - usually disc-at-once (DAO) burns are more acceptable,

As a sidestep to the 74 min recording issue, DVD recordable media can store up to 4.7 gigabytes of data. That's equivalent to 7.2 cdr's or almost 9 hours of audio. Other portable options are mp3 players that support line-in recording; there are examples from iRiver, Archos and Creative. I checked if the iPod supported line-in recording but although the firmware supports it, it seems to require a software hack.

Best,

Kit

%1$s a écrit LOL!!! - thanks for the reply. i'm just considering going from conventional taping to dat or cd and you suggest i jump straight to the laptop. that's a bit of a technology leap for me. i'm just an old fart who isn't quite ready to give up my turntables just yet.

I use a portable rack with a PreSonus MP20 Stereo Mic Preamp/Mixer and a Tascam direct to CD deck. Alternatively, you could use a pair of Focusrite Mic/Compressor strips and a Tascam deck. The Tascam deck is dead on reliable over months of use. A more complicated approach is the battery powered KORG PXR4 which uses broadcast MP2 format. The problem with the PXR4 is that it is a mixer and requires post process bouncing to stereo and transformation from the MP2 format. Anyways, these system work.