Topic: Microtrack reset loop problem

[greenone]

Hey all...had my Microtrack (not II, the original) just shut down during recording twice tonight. Just slipped out of record into stop - it had apparently saved the file and stopped. Plenty of room on the card, it's a 4GB and was empty, recording at 16/48. When I hit record again to start a file, it would behave like it wasn't getting a signal - counter wouldn't start counting up, level meters wouldn't bounce - and it would briefly flash the M-AUDIO startup screen and then go back to the stopped state.

First time this has happened to me, and very frustrating to have it happen twice in one night. I'm wondering if this has something to do with my order of operations - do folks typically connect the MT, fire up the rest of the gear and the MT last so that it "sees" the signal? Any suggestions?

[dallman]

I have an MT1 and it does not seem to matter what order I do things. How are you using it? If I use it as a bit bucket, sometimes if I connect and turn on I overload the signal, which I can fix by just pulling out my SPDIF cable and putting it back in. If I use any other configuration like TRS to batt box to 1/8, or TRS to Phantom, it never matters what I do.

I always reformat the card in the MT before every show. It sounds like possibly a CF card issue.

[greenone]

I was using it as a bit bucket but I tried it after I got home last night with the 1/8" and it exhibited the same behavior, which led me to believe it was the CF. Just to be safe, I formatted the card, reinstalled the latest firmware, formatted the card again, and that seemed to solve the problem, but what works at home may not always work at a show so I'll test it out again before tonight's show. Thanks and keep the suggestions coming...

[taperwheeler]

I know that there has also been a lot of talk as well about the mt2 (and figure mt1 has same concern) that when a spdif signal is in anyway interrupted it stops.  While trouble shooting, make sure that your signal isn't being in some way interrupted ie. bad cable, loose connection, poor powering of pre, etc.

[greenone]

I should also mention that when I tried the shutdown/startup routine on site, it would shut down and start up just fine, but then flash a square on the screen for a millisecond after it had gone through the startup. The square looked to be the same size as the "Shutting down" dialog but it was so quick I couldn't even tell if there was text on it. But whenever I saw that square flash, I knew the system was still messed up.

[dallman]

I know that there has also been a lot of talk as well about the mt2 (and figure mt1 has same concern) that when a spdif signal is in anyway interrupted it stops.  While trouble shooting, make sure that your signal isn't being in some way interrupted ie. bad cable, loose connection, poor powering of pre, etc.

I have not found this to be a problem with the MT1 using the latest (or even near latest) firmware. In bitbucket mode, if the signal stops, the recording stops, but as soon as the signal comes back, the recording resumes. Whenever I patch, this is what happens because everyone is different about when or how they start recording usually based on battery paranoia.

I do strongly recommend formatting the card from the MT before every show.

[greenone]

Formatted the card before the other two shows this weekend and worked like a charm. Now if I only hadn't turned off the auto-shutdown, I might have had enough juice for the second show...third show was just fine though.

Thanks folks.