Musictek in Burbank--good for service?

[Philip Perkins]

I need to have my DA78 repaired--it sat for so long that the lubricants gummed up and the tensions are off.  Tascam seems to be impossible to get a hold of, and I have to drive thru LA this week, so I thought Id try Musictek.  They were very helpful on the phone, esp. in calming me down when I thought I needed a new head assembly at 434 hrs.  Anyone used these guys?  I think the fixed my Moog MANY years ago, but Im not sure.  I unfortunately still need the DTRS format, both for old shows and for some networks that still want their stems that way....

Philip Perkins

[Sergio Sanmiguel]

Buy a new/used one Philip, really...

[Philip Perkins]

Buy a new/used one Philip, really...

I hear you--but my drum hours are low enough that if I can get off this time for under a few hundred bucks I'll take that over an Ebay machine with an unknown provenance.  I just have to remember to "exercise" it.  If the guy finds that the heads really are dead--to the landfill with it for sure.

Philip Perkins

[Marc Wielage]

Hey, Phil, I have a DA98 with only a couple hundred hours on it, in very good condition. Talk to me in email if you want to make me a deal for it.

--Marc

[Philip Perkins]

Hey, Phil, I have a DA98 with only a couple hundred hours on it, in very good condition. Talk to me in email if you want to make me a deal for it.

--Marc

Thanks--I will call you if my DA78 looks like it needs heads or more than just an adjustment.  Are you going to keep one of these beasts around in case shows come back from the dead, or have you bagged the format?  It seems to me like I'll need to have one avail for a little while longer anyhow.

It is kind of amazing how fast these machines have died off.  I really like how my DA78 sounds--did a lot of location music recording on it, and all things considered they were a screaming deal compared to TCDATs.  BUT....many of the same maintenance problems, apparently.

Philip Perkins

[Marc Wielage]

I used my DA98 for a couple of projects two years ago, but it's sat in a rack doing nothing (powered off) since then. Even the ones we have in post are doing very little. To my knowledge, the only show that's still using them that we work on is Two and a Half Men, one of the very last sitcoms still shooting on film.

We still get DA88's in post for archival feature masters, using them as a layback source, but that's about it. All new feature laybacks are coming in as Pro Tools sessions, which are kind of a pain to use, but it's the only way we can get 12 simultaneous channels laid down to HDCam-SR masters.

--Marc W.

[Sergio Sanmiguel]

I got rid of my DA-88 (w/SY-88 card) over 8 years now, not a single client has ever asked for it ever again. But I love the idea of a DA-98 sitting on a shelve waiting for one of my old tapes to play back... *sigh*

[Philip Perkins]

I recorded and delivered a stupifying number of DTRS tapes (16 and 24 bit) over the years, and I am dead sure that the moment I don't have a working machine anymore I'll be deluged in panic calls for DTRS transfers.  I still see some SD video shows delivering w/ stems on DA88s, but I too have been delivering PT sessions on HD shows, if only to speed up the layback to D5 since they need to be dealing with 20 tracks at once (L/R full mix PCM, L/R mix minus PCM, Dolby E full mix 5.1+ LtRt, same as mix minus), and THEN they still want the stereo split stems on DA88 anyway.  The discovery that my DA78 wasn't working came because an old client wanted the stems from several films made into folders of AIFFs for his new archive.  This isn't a rush job, so better to discover my problem now than have waited until I had a REALLY rush request.

Philip Perkins