Alesis

Alesis

Alesis is a company based in Cumberland, Rhode Island, that designs and markets electronic musical instruments, digital audio processors, audio mixers, digital audio interfaces, recording equipment, drum machines, professional audio and electronic percussion products...

 Digital Audio Tape or ADAT is a magnetic tape

Magnetic tape

Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...

 format used for the simultaneous digital recording

Digital recording

In digital recording, digital audio and digital video is directly recorded to a storage device as a stream of discrete numbers, representing the changes in air pressure for audio and chroma and luminance values for video through time, thus making an abstract template for the original sound or...

 of eight analog audio or digital audio

Digital audio

Digital audio is sound reproduction using pulse-code modulation and digital signals. Digital audio systems include analog-to-digital conversion , digital-to-analog conversion , digital storage, processing and transmission components...

 tracks at once, onto a Super VHS tape that is used by consumer VCRs.
The product was announced in January 1991 at the NAMM convention in Anaheim, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. The first ADAT recorders shipped over a year later in February or March 1992. More audio tracks could be recorded by synchronizing

Synchronizing

In telecommunication, the term synchronizing has the following meanings:# Achieving and maintaining synchronism.# In fax, achieving and maintaining predetermined speed relations between the scanning spot and the recording spot within each scanning line....

 up to 16 ADAT machine

Machine

A machine manages power to accomplish a task, examples include, a mechanical system, a computing system, an electronic system, and a molecular machine. In common usage, the meaning is that of a device having parts that perform or assist in performing any type of work...

s together, for a total of 128 tracks.