Fostex D-90 Hard Disk Recording System

July 11, 1997 -- Demonstrating its ability to design a single hard disk recording and editing system that can meet the needs of both personal project studios and high end recording facilities, Fostex Corporation of America today commenced delivery of its all-new Fostex D-90 Hard Disk Recording System. The new D-90 system offers the professional audio industry the broadest level of interface available in a platform that incorporates numerous leading-edge digital audio recording, editing and mixing capabilities.

"The Fostex D-90 builds on the company's philosophy of offering the highest degree of functionality at the most cost-effective price," explains Fostex Corporation of America Director of Sales Phil Celia. "But rather than simply offer a successor to the highly successful Fostex D-80 hard disk recorder, we designed the Fostex D-90 to deliver an entirely new level of capability-and, hence, performance value."

The D-90 comes standard with analog I/O ports, a stereo S/PDIF port and an ADAT Digital Interface (Light Pipe) utilizing an optical data port that will accommodate eight tracks of ADAT digital data. In addition, the Fostex model D-BOB offers D-sub 25-pin balanced I/O functionality. And the model D-90BS offers both balanced I/O and SCSI capability, allowing a choice of user backup options. Further, model D-9O can be upgraded to model D-BOB and both models can be upgraded to a model D-90BS at any time. In short, the Fostex D-90 can easily be interfaced with any level of facility, from personal ADAT-based project studios to the most complex post production facilities.

"What this means is that the Fostex D-90 is the first affordable platform to offer users the ability to interface with many digital audio environments," Celia emphasizes. "At a time when it is routine to have many projects shuttle back and forth between personal and commercial facilities, the Fostex D-90 is now the first affordable platform of its type that can offer the ability to stay with a project all the way through to completion. Thus, it is designed to be a productive tool for the project studio and for the high end recording facility where a creative project may end up!"

In addition, the Fostex D-90 will be shipped with an internal, removable 2.55 GB hard drive, affording users up to 60 minutes-one full hour-of uncompressed digital audio.

According to Celia, the high degree of interface that the D-90 offers means no more truncated format conversions between systems-it can simply plug and play with any console, analog or digital. As the other systems in the rapidly changing post industry change, the Fostex D-90 can flexibly move with those changes.

Combined with its large removable storage capability and memory management systems, the Fostex D-90 is the closest thing to having a platform for all seasons.

The Fostex D-90's interface capability is just the beginning, however. The D-90 offers a range of other enhanced features that set it apart from other workstations, including:

A Vari-pitch function allows for +/- 6-percent pitch variations in highly precise increments of one-tenth of a percent steps.
A selectable sampling rate of either 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, which reflect the two most used sampling rate standards in the industry. Furthermore, the sampling rate can be set and changed independently for each of the D-90's nine dynamic "virtual reels."
MTC Record Track Select Function Key is a new feature that allows external sequencers to arm individual tracks on the D-90.
The Fostex D-90 has significant synchronization capabilities, including an MTC-only Chase Function allowing the D-90 to slave to any recorder/sequencer by feeding MTC data without word clock data which, combined with the D-90's optional ADAT and SCSI interface capabilities, gives the D-90 an unparalleled systems networking capability.
Now up to three model D-9Os can be cascaded for up to 24 track recording, with the ability to arm-track from one remote control.

The applications range for the Fostex D-90 is huge: With hundreds of thousands of ADAT tapes now in circulation, users of that format can transfer data directly to the D-90 and use the D-90's extensive editing capabilities to manipulate and continue working with the data.

Users of one of the numerous digital mixing consoles now available will be able to communicate directly with the Fostex D-90 via its ADAT interface. And since the D90 can chase-lock to any machine, users of analog consoles can use the D-90's synchronization capabilities to lock it with any analog recorder via MTC signal.

The Fostex D-90 is similar in appearance to the Fostex D-80, however its hardware and software is different. While Fostex D-80s can be used with D-90s in multimachine environments, the Fostex D-80 cannot be upgraded to a model D-90.

For more information, visit their web site at www.fostex.com or email to info@fostex.com.