How can I recover overdubbed track?

[Jamminalli]

we accidentally recorded over one of the tracks in our practice. When I listen to the files on the SD card, I can hear that those files are still in there. What is the best way to recover these recordings for track one?

 

[Phil Tipping]

Two options depending on what else you've done to the song since you overwrote the track.
Option 1:
The Undo system will let you 'go back' to the previous state, so if you've not done any more recordings, press Undo and your original track will appear.
If you've done several other things since, you can switch the default number of Undo's (history) to 10, as opposed to 1, by going into Menu, Preferences.
When you press Undo now, you'll see the last 10 operations, so you can select whichever you want to recover your track. Obviously you'll lose any other operations, although you can come back to this Undo screen at any time and pick another history state.

Option 2:
Use your computer to copy the wave file you identified as being the correct track, into the AudioDepot folder. and then run the 'Import' function on the Tascam machine to convert it back into an empty track in your song.
I'm presuming you are playing one of the 'zz' files from the song folder, in which case, do not delete it using the computer; just copy it as described.

 

[Jamminalli]

Thanks Phil! I actually just found your YouTube this morning and subscribed. So much to learn about this thing! I will try one of those and see how it goes.

 

[shredd]

Good luck @Jamminalli !!

Since I'm already the Village Idiot around here, I'll be the Obnoxious Creep and mention:
A VERYVERY important part of effectively using a DP is using/assigning tracks/V-tracks effectively to avoid such mishaps...
The time you spend reading the "sticky posts" at the top of this category and watching @Phil Tipping's vids will teach you more and save you more headaches than perhaps anything else you can do, including reading Tascam's pathetic DP-24/32 manual. Do yourself a favor and spend the money of Phil's User Guide.
Probably the most critical: DEVELOP AND IMPLEMENT A BACKUP STRATEGY.

Don't mean to be obnoxious, but - you'll thank me.

 

[Jamminalli]

Thank you. The issue was that I just failed to create a new song and had another one loaded. Dumb mistake I hadn’t made so I haven’t needed to do recovery yet, but the backups are definitely key! I look forward to more of Phil’s tutorials.

 

[Phil Tipping]

Was replying to your post but it disappeared, but here's the reply anyway fwiw

OK, that worked for the first song. We recorded several songs together simultaneously on eight tracks. I was able to import the first wav on track one and it fit perfectly. But if I try to import the second through the ninth wave files for track one it doesn’t give me track one as an option.

You can only import into empty tracks, so use whatever tricks you need to free up tracks, e.g. virtual tracks as @shredd advised, or Clone and Clear Track in Track Edit.

I hadn't realise you'd recorded multiple sessions onto one Tascam 'song', so I guess the zz wave file you were playing on the PC was a fragment of the complete track, and just happened to be session 1 in its entirety. The mapping of zz files to tracks varies depending on the recording process. There are some circumstances where a single zz file contains the whole track, but this is an exception and should not be relied on.

If you find the other zz files don't line up as well as the first one, I would recommend abandoning that approach, and using the undo system to get back to a state where you can play the whole track on the machine (i.e. all the sessions you recorded), and then use the Export function to create a single wave file in AudioDepot. This will be a collation of all the correct zz files which the machine has tagged as being part of that track.
You can then revert the undo to get back to the latest state (assuming you have other changes you wanted to retain) and then use the import function to bring that whole track back into the song, or create a new song and import it there.
Alternatively, you can copy that AudioDepot file to a computer and split it up there.

Either way, I didn't spell out the other 'standard' operating procedures you should be doing as a matter of course, such as backing up the whole sd-card before attempting any of the previous suggestions.
Good luck, and keep us posted.

 

[shredd]

The issue was that I just failed to create a new song and had another one loaded. Dumb mistake I hadn’t made so I haven’t needed to do recovery yet, but the backups are definitely key

Pretty 'normal' novice mistake. The DP imposes/enables a workflow that's different/new for most new users, and sorta takes some getting used to, so you can avoid mistakes AND take advantage of the insayn-lee kewl stuff a DP will do. Keep at it, have fun, practice, and read the sticky's/PhilT stuff!

 

[Jamminalli]

Thank you Phil. Sorry about that. I did delete it because then I realized the undo feature seemed to work on one song but then acted weird on another. I had actually copied the song before I touched it on the computer, so I was able to salvage what I needed using undo on both using a combination of history points, but other than basic recording I would really like to use this machine on a more advanced level. As time allows, I do plan on learning a lot more. This forum is great!