We’ve had many, many people over the years ask us what kind of tape they should be using in their ADAT machines. Our experience has been that most high quality brand name tapes work well (though some are of more consistently high quality than others). However, in hopes of putting this issue to bed once and for all we contacted one of the head technical guru’s over at Alesis to seek his opinion:
“We do have a few brand names that we give out to customers as being generally good, reliable tape. I’ll list those below. Usually, if I have a customer with “tape” issues, I’ll recommend they try a few pieces of several different brands and try to get a feel for what’s working best. We’ve found that how the tape was handled before it’s sold to the end user is sometimes more important than the brand name. For instance, if a tape distributor buys in bulk and then stores the tape for long periods in a hot warehouse prior to sale, it won’t matter what the brand is, that tape is going to have problems. Most of the major brands of SVHS should work great, generally; I would not hesitate to recommend any of these tape brands: AMPEX 489, Maxell XR-S, Maxell BQ, 3M Master Broadcast, TDK SP Super Pro, Sony DASV”
Sweetwater Sound buys tape in large quantities (a requirement for getting a decent price), but we store them in a climate controlled facility and rotate our stock about once a month. You will never get an old or mishandled tape from us.
More on this topic in tomorrow’s inSync.