Sony PCM-3324
There is no verified fact sheet for this machine. The research extraction came back empty. The period record is unusually rich, though, so everything below comes from documented sources: Sony's own advertising and the trade press that covered the DASH format as it happened.
The PCM-3324 was Sony's 24-track DASH-format digital multitrack, and it was the machine that established DASH as a serious studio standard. Sony's own advertising described it as the beginning of "a whole new standard of digital recording performance." The company also claimed that a pair of PCM-3324s could be cabled together to hold word-sync lock even in varispeed and editing situations, giving 48 perfectly synced tracks with zero audio phase shift. Electronic editing was built in: single- and multiple-track fly-ins and variable crossfades from 1 to 370 milliseconds, plus resolving to NTSC, PAL or 24Hz sync signals. Sony's published APIB protocol was pitched as future-proofing against later technology.
Adoption was real and broad. Mix (1988, p.64) ran Record Plant president Roy Cicala and chief engineer Chuck Cavanaugh with a PCM-3324, captioned with the studio's belief that Sony digital would prevail as the leading choice in recording formats. The machine turned up in film work too. The final stems and 6-track printing master for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home were recorded on a PCM-3324 at Todd-AO Glen Glenn Stage One. Studios like Forge Recording in Malvern, PA and Dallas Sound Lab built rooms around it. Village Recorders in West Los Angeles was reported as the first customer for Apogee's drop-in replacement anti-aliasing filters, having swapped out all 48 I/O filters in its PCM-3324.
By the late Eighties Sony had shipped 300 units, and marked the occasion by presenting a commemorative plaque to the first U.S. purchaser, John Moran of Digital Services, Houston. The line continued. The PCM-3324A followed in 1988, and Mix (1992, p.79) announced the PCM-3324S, a 24-track digital recorder using the same transport as the PCM-3348 48-track, so acceleration in fast-forward and rewind is five times faster than its predecessor, the PCM-3324A. Studio Sound (April 1993, p.29) reported that over 70 PCM-3324S units had been sold, calling it the fourth generation of Sony's DASH multitrack and half the weight of the PCM-3348. A Mix field test (August 1992, p.106) noted that the transport glided down from fast wind and entered play mode seamlessly, with no phase error across all 24 channels, and that up to three DASH recorders could be tied together in chase or sync modes.
One recurring criticism: Apogee built a business on retro-fit replacement filters for the PCM-3324, and engineers who used them claimed a dramatic improvement in sound quality. The stock anti-aliasing filters were the weak point.
- 24-track DASH-format digital multitrack
- Two machines cable together for 48 word-sync-locked tracks
- Electronic editing: fly-ins, crossfades 1–370 ms
- Resolves to NTSC, PAL, and 24 Hz sync
- Apogee offered drop-in replacement anti-aliasing filters (48 I/O)
- Later variants: PCM-3324A (1988), PCM-3324S (1992, PCM-3348 transport)
- 300th unit shipped by 1988; 70+ PCM-3324S sold by early 1993
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