Need to capture all recordings from a 24

[Bob Holbrook]

My friend passed away. He was an avid songwriter and used his 24 for recording anything special.

I was called to his home by his family after the funeral and when I hit play on his system, it played back an interview with him and his granddaughter. It was touching to say the least and sounded great.

I took the unit home and NOTHING. I don't know the system and although I've been in the recording business for some time, I'm having NO Luck capturing/dumping the files from this unit. And I have NO idea how to get back to the Interview I heard.

Please help. I need to capture everything, remix on another unit if needed and deliver it all to his family to keep my friend Mike alive in spirit.

Please help.

Thank you,
Bob

 

[Mark Richards]

...all recordings from a 24...I need to capture everything, remix on another unit if needed and deliver it all to his family.

Very sorry to hear about your friend.

The DP-24 and DP-24 SD is a stand-a-lone all-in-one combined digital 24 track recorder/reproducer, digital 2-track master recorder/reproducer, and a digital 24 channel console; known as a "Portastudio".

Individual tracks are exported to individual track WAV files using the Menu/Audio Depot function. These individual WAV files can be imported to a DAW or any other digital device that can import WAV files.

 

[Bob Holbrook]

Mark,
I can't thank you enough for the response.
I am totally ignorant when it comes to the "Digital Portastudio Dp-24".
Any help you can offer would be appreciated.
It seems you and I have similar backgrounds. I still maintain two studios, one at my office and one at home.

Getting music, interviews or whatever off of this computer is very important to me for Mike's family. The icing on this is that Mike was extremely talented. Incredible musician, great voice and one of the better songwriters in our state. So, I'm sure we'll find hidden gems for the family to enjoy, allowing his legacy to live on.

Please get back to me with your guidance.

Thank you,
Bob Holbrook
Lafayette, LA.

 

[Mark Richards]

Bob, I've asked one of the moderators to move this thread over to the "2488 and DP-24/32" portastudio sub-forum. There are several gurus here and with all of us pitching in, I'm sure we'll be able to walk you through what needs to be done and get you over any hurdles.

 

[Mark Richards]

Ok, Bob. The thread's been moved to the correct sub-forum.

To make this manageable for you, I'll limit the posts to one set of instructions per post.

If I'm not available several very friendly and very knowledgeable folks on this forum will jump right in. (Guys, if I've missed anything below please chime in.)

First Step-Backups
The first thing I'm going to ask you to do is backup to a computer the DP-24's SD card, located in a slot on the rear of the DP-24. It's spring loaded, so light inward pressure on the card edge will pop it out.

You should also obtain any other SD cards your friend may have used in the DP-24.

After you get the card out, write protect the SD card, put it into a computer card reader, and copy the entire card's contents to a backup folder you create on your computer specifically to store that card's contents (e.g. SDCARD01BAK). Do not accept the computer's offer to "fix" the card, should such a pop up appear. Just decline and proceed to copy the card's contents.

If there are more SD cards, do the same for them, putting each card's contents into its own specific folder.

The SD card files you're backing up are proprietary and not usable. The purpose in backing up the SD card(s) is for the unlikely case something goes sideways later on.

You may also want to download for reference the DP-24 owner manual, found here:
https://tascam.com/us/product/dp-24/download
(Scroll down to the "Manual" section).

By the way the DP-24 has a CD recorder/player and MIDI. The DP-24SD has neither.

In the next post I'll describe how the songs are organized.

 

[Mark Richards]

Step 2-Load a Song
The DP-24 Porta-studio is a stand-a-lone all-in-one combined digital 24 track recorder/reproducer, digital 2-track master recorder/reproducer, and a digital 24 channel mixing console.

Before powering up, unprotect the SD card and insert it back into the DP-24.

Power up the DP-24 by pressing and holding for about 4 seconds the round power button located on the rear right side of the DP-24 (behind the section with the Jog Wheel).

The DP-24 opens to the Multi-track view screen when it's first powered up.

What you need to do to preserve your friend's recordings should be fairly straight forward.

Individual tracks are recorded to a "Song".

Songs are selected and loaded in the Menu screen.

The Menu screen is opened by pressing the "Menu" button to the left of the viewing screen.

After opening the Menu screen, select and load an individual song:

• Use the Jog Wheel or the cursor keys to the right of the view screen to highlight the song name
• Press the F4 button at the bottom of the view screen.
• On the screen that pops up "Load" should be highlighted. Press the F4 button again to load.
• Affirm the Load by pressing the F2 button (Yes)
• Press the Home button to the left of the view screen to return to the multi-track view screen.

 

[Mark Richards]

...all recordings from a 24...I need to capture everything, remix on another unit if needed and deliver it all to his family.

IMPORTANT
If your friend had already mixed down his multi-track recordings, then your work is much easier if all you need is the finished song.

To see if there's a finished master, after loading a song (see previous Step 2 instructions ), press the "Mixdown/Mastering" button twice to try entering Master mode. If the DP-24 lets you go into Master mode, then there's already a mixed master stereo WAV file of the song made on the 2-track master recorder/reproducer.

In Master mode, pressing the Play button will let you hear the finished master of the song.

I don't want to overload you at this point, so let us know if you find that there are finished masters, and we'll tell you how to also get at those stereo master WAV files to copy over to your computer.

Step 3-Export Individual Tracks from the Multi-Track Reproducer
After a song has been loaded in the default Multi-track mode, press the Play button to confirm/identify the song's content. Headphones are the easiest way to listen. The Monitor Level knob controls the volume to the headphones.

Any tracks of the multi-track reproducer with content will display on the multi-track view screen level meters when the Play button is engaged. The tracks of the multi-track reproducer go to the mixer console stereo bus automatically, so it's not necessary to assign tracks to the stereo bus.

The mixer works like any standard mixing console for playback. Raise the track faders and stereo fader to hear the song's multi-track playback.

Pan and EQ are set individually for each track in the Mixer screen.

The Mixer screen is opened by pressing the Mixer button to the left of the view screen. The desired track is activated by pressing the Select button above the fader of the desired track.

The track faders do not control the individual meter levels displayed on the multi-track view screen's individual tracks. The track faders only control the playback/mix level of the multi-track reproducer's tracks that go automatically to the stereo bus.

The Stereo fader does control both the overall mix signal going to the stereo bus and the stereo mix signal level that's displayed on the stereo meters.

The individual Tracks of the song can be exported to individual track WAV files using the Menu/Audio Depot function. You select the song's tracks to export by highlighting and selecting the tracks individually.

• Press the Menu button,
• Use the Jog Wheel or the cursor keys to select Audio Depot.
• Press the F4 button at the bottom of the view screen.
• Highlight the song to export and press the F2 button to select.
• Highlight each individual track and press the F2 button to select.
• Repeat for each track to export.
• Press F4 button to export.
• Press F2 button to confirm.

All the selected tracks are then exported at the same time.

The selected tracks for the song are exported to the Audio Depot folder on the SD card. Each exported track is identified by "songname Track xx.wav".

The individual song WAV files can be copied from the SD card's Audio Depot folder to a unique folder on your computer (e.g. Song1Export) and then imported to a DAW or to any other digital device that can import WAV files.

This should get you started exporting original tracks from the multi-track reproducer.

Good luck. If you stumble or get stuck, come back to this thread with your questions.

 

[Bob Holbrook]

Mark,
I can't thank you enough.
I'll try to do all of the above and download all the multi Tracks and any two track mixes he may have made.
I'll do my best, but... might be back to bug you.
Thanks, stay safe and God Bless,
Bob Holbrook

 

[-mjk-]

@Bob Holbrook you could always copy the entire SD card to a cloud service and one of us could help you by loading the files into our machine.

 

[Bob Holbrook]

MJK,
That’s a great offer. I’ll give it a test drive but will keep that as an option.
I have a 5TB account with DropBox. So no problem there.
Thanks to all if you Soooo much.
I’ll report back as soon as I can.
Thank you
Bob Holbrook

 

[-mjk-]

@Bob Holbrook how did you make out with this project? If you were able to recover the tracks, I'd be willing to make a mix of the songs for prosperity.