I was wondering. How come so many studios use ADAT and DAT for recording? It seems that in this day of new technology everyday, ADAT is kind of an antiquated medium. Why not just burn it to CD? Is it because you can record more than one channel to an ADAT tape? Is it better quality?

I think because you can record many tracks, it is also an exelsnt removable medium. also it costs alot to retro everything. I do believe the industry is now moving more to removable hard drives.

Ok what you have to remember about cd is that it is just like cassette tape, when you pop your cd into the cd player you are listening to a stereo left and right mix, only 2 channels. ADAT is a medium used, first of all because it is digital, and second of all for every one ADAT tape you have that is 8 tracks you can record to. To sum it up, almost every recording done is multi tracked, and the end result, meaning the cd you pop in your cd player, is mixed down to be just a stereo left and right mix. As for DAT that is what many engineers bounce there multi tracked session to to give there client at the end of a session.....im not sure if this is still common practice or not bacause i give the client a cd of thier recording to take home. But ultimately i think ADAT is still an ok alterative if you cannot yet afford a hard disk recorder.Or the band cant afford to track to the hard disk.......hope this helps
--later--

...to be honest...ADAT is out the door already...old-fashioned and now much more expensive (per track) than a computerbased recording option....

But once....it was really cheap compared to the rest of the options