What Card Manager is (and what it is not)
Card Manager is a program you
can download from the Zoom JP web site.
You
can
download it here (offsite
link opens in new window). It is available for Windows and
Mac.
Once
installed on your computer, you
can use it to get the digital files you recorded off your PS-04's
memory card and
onto your computer. You can also get audio onto your
computer by hooking up the audio
output
of the recorder to the audio input of your computer and
recording on
the computer while playing back on the PS-04, like you would do if you
were making a copy of a tape or vinyl record. But what if you
want to "go digital all the
way" to keep the quality as high as possible?
Here's where Card Manager comes in handy.
Some have thought that by installing Card Manager on their computer,
their computer will be able to open and play the .aud files the PS-04
makes. This is not the case. Card Manager
will allow you to convert those .aud files to .wav or .aiff
files on your computer so you can use your computer's audio programs to
play or edit them. An important step you may overlook is to
select the sample rate. Don't leave it at 31.250kHz, or your
playback on the computer will sound like the chipmunks.
Card Manager will also let you mix up to four tracks down to a stereo
pair while converting to wav or aiff, and allow you to set the
pan and volume for each track. It's also used to help
you move your tracks as they are off the card and onto your
computer, something you can do with your computer anyway,
using Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) on the PC,
Finder on the Mac.
To convert a track or tracks and put them on your computer,
open Card Manager, navigate the right pane of the program window to
locate your files (you may have to select the project just to the left
of that if you have more than one project on the card. Once
selected, you can "light up" the tracks you want to convert,
individually or all at once for a mixdown. Play with it.
See what it does. Just remember where you told Card
Manager to store the converted files (I use my desktop).
You can even use Card Manager to move files from your computer to
the PS-04's card. These can be new audio files, or ones you've
previously moved off the card to play with. You need to
convert them to .aud at 31.250kHz when you put them back on the card.
Why would you want to go "backwards" and put anything on the
card? Maybe you want to import a song to jam along with.
This next section talks about that.
Using
Card
Manager To Import A Track
Let's
say you
have a nice track you want to put on your PS-04 to jam with or as a
guide track for recording. You can use the Zoom Card Manager to put the
track on your PS-04.
Before
you can use Card
Manager to import an audio file into the PS-04, you'll need several
things:
- A
PS-04
(duh)
- A
copy
of Card Manager (from the Zoom site)*
- A
folder on your computer with mac prm and prj ini in it**
- A
wav
file to import (convert mp3 to wav first)
Card
Manager
will let you do many things, including backing up and restoring your
PS-04 projects, sample rate conversions, import/export tracks and
V-takes, converting to and from wav and aud files. Card
Manager
is available free from the Zoom site* in versions for Windows and Mac
operating systems.
Although you can use Card Manager to work directly with the files on
your SmartMedia card, I recommend you drag and drop those files to a
folder on your computer before making changes. That way, if
you
mess up, nothing's lost. In my scenario below, I'm working
with
the files I've copied from the card to the computer.
Once you've moved the ini files from the card to your computer, you are
ready to start.
Mono: Please note that in
the scenario
below, you will be creating a mono track to play along with. The
original intention of this page was to help someone who wants to jam
along with a track or import a "scratch" track they already had on
their computer to the PS-04 to lay down other tracks to. If you are
starting with a stereo track and you want to wind up with a stereo
track on the PS-04, you'll need to click two tracks where the
instructions below say to click on a single track number. The result of
that will be two V-take tracks on the PS-04 - one for the left stereo
channel and one for the right stereo channel.
______________________________
Open
Card Manager.
The screen is divided into two panes. The left pane is the
program, the right is a menu or explorer window:
In the right pane, click on Desktop, or My Computer, My Documents, or
whatever, as you would when locating a file, and go to the folder
containing the project into which you want to import the wav file:
When you click on that folder, the Project field will light up with the
name of the first project in that folder. Use the dropdown
selector to find the project into which you want to import the file.
Note: you have to have project ini and machine parameter files in that
folder to begin with, or the Project field will be blank*:
Once you have selected the Project (I have selected Project 03 HiFi),
click on a track button in the V-take row. In the example
below, I've selected track one. The button for track one
stays "down" after clicking on it:
Next, click on a V-take in the blue area just under the track buttons
(click in the blue area and the V-take area will turn white).
I've selected the first V-take under track one. Note that the
words "Wav/AIFF
-> V-Take", which were
greyed out before, are now dark:
Now, click on Wav/AIFF
-> V-Take,
and a new window will pop up so you can find your wav file:
Use the window to find the wav file you want to convert/import into the
project. Note: Card Manager will not import mp3
files. You have to convert them to wav files first.
Also note that you may need to match sample rates. More on that later.
Find your wav file:
Select "Sample Rate Convert" if you want to do that. A little
experimentation will tell you if you do (if the track sounds speeded up
or slowed down when you are done). Double-click on the wav file and the
conversion begins. Wait. When it's done, you'll see
something in the V-take opening in the blue area. This will
be your wav file, converted to an aud file, and imported into the
project. In this example, it's called "1-1", which means
V-take one in track one:
You can verify that it's really there by opening the project folder for
the song:
Yep, it's there (03-00.aud). Why isn't it called "1-1"?
Because the first track is really track 00. What's with the
"03" ? That's the project number. The wav file has
been converted to an aud file (the proprietary audio file extension for
the PS-04) and numbered so the PS-04 will recognize it.
If you're not seeing aud, or ini, or wav attached to the end of the
file name on any of your files, you'll need to set your computer to
show file extensions. How do do that depends on your operating system.
For Windows, it's under "Folder Options". I am not familiar
with how to do this on the Mac.
About sample rate conversion:
If you did not watch your sample rates (the PS-04 uses 31.250khz,
whereas a typical CD track is at 44.100khz) you may get some strange
results. If you like chipmunk sounds, you'll be happy. If
not, play around with sample rates on each side of the
conversion/import process. You'll learn more by experimenting
a bit than you will by reading this. What I'm talking about here is a
large mismatch, very obvious, rather than the subtile mismatch I
mention in the next paragraph.
Some have reported that, even if they do the sample rate conversion in
Card Manager, they have a slight mismatch caused by the PS-04 recording
at 31.250khz, rather than 31.200khz or 32.000khz. Some say this depends
on their computer and the audio program they are using, and whether or
not that audio program supports conversion rates with with more than
three significant digits. If you find that there is a pitch change of
about a quarter to one-half a cent, you may be experiencing this
problem. However, just for jamming, the above will work just fine.
I never seem to say this enough: Always make a
backup of anything you convert or alter before you make a change you
can't undo. Always. If you follow this
rule, you will have fewer problems down the road. If not,
remember that you have been warned.
That's it. You're done. If you found this
information useful, drop me a note by going to my contact page.
______________________________
* Get the Zoom Card Manager software for Windows or Mac
directly from the Zoom Web Site.
** The files MAC_PRM.INI AND PRJECT00.INI are necessary for the
operation of your PS-04 and Card Manager. If they are not in
the folder, you can't do the above. The PRJECT file number is
according to the project number, either 00, or 01, or 02, or 03, etc..
so it will read PRJECT00.INI, or PRJECT01.INI, etc..
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