Back up and playing issues.

[Mojomao]

I have (2) songs recorded on my sd card on my Tascam dp32sd. They were recorded straight into the board. No mixdown or master files yet. I wanted to back up the songs on my computer first before continuing. I tried (2) ways, first backing up with the USB cable and also plugging the card directly into the computer and copying over. When looking at the files on the computer and the second or back up sd card, they appear to look just like the original. When I try to load and play the backup sd card there is no songs loaded. I have tried multiple cards with the same result. Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Phil Tipping]

Welcome to the forum.
Either method should work; there is no difference in functionality, but the precautions are different, e.g. if you physically remove the card, the machine must be switched off first. With either method, the card must be 'safely removed' or 'un-mounted' from the computer's operating system before closing the link or removing the card, otherwise the card contents may become corrupted.
There are several other ways of corrupting the contents, e.g. if you change the folder structure. The structure is set up by the machine when it is formatted, so you should not format cards using the computer... or if you do, you must format it again on the machine.
Faulty USB cables have also been known to cause problems.

You can either copy/restore the complete sd-card contents, or just copy/restore individual song folders (these are under the MUSIC folder).
Any song folders under the MUSIC folder should appear in the song list when you use the song menu on the machine.

Not sure what else to suggest without seeing a full list of all the folders and files on your card.

 

[Mark Richards]

...second or back up sd card...When I try to load and play the backup sd...no songs loaded...have tried multiple cards...

@Mojomao If you expect to use your backup SD card in the portastudio it must also first be formatted by the portastudio.

 

[Mojomao]

Phil,

Between reading over your reply post and watching your videos many times, problem solved. As in most cases with human/machine interface, it was human error (mine). So I will say how important it is to turn off the Tascam dp 32sd before removing card. Also, utilizing the ejecting sequence of the usb cable on the computer end. Thank you so much for your contribution to this topic.
One other question if I may? I have (2) songs on my mini sd card with (8) tracks each. They were recorded back to back with a few seconds between them. When mixing down and mastering, will these tracks be erased/overwritten? Or is the mix down track located on a separate area on the card?
Again thank you so much and greetings from the Carolinas.

 

[Phil Tipping]

Glad you got it sorted, and thank you for the follow-up.
Each song occupies its own folder under the MUSIC folder. The song folder contains all the track recordings for that song, plus the song settings such as input assignments, eq/fx levels etc., and also the master file for that song if you 'mixed-down'. It is completely independent from any other song folder.
When you 'load' a song, you effectively 'open' its folder, and any changes will be confined to that one folder. Mixing down creates (or overwrites) the master file for that song; the original track files remain unchanged.
You can load different songs as & when you like, so you can continue working on different songs without impacting others.

Not sure if this answers your question as you said you recorded 2 'songs' back-to-back. If you mean 2 Tascam songs, you would have created a new song for each of these recordings, in which case they will be completely independent as explained.... but if you mean you recorded a 2nd musical song within the same Tascam song, you will have added new track recordings to the existing song.
The first set of tracks are still present on the card, so it depends where in the timeline you recorded the second set. If they don't overlap, you should be able to move the transport to play them. If they do overlap, you won't be able to do this, but you can use the Undo system to recover them. This can get tricky as there is only a limited amount of history you can access from within the machine (although you can access old files using a computer).

There is only one master file for each song, so if you did 2 mix-down/master processes within the same Tascam song, it will overwrite the master file each time. Again there is an undo option, but this can only undo one level.

Bottom line is you should really create separate Tascam songs for each of your musical songs to avoid problems.

 

[Mojomao]

Thanks for all of the help. (Phil/Mark) I did record (2) songs back to back under the same name. My mistake. I have formatted and backed up this sd card with two additional sd cards and confirmed that everything transferred. My plan is to mix down the first song using the in and out markers to create a master file. I will do the same on the second song with a third card.

In the future I plan on doing a bit more reading and not just jumping into the process blindly. I do appreciate this forum and the help I received.

Cheers to all.