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Tips
& Tricks
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Erroneous
"Insert Disk 2" prompt June
29, 2002 ~ Last winter an ASR-X user with a late
model Iomega Zip Drive encountered the 'click of
death' and looked to the ASR-X list for help.
Amongst the replies was this gem providing a
creative solution to the erroneous "Insert Disk #2"
prompt issued by the ASR-X. FWIW, I've never
experienced this error first hand. Editors note:
for more on the infamous 'Click of Death' from days
gone past, the Unofficial
Click of Death web
page
is still online. "I
have had this problem. I didn't even have the
'click of death' yet, and it started showing up.
What happened was I would try to load up a song
from a Zip disk, the ASR-X would say 'Insert Disk
#2.' What causes this problem is: one or some of
the .aif files has gone missing or deleted. When
the X deals with a floppy, the only way it knows to
go to "Disk#2" is when it finds the .aif it's
trying to load has gone missing. The
only solutions I have found is this. I make a copy
of the Zip disk in my PC, and onto another Zip (I
have an internal Zip EIDE) ##OR## I save the song
periodically to a floppy. So when the sample
'AKQ3D0O9.AIF' (or whatever aif) goes missing, I
just copy it back from the Hard Drive or floppy to
the Zip in the WAVES directory and load
again. The
way I have found out what AIFFs are missing for a
particular sound is this. Every song I save has an
SBX file named for it in the BANKS folder of the
Zip or floppy. Drop the Zip of floppy in the PC and
see. Find your particular song and open the SBX
file with Notepad. Mac users may have to use some
other editor. Editors note: Either SimpleText or
AppleWorks will serve the identical purpose as
Notepad - just do 'find' on .AIF to quickly locate
the sample(s) in question. You will notice a
bunch of blocks, characters, and some words. Scroll
down to the bottom and you will find in all of
these characters a list of the AIF files the song
is going to try to load. Jot down all the aif
names. For
example: you will see
ÿÿ..\WAVES\AKQ3D0O9.AIF and a bunch of
others depending on how many waves the song had.
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT EDIT THE SBX FILE !!! It will not
work. Just exit without saving and move on to the
WAVES directory. Locate all of the AIF names you
jotted down, and you WILL FIND that one or more are
missing. At this point I hope you saved your song
on a floppy as well, or to another Zip(!) If you
did, then the missing AIF file(s) will be located
on the floppy or other Zip, or in your PC if you
copied the Zip there. In the PC, copy the missing
files from the floppy to your Zip disk. The song
now loads as normal. Also check if any other files
are missing off your Zip, like the SOU files. You
can copy those off too from your floppy or BACKUP
(!) Zip. If
you don't have any backups (MAKE BACKUPS PLEASE!)
then all is not lost. Maybe you can load the
sequence and/or SOU files from the Zip or if not
from the floppy, then drop in the AIFFs to the pads
manually, and whatever AIFFs are gone, you will
have to sample again. Here's
another thing. We all reuse our sounds between
songs right? So
maybe the AIF is on another floppy that is from
another song. Do some research. With
this method I have saved many a session and hours
of hard work - so that I could get paid. The best
thing that you can remember is to MAKE BACKUPS even
if it takes 3 floppies - save your songs to
something else, even another Zip. Invest in an
internal Zip ($40-50) for your PC. You won't regret
it. I have also had the 'click of death' happen,
and EVERYTHING is gone when it does. The rumor is
that you should not stick in a Zip disk in a
clickdeath drive and then try to use it in a good
Zip drive. I have stuck it in the PC though, and
copied it to a new Zip disk. Don't know if the
rumor is true, but I ain't taking no
chances. P.S.
By the way I have long abandoned the ASR-X for my
beatz - I have been using Cubase with Reason thru
ReWire for, like, 4 months. All software. The ASR-X
is still my piece for live gigs, but the software
scene is a much faster approach to making beatz.
Plus all the filters you could ever want, and more
then 16(!) tracks to work with. Really
got tired of the skipping beats when the sequence
changes, and the timing issues when the machine was
over-stressed. Bye Bye X. Hello Software. Never
looked back. (Athlon 1200 with Echo Gina Audio, 160
GB 7200 RPM, 512 RAM.) Good
luck and I hope this helps." Addendum June
30, 2002 ~ To preserve your ASR-X file types and
avoid data corruption - the safest approach is save
file types to separate Folders (Directories.) And
of course you always want to make a safety copy of
your work as wisely pointed out by
rudelover. Do
not mix like files types using identical
samples in the same directories, i.e., create
separate Folders and subfolders (Directories and
subdirectories) to save your 1-SOUNDS separate from
your ALL-SOUNDS, or 1-SEQUENCES separate from your
ALL-SESSION, or !-SOUNDS separate from your
ALL-SESSION, etc. Yes, this approach will uses more
storage space but the cost is minimal compared to
the time spent reconstructing corrupted files. If
you get into the bad habit of saving your 1-SOUNDS
with your ALL-SESSIONS it's inevitable you will
make an edit or tweak during the course of your
session where you will unknowingly overwrite sample
data shared between the two file types. See pages
88-92 of the ENSONIQ ASR-X Pro Reference Manual for
detailed instructions regarding the Save and Load
buttons. JL |
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