Topic: Tascam DA-P1 wouldn't start recording

[fleish]

I'm posting this for my own knowledge & in the hopes somewhere down the road someone will find the (potential) answer(s) useful.

On Sunday in Indio I was going to give a patcher a coax out to his DA-P1. Having not used that particular device before myself, the guy explained to me how to start it & bailed. Seemed easy enough. I tested it out before the set started & saw the record light blinking red & the levels were coming through. However, I could not for the life of me get the tape to actually start rolling. The counter showed plenty of time should have been left on the tape. However, when I tried switching the counter to time remaining I basically got --:--:-- ... I asked another taper to check it out but in the end the deck just wouldn't roll the tape in record mode (in play mode it seemed to roll the tape, I think anyways b/c the play icon showed up on the display & the levels were moving as if something was being played back - I can't recall what the timer did while this was happening). I examined it again at set break and noticed when the red record light was flashing, the top right corner of the LCD screen kept scrolling "48  44.1  32".   TIA.

[H₂O]

Sound like it could not sync clock.  What sampling rate where you running out?
 
Where you running Digi out?
 
 

[darby]

if you were patching out SPDIF...
then either you were at a higher sampling rate than 48 as H2O mentioned
or the cable or input jack was bad since the DA-P1 couldn't lock onto a digital signal

[fleish]

It was a digi out from my R4 to his DA-P1 via coax. I do recall the DA-P1 display saying "DIGITAL IN" in the top-left corner of its display. My R4 was running at 24/48, but I have no idea what the DA-P1 was configured for.

[H₂O]

The P1 should lock on 48Khz.   I don't know if it will handle a 24 bit signal most 16bit recorders do and simply truncate the other 8bits.
 
Doesn't the R4 resample the Digi out? 

[fleish]

The P1 should lock on 48Khz.   I don't know if it will handle a 24 bit signal most 16bit recorders do and simply truncate the other 8bits.
 
Doesn't the R4 resample the Digi out? 

I really don't know. This is only the 2nd time I've had someone patched out via digital coax. IIRC, the last time was also a DAT deck (not a DA-P1).

[dgale]

Sounds like a situation where if I owned that DA-P1 I would have been wise to at least stick around long enough to get my deck rolling, much less have checked things out beforehand to see that I was getting a signal...stuff patchers should have learned in Patching 101.  I'm never too pumped when someone comes up wanting a patch and wants to dump their gear on me to start and run while they go have a good time...I'm not saying this was necessarily the case here but just venting a pet peeve in general.  I'm always happy to give a patch when feasible and in most cases am willing to babysit gear but I usually request that someone get their gear running themselves or else if they leave it up to me they realize they will be the lowest on my priority list to get things rolling. 

[ArchivalAudio]

Sounds like a situation where if I owned that DA-P1 I would have been wise to at least stick around long enough to get my deck rolling, much less have checked things out beforehand to see that I was getting a signal...stuff patchers should have learned in Patching 101.  I'm never too pumped when someone comes up wanting a patch and wants to dump their gear on me to start and run while they go have a good time...I'm not saying this was necessarily the case here but just venting a pet peeve in general.  I'm always happy to give a patch when feasible and in most cases am willing to babysit gear but I usually request that someone get their gear running themselves or else if they leave it up to me they realize they will be the lowest on my priority list to get things rolling.

^^^^^ I agree, usually I don't wanna be in charge of staring someones deck that I am not familiar with.

My guess is that since it was a DAT it needed to see a 16 bit signal, the 24bits was too much. this is where a analog out is potentially necessary.

are people really still running DAT's? where the heck are they finding blanks?

I really like the CF cards with no moving parts.

peace
--Ian

[Craig T]

the DAP1 will take a 24bit spdif signal - it just truncates to 16bit.  I know this because I knew someone who ran V3>DAP1 and insisted that it sounded better without ANSR dither engaged (so the V3 was outputting 24bit).  It sounds like a clock issue - it wouldn't lock and the DAP1 does not re-clock the digital-in.  Not sure why it wouldn't lock on a 24/48 signal.

[fleish]

Yeah, I agree I should have told him to stick around to make sure it started OK. But I like to try and be helpful and he showed me how to start it before I patched it in & it seemed very straightforward. Plus I've run DAT before, albeit not this particular deck. Anyhow, dude didn't seem at all put out about it when he returned so I pretty much shrugged it off as soon as I left that day, but it's nice to hear others thoughts on the issue.

[runonce]

Could the R-4 mode setting produce unusable spdif signals? (which I would expect to be limited to 1Xstereo)

[fleish]

Could the R-4 mode setting produce unusable spdif signals? (which I would expect to be limited to 1Xstereo)

The R-4 monitor out can handle a number of different configurations - including a matrix of all 4 channels. But it only outputs a single stereo feed AFAIK.