Newbie and cannot play demo song

[Rudy Sullivan]

Good morning Forum

I have recently bought a Tascam DP 32sd. I loaded the demo song and pressed play. The song would not play. Last night I got it to play but apart from pressing the play button I could not tell you if, anything I had done differently. I feel I am going mad, can anyone help? To be clear I had gone into menu, selected demo song, loaded demo song, pressed home button, the in and the out showed 0.00 and 1.39 but nothing happens when I press play. Thank you in advance to anyone who can help me

 

[Saxomohawh]

Do the meters show anything when you play? Are the faders up at around 0? Is the monitor level turned up?

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

Good morning

the simple answer is no. It loads the song. I press home and then when I press play, no light on the play button and it doesn’t play. I know it is there because if I use the jog play, it plays whichever track I have selected. I am so lost

 

[Saxomohawh]

If you record a simple track yourself and try, will that play?

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

Simply No. I tried that this morning. I put in a microphone and pressed play and record. I had armed the track and the play and record lights up, the meter moves but when I stop the recording, there is nothing there indicated by in and out times showing o:00. When I try to play, it won’t play but the file is 20mb big. Thank you btw for responding

 

[Phil Tipping]

Welcome to the forum Rudy.
If the machine is 2nd hand, try doing a factory initialise (Menu, Preferences). This will guarantee there are no rogue settings from a previous owner.

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

Yes I did that. The annoying thing was that it okayed the demo song once and won’t play no more. Likewise with the Simple record, there is a file but won’t play.

 

[Phil Tipping]

...when I stop the recording, there is nothing there indicated by in and out times showing o:00.

The IN and OUT times do not indicate whether or not it recorded anything. There's a lot of info for new users in the sticky posts at the top of this forum.

If you are sure it's 'playing', i.e. the L/R meter bars are moving, then the culprit is in the output section - there's no point testing recording until you sort that out.
What are you listening with? If it's headphones, are you using an adapter - they've been known to be faulty. If it's speakers, can you verify they work with other gear?
You have to be methodical and work your way through the signal path one step at a time.

The simplest way to prove the basic signal flow from input to output is to assign an input to the stereo bus (not a track). This bypasses the sd-card and all the other complications with the recording path.

If/when you find the culprit, please post your findings as it may help others with similar problems.

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

Good morning Phil and others who have responded

thank you for your response and videos. Just a question can we upload photos to this forum? If we start with trying to play the demo song, I go into menu. I click onto the demo song and press f4. It loads and then I press home button. On the right hand of the monitor it shows in and out which show 0:00 and 1:39 respectively. I press play and nothing happens. The play button does not light up and the track does not play. I spoke to my friend in Sweden who has the dp 24sd and he appeared to do everything I was doing. However, on our video conversation the demo track played. I have now spent hours and it still doesn’t play. I am at my wits end

 

[Phil Tipping]

Now you've clarified things, we can make some progress
The in and out times are irrelevant.
If the play light is not turning on, there's either a fault on the play button (could just want cleaning), or the song is corrupted, which would indicate a faulty sd-card.
If you read the stickies as mentioned, sd-cards are the most common cause of issues with these machines.
The 2nd most common is running out-of-date firmware.

Did you prove the basic signal path is working from input to output as described in my previous post? If you do this, it will confirm that the output stages are working and that your headphones/monitors are working, without relying on a possibly suspect sd-card.

If you dive in at the deep end and start trying complicated things, it's a lot harder to diagnose.

If you want to post photos or videos, store them on an external site and post links to them.

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

Good afternoon

I am using a Dan disk 32gb with 120 mb/s. The sd card has been formatted.
The firmware was updated to 1.11
For the general signal flow I am using an sm58 Shure microphone with on desk phantom power. I have assigned it to A input, track 1. I have armed track 1 to rec. red light is flashing. I speak through the microphone and on the monitor, the level moves to my voice. I press the record bottom and record 20 secs. The play and record button are lit. The time goes forward as I speak and the level is moving to my house. I press the stop button and the play and record button flashes and then unlit. I rewind to the beginning I then press play and then nothing. It appears that the track just won’t play. If I go to song in the menu it shows 12.7mb. How do I remove the play button to clean it?

 

[Rudy Sullivan]

I can confirm that it is a sticky play button. How do I remove and clean it and what is the best product to clean it with? Thank you all for being the voice of sanity

 

[Phil Tipping]

There's no need to take it apart. Other members have had success spraying a small amount of switch cleaner around the button and pressing it several times to work it through.
Deoxit is the 'goto' cleaner, but it's very expensive for the amount you need. There's sure to be other contenders but I don't know any brand names... definitely NOT WD40!
Let us know how you get on.

 

[-mjk-]

Just be aware that the Dexoit may leach under the paint on the Play button and discolor it. Don't ask me how I know.

If you have the footswitch you can see if that is working.