In 1993, one year after the groundbreaking Alesis ADAT was released, the Teac Corporation came back with their answer - the Tascam DA-88. Like the Alesis ADAT, the DA-88 engendered a love-hate relationship with all who used the format.

The History Of The Tascam DA-88

Up until the release of the Alesis ADAT in 1992 and the Tascam DA-88 in 1993, cost-effective multitrack recording was firmly in the analog world. Fostex had released their 16-track solutions and Tascam respond with their MSR24, which offered 24 tracks on 1-inch tape. But digital multitrack recorders were firmly in the ‘very-expensive’ category. Sony had their 24-track PCM-3324 DASH format recorder, costing around US$150,000 which was later joined in 1989 by the Sony PCM-3348, offering 48 tracks costing around US$250,000. Mitsubishi offered a 32-track format in the form of the X850 costing around $150,000 and none of these were exactly portable being the size of a chest freezer.

So back to the Tascam DA-88. The DA-88 was a digital multitrack recording device introduced by the TASCAM division of the TEAC Corporation in 1993. It was a modular, digital multitrack device offering 8 tracks where the audio data was stored in the DTRS (Digital Tape Recording System) format on Hi8 video cassettes, which gave up to 108 minutes of continuous recording on a single tape. as the recording medium and could record up to eight tracks simultaneously. The format allowed multiple DA-88 devices to be synchronised together to enable up to 16 machines can be run in sync as one machine offering up to 128 tracks.

How The DA-88 Stands Up Against The ADAT

In this table, we compare the specs for the DA-88 with the ADAT…

Paul White writing for Sound On Sound in 1993 said…

“Alesis utilise a fairly standard S-VHS video transport backed up by some pretty impressive electronics, whereas Tascam have developing their own transport running Hi-8 8mm video tape. Tascam's is a solid and sophisticated transport, and I suspect that it will be used in other Tascam data storage products to help share the R&D burden. The Hi-8 cassette itself uses metal particle tape which provides a greater recording density than S-VHS — but as the tape is narrower than S-VHS, and running at a far lower speed than ADAT, this ability to store large amounts of data is essential.

Both formats use helical scanning — rotary heads scan the surface of the tape in diagonal strips in the same way as a video recorder does — the main difference being that the Tascam format uses a system known as Automatic Track Finding (ATF) which uses information buried in the recorded code to maintain head tracking whereas the the Alesis system uses the combination of a conventional linear sync track and an additional embedded code of their own devising.

There can be no doubt that the Tascam DA88 is a beautifully designed machine which inspires confidence, the only unfortunate fly in the ointment being the fact that we now have two competing formats trying to do essentially the same job. Whether one will win outright or whether the two will co-exist remains to be seen, but I'd imagine there's too much at stake for either of the main companies involved to back out at this late stage. The fact that Fostex, Tascam's arch rivals, are also building machines to the Alesis ADAT format must serve only to fuel a potential format war. From what I can see, the Tascam DA88 is an expensive machine to build, and I can't see it staying at its current price for long. It was originally designed specifically for the pro market, and I can't help but think Tascam had a somewhat higher selling price in mind before ADAT came along and threw down the glove.”

Space Age Tech

What you may not be aware of is that according to the book TASCAM: 30 Years of Recording Evolution by Randy Alberts, Tascam decided to use existing space shuttle technology for the DA88. Apparently, TEAC’s Airborne Division already was making a flight data recorder based on an 8mm rotary head transport that is on board every space shuttle ever flown. NASA wanted a device that would survive a 9g impact so TEAC ruggedised a recorder they already had built for the US Air Force and NATO and that is the same transport that Tascam (TEAC’s pro audio division) used in the DA-88.

DA-88 Revolution In Audio Post Production

The compact rack-mountable modular DA-88s completely revolutionised the home recording market and together with the Tascam and Sony variants they had a huge impact in the audio post-production sector becoming a genric delivery format for audio mixes. This was by design. Tascam’s Products Group Manager at the time is reported to have said…

“The DA-88 grew out of a respond to the ADAT, which was a very significant product introduction. It took ont only us, but the entire industry pretty much by surprise; but we didn’t want to simply build a response to the ADAT. Based on our experience in synchronizing open-reel decks in post-production studios, we decided to add every conceivable synchronization hook we could think of to the machine. That’s what eventually got the DA88 into Hollywood film, video and post studios. It was a great bridge that got them away from the mag film and having to align Dolby units. It increased their efficiency and cut tape and storage costs.”

With its eight available tracks, the DA-88 was ideal for playing out the stems of a 5.1 mix, with a corresponding stereo mix occupying the remaining two tracks, or for storing stereo splits such as a DME (Dialogue, Music and Effects). Delivery formats sprung up so that the soundtrack could be delivered to the audio transfer house such as…

• Track 1 - Left 

• Track 2 - Centre 

• Track 3 - Right 

• Track 4 - Left Surround 

• Track 5 - Right Surround 

• Track 6 - Subwoofer 

• Track 7 - Analogue Dolby Left (matrixed to include centre and surround) 

• Track 8 - Analogue Dolby Right (matrixed to include centre and surround) 

Award Winning

In 1995, the Tascam DA-88 won the Emmy award for technical excellence. The affordability and digital format of the DA-88 led to sales of more than 60,000 units by 1999. At that time, it was reported as being the biggest product in the history of Tascam. 

The Tascam DA-88 was followed by the Tascam DA-38, DA-98 and Sony PCM-800 all of which recorded at 16-bit resolution. Later Tascam launched the DA-98HR and DA-78HR, which could record at 24-bit resolution and sample rates up to 48 kHz on the DA-78HR) and 192 kHz using the DA-98HR.

There were also various supporting products too…

• The RC-808 Basic Transport Controller - The RC-808 allows you to control all the basic functions of the DA-88 from across the room, including transport, record, 2-point auto locator, monitor switching and auto punch-in/out controls. The RC-808 is ideal when you’re both the engineer and the performer.

• RC-848 Remote Control Unit - The RC-848 coordinates the simultaneous operation of up to six DA-88 units from one space-saving high-tech control station. With one RC-848 you can drive an entire rack full of DA-88s, maintaining complete transport and track control in perfect synchronisation. It controls all transport functions and provides 99 tape location memory points, a dedicated master shuttle wheel and a dual-LED tape position counter that details the current tape position and an alternate locate point. It can also address track delay, locate preroll time and many other functions. It also controls parallel port devices such as the TASCAM MSR-16, Otari MTR-90 and other non RS-422 VTRs via the EXT 1 (Accessory 1) port.

• MMC-88 MIDI Machine Control Interface - The MMC-88 is an optional MIDI accessory designed to connect directly to the SYNC port of a DA-88. It provides two-way communication and allows information to be transferred to the slave DA-88s. 

• MU-8824 24-Channel Meter Bridge - The MU-8824 24-Channel Meter Bridge centralises 24-tracks of 15-segment LED peak meter displays of three DA-88 units. It can either be rack-mounted (RM-8824) or can be mounted to the RC-848 (MK-8824). Because it’s a vertically modular bridge you can easily stack two MU-8824s to handle level display for a 48-track (six DA-88s) master recording suite. PW-88M cables handle connections between DA-88s and the meter bridges.

Using And Maintaining The DA-88

However using the DTRS (Digital Tape Recording System) format wasn’t as simple as the marketing hype suggested and just as with any rotary head based system, alignment was an issue, giving the format its own ‘tracking’ issues that we had become very familiar with when using the video rotary head machines.

In October 1996, Sound on Sound’s Paul White interviewed Tascam's chief service manager, Joe Fialho, and shared the do’s and don’ts of looking after your DA-88.

Firstly did you know that the type of tape mattered…

“When the DA88 was launched, tapes were available from both Sony and 3M, but neither of them had been conceived specifically for digital audio use and I don't think many people realise the demands made of tape in a digital recording environment. Now there are two tapes designed to meet our needs, which we specifically recommend; the Maxell HMBQ metal particle tape, and a new tape from Sony. The original Sony tape we recommended was an HMEX formulation, but although it works perfectly, it is a metal evaporated tape. Metal evaporated tapes give you a higher signal back off the tape, but the coating is incredibly thin (around a quarter of a micron) and therefore more prone to wear and damage than the metal particle types. In situations when there's a lot of shuttling and scrubbing, there could be problems. A metal particle tape should be good for at least 1000 passes, whereas metal evaporated tape is only good for around 300 passes.”

Once you've bought the right tapes to use, it also became clear that you needed to look after them.

“Because DAT and DA88 tapes are small, they tend not to get treated with the respect they deserve — I've seen tapes just lying around in studios. They really need to be put into their storage boxes when not in use, otherwise dust will get in. With an analogue cassette, a dusty tape will usually still play, but in digital systems, the dust can get between the tape and the head, which causes increased wear and dropouts. It's also important to wind the tape to the start and remove the tape from the machine at the end of a session — if you leave it threaded in the machine, once again dust can get in. Another recommendation is to wind a new tape through to the end and back again before use, because this can help to loosen it up and it also cleans the tape to some extent. With the DA88, you also have to ensure the tape is wound right back to the start before you format it, otherwise you can end up with a short piece of unformatted tape at the start, which the machine won't recognise.”

When it comes to alignment, it is pretty clear that things have to be spot-on with these digital machines…

"The tape guides, in the main, because the rotating head is fixed, as is the capstan guide, which is set from manufacture. The pinch roller may need changing periodically, though. While almost anyone can line up an analogue machine using only a test tape, setting up a digital machine requires quite a lot of specialist equipment, including a very good oscilloscope and an error rate counter, as well as factory test tapes. You also need a current probe to verify the head current, which must be set up very accurately.

Even the apparently simple mechanical servicing tasks, such as changing a pinch roller, are not as simple as on analogue machines, because the parts are so small and quite easy to bend. With the machine I'm working on now, the pinch roller has been changed, and the arm holding it has been bent slightly because it wasn't supported properly while the job was being done. This causes the tape to wander over the heads, and the error rate has increased because of that. We've had worse cases, where people have bent something without knowing it, then they've gone around and adjusted all the other guides to try to put things right. One was a nightmare to fix — we had to start right from scratch! Rotating head digital machines are definitely not serviceable by your average studio engineer, even though he may be perfectly competent at fixing analogue machines."

All this made recording on the move, more of a challenge…

"The main problem in a live situation is people taking a cold machine out of a vehicle and then using it in a warm room before the machine has had a chance to warm up properly. Under these conditions, condensation can form on the metal parts in the tape path, which is obviously undesirable. It's important that both the machine and the tapes be allowed to attain a stable room temperature before the tape is put into the machine.

Physical vibration during transit can cause the mechanical alignment of the machine to drift, so proper packaging is important. A conventional flightcase transmits all the shock to its contents: the type we've found best is the type where an inner rack is mounted in solid foam rubber inside an outer case.”

My DA-88 Journey

Unlike Russ, who bought an ADAT machine, I never owned either an ADAT or DA88. That’s not to say I didn’t use DA-88s, I did, but I would rent them in when I needed them. 

In the 90s I owned a mobile recording truck with Mick Spratt from Wigwam Acoustics and the late Charlie Jones. We chose to use the Tascam MSR 24 as our recording machine but when clients wanted to record on DA-88s we would rent them in and set them up in a rack instead of the second MSR 24.

I also started using DA-88s for carry-in location recording work. With one live album, I rented two DA-88s for the recording sessions and then kept one back for the mix session and synced it up to my DAW and played in 8 tracks at a time, because I only had an 8 channel interface at that point and then mixed the project in Pro Tools using my Apple 7100/66 Power Mac, which gave me 16 tracks with realtime processing.

But my most memorable DA-88 experience was when I was booked as an audio guarantee engineer at the Nynex Arena in Manchester to oversee the audio for the OB truck, booked to video the Manchester leg of a major artist’s UK tour, for their own DVD. For reasons that will become apparent, I will not name the artist, but suffice to say, they were big at the time.

Because the artist had chosen to record every show on the tour, with a rack of DA-88s they made the decision not to have a separate audio truck with high-end recording equipment to match the high-end specced OB truck. Instead, they chose to use their rack of DA-88s, to record the audio.

My job was to lay appropriate audio on the digital VTRs to make the editing process as easy as possible. There were a lot of VTRs being used as it seemed that most of the cameras had their own ‘iso’ VTR and as each VTR had 4 tracks of digital audio, I put the stereo guide audio from the front of house desk together with crowd mics across most of the VTRs. Then for some reason, which I cannot explain to this day, I also decided to take a split of the artist’s lead vocal mic and lay that onto a number of the VTRs as well. Finally, sent timecode from the truck up to the DA88 rack at FOH so they would sync up OK.

About 20 minutes into the concert I got a call on talkback from Front Of House saying “ We have got red error lights across all the DA88s, what should we do?” I knew from my experience that this was likely to be terminal, but we kept going, in the hope that it wouldn’t be catastrophic.

However they were not so lucky and so it looked like the whole job was in the bin, because they had no audio from the rack of DA88s. Lots of lovely video, but no multitrack audio. You can imagine that the shit was hitting the fan, big time. Then I had a brainwave. They had been recording every concert and the whole show was running to timecode so would it be possible to use the audio from another venue? Perhaps, but the challenge would be that the vocal won’t match the spill from the crowd mics. The solution we worked out was to use the DA-88 recording from the Glasgow venue together with the lead vocal that I had tracked onto the VTRs together with the crowd mics that I had also recorded onto the digital VTRs. It would be a faff to do but it would save the project from a very expensive equipment failure.

Summary

Despite the above horror story, there is no doubt that the DA-88 and its variants had a huge impact on the location recording and audio post-production industries. In fact because artists could use a rack of DA88s hung off the front of house desk to record live concerts, was one of the reasons why the Omnibuss Mobile eventually closed, record companies were no longer prepared to pay for the expense of a dedicated audio truck, when they just needed to rent a rack of Tascam 88s.

Eventually, it was the tapeless revolution that then saw off the likes of ADATs, DA88s as well as the really expensive digital multitrack machines. Using a DAW or dedicated tapeless devices like the Radar, replaced tape, in all forms of the audio work. But for a time the Tascam DA88 was a key tool in the pro audio sector.