Stuck in Mixdown/Mastering Mode

[Tom H]

DP24. I am a semi-newb. I recorded/mixed down/mastered my first song. Then I decided to add a Title. When I did it I used the "Save" command in the Song Menu. It wound up making a copy of the song with the new title and keeping a version with the old title (Song_01 or something similar). Using the new (titled) song. I went into the mixdown/mastering mode to see if the Mastered track was there. It was and I played it through. But then I could not exit the Mastering mode. It was stuck. I tried a number of approaches including re-recording the master, to no avail. Ultimately I powered the whole unit down. That worked and got me back out to the Multi tracking screen on repowering. Am I missing something? Is there an intermediate step I needed to do to get out of that mode, or was that a glitch?

Thanks! Looking forward to a lot of learning.

 

[Mark Richards]

It sounds like it might be a glitch. It could be that your SD card isn't fully compatible. SD card incompatibilities can cause all sorts of weird things.

Once you complete the mixdown process the unit creates a .wav file using the song name in use when you started. So if you started with song001, the mixdown process creates a master mix file named song001.wav. The final mastering process applies EQ, compression, normalizing to song001.wav and overwrites it with the new (final master) song001.wav version.

When you change the name of the song using the MENU/SONG/SAVE or F2 SAVE process, all you're doing is creating a new folder on the SD card to which the unit copies all the files in the original song folder. But it doesn't change the file names, so your master .wav file and all the track files appear under their original names in both song folders. The Song List shows both the old and new folders as 'songs'.

MENU/SONG/NAME EDIT just renames the song current folder.

To keep things simple when I create a new song, I always change the name (F2 Save) at the start from the default songoo1. Doing this creates a new song folder and copies the only two files in the song001 folder (system files editable.sys and song.sys) into the folder for the new song.

Also, you weren't clear on how you got to song/save from master mode. The unit should not permit you to jump to MENU/SONG/Save from Master mode. The only way out of Mastering mode is to exit by pressing the lit Mixdown/Master button. Pressing the lit Mixdown/Master button returns you to Multitrack mode from which, using the F2 button, you can save the song under its current name, or change the name. If you were able to get to Song/Save from the Master screen, then something is clearly wrong, I think.

 

[Tom H]

Thanks Mark, I plan to name songs at the outset from now on. What you describe is what I expected, with the exception of the file names remaining the same within a renamed song folder. To be clear: I did not get to the Save function within Master mode. I did that in Multitrack. It may be the SD card. Reading all the variety of woes people have described here is disheartening and the lack of clarity is scary. I guess I'll be reading and trying to order the most likely to be reliable card I can find. Thanks again.

 

[Mark Richards]

Tom, I haven't had any trouble so far with these:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LFT3QG/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=IS9JSBF9SREQB&colid=1OWT4NGV4AWNK&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004Q3C98S/_encoding=UTF8?coliid=I7CM25FU3LFHV&colid=1OWT4NGV4AWNK&psc=1

 

[Tom H]

Thanks Mark!