Death of second SX!!!

[wolf]

after finally coming to grips with SX #1 dying, now it seems like SX #2 is also on it's last legs...it started with the playback freezing...when I rebooted, it would get to "Mounting Volumes" and freeze again...I booted from the CD and it would work for a few minutes and then freeze...now, it's getting to "Fader Calibration Ended" and nothing is appearing on my monitor...just like dead SX #1...
I had 6 songs completed and 8 more at various stages (some near completion) and now I have NOTHING!!! I backed everything up via FTP, but I can only use those files with another SX or compatible Tascam unit (as far as I understand)...
this is terrible...
I can only try swapping the RAM cards that I bought for the first dead SX...but if that doesn't work...????????
so much time and hard work went into these recordings and now I may have to start from scratch...I thought I could at least coax one CD out of the second SX before it died on me...I went from having my studio open for business with 2 SX's, to shutting down and having to use one SX for my personal CD, to finally having no SX's (or so it would seem) and NOTHING at all to show for any of my time, work and money spent...
if I could afford a new set-up (which I can't), I'll still have to start all over...
like I said...this is terrible...

 

[mdmiller]

That sucks!

I've been thinking about selling my SX-1s so I looked for solutions on converting the projects. I found this site: http://www.aatranslator.com.au/ It claims to be able to convert SX-1 projects into projects that work on other DAWs. If you have another DAW, this might be the way to go.

 

[RussD]

Wolf,

Maybe too little too late but: I have discovered that the PreSonus Studio One 2 DAW running on my iMac can directly import the projects from my SX-1 LE Plus machines. After every session I backup the project folder on the SX-1 to my iMac via an FTP transfer. i think you said that you have a lot of the material on your SX-1's on a computer via FTP? If so this might help you.

I start Studio One 2 (S12) on my iMac then use the open command in the file menu to navigate to the project file I FTP'ed over to the iMac. Each project folder cantinas a file called "project name.tl". I select on the ".tl" file and them click open in S12 and it imports the entire SX-1 project! S12 comes in three levels: Artist, Procucer and Pro. I have Producer and it sell fro $199.00 US but I got it when they ran a sale for $149.00.

Have you checked the hard drive on the SX-1 that most recently went down? You might be able to get you most recent projects off that drive by removing it and connecting it to a computer using one of the many raw hard drive interfaces that you can buy for little money these days.

I have tried to attach a couple of .jps. The fist is a screen capture of the contents of a project file from my SX-1 for a song called Oil and Water. The secound is what Studio One 2 displayed when i used it to open the Oil & Water.tl file from the SX-1.

If I remember correctly the ".tl" extension is used because one of the companies that Tascam partnered with in designing the SX-1 series was TimeLine. I believe the Tascam MX-2424 recorder uses the same recording format as the SX-1 series. here is a little blurb i found online:

"The MX-2424 is a Tascam product, but the front panel also clearly says "by TimeLine." This is no surprise, given Tascam's successful previous partnership with TimeLine on products such as the MMR-8 and MMR-16 digital dubbers. Working on this product, the two companies wisely chose to extend the MMR-8's lineage, bringing that unit's disk engine and menu structure to the MX-2424. And in use, the MX-2424 proved to be absolutely rock-solid in the sync department, flawlessly locking to incoming SMPTE and MIDI Machine Control commands."

I will try to dig into my SX-1 service manuals and find the section on how ti interpret the led indicator on the various circuit boards and that might help you get at least one of the little beasties up and running again. Might be a few days because I am quite busy in the studio this weekend and early next week.

 

[RedBus]

The SX-1 uses OpenTL for audio, but MIDI tracks and mixer automation data is separate.
Several DAWs can import from the OpenTL format.

RedBus.

 

[Greg W]

Also you can easily go into your backed up files and just pull out the wav's.
Depending what you had saved you may find you've lost no recorded audio. Of course unless you did a mix down you will have lost automation and effects. Still that stuff can be redone. I use either Cubase or Logic to load the Bwavs that the Sx's record in.

 

[Greg W]

By the way Wolf. I had the exact same problems on both my machines. In both cases I replaced with all new (verified) ram and the problem went away.
One bad ram makes the machine act very weird.

 

[wolf]

hey Greg!!! good to see you back on the forum!!! I bought new RAM cards that were the "proper" size, but they don't work...what is the make/model of the RAM you used?

 

[Greg W]

I dont have access to my studio for a few weeks Wolf. But I believe I purchased Kingston brand Ram. But any 128 pin (if I recall correctly? Redbus?) ram. Buy 256mb sticks or 500 mb sticks. I think it was 100 mhz? that works best. It is getting harder to find especially new, but is out there. You may want to wait and get confirmation on the numbers I'm quoting. I'll let you know asap if no one else here has confirmed.