DP-03 Extractor

Desktop GUI + CLI tools for scanning and extracting tracks from Tascam DP-03 / DP-03SD card images.

This project exists for one reason: DP-03 owners keep ending up with songs trapped on old cards, and Tascam's built-in export workflow is painfully manual. DP-03 Extractor gives you a safer desktop layer to inspect a card image, see which projects are on it, and export each discovered track as a standard WAV.

Status: beta, but already useful for real recovery and archive workflows.

Screenshots

Live mixer — scrub the waveform, solo/mute tracks, watch per-channel peaks and master clip.

Project browser — every recoverable song on the card, at a glance.

What it does

• Scan a DP-03 / DP-03SD full-card image and list projects
• Extract per-track WAVs from the hidden multitrack storage area
• Open the results in a simple desktop GUI
• Detect inserted DP-03 cards on macOS and Windows
• Optionally audition / rough-mix extracted tracks with the built-in mixer

Supported workflow

Best path today:

1. Make a raw image of the card or let the app image it for you
2. Open the image in DP-03 Extractor
3. Review the discovered projects
4. Extract tracks to a normal folder of WAVs
5. Open those WAVs in any DAW

Important: do recovery work from a card image or a copy whenever possible.

What it is not

• Not a DAW replacement
• Not an official Tascam utility
• Not a writer/editor for DP-03 cards
• Not a guarantee that every unknown card or firmware variant is fully supported yet

The goal is safe read-first extraction.

Project structure

• dp03app/ — desktop GUI app
• dp03extract/ — extraction backend + CLI
• packaging/ — PyInstaller spec for Windows builds
• tests/ — regression tests
• shared/dp03/notes/ — reverse-engineering notes and format findings
• landing-page/ — simple marketing/download landing page assets

Quick start

macOS

From the project root:

python3 -m dp03app

If your default Python does not have a working Tk build, use:

./Launch\ DP-03\ Extractor.command

macOS Python note. Homebrew's python@3.14 currently ships without Tk (_tkinter), so the app won't launch against it. If you see ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_tkinter', install Python 3.12 from python.org and run the app with that interpreter instead (python3.12 -m dp03app). This is an upstream Homebrew packaging issue, not the app.

Windows

Double-click:

Launch DP-03 Extractor.bat

Or run from Command Prompt:

py -3 -m dp03app

See WINDOWS.md for the full Windows guide.

CLI usage

The CLI is useful for scripted extraction and validation.

List song slots from a full disk image:

python3 -m dp03extract list /path/to/card.img

Inspect a project using a known catalog from a source checkout:

python3 -m dp03extract project-info /path/to/card.img \
  --catalog shared/dp03/projects_catalog.csv \
  --project-idx 140

Extract one project:

python3 -m dp03extract extract-project /path/to/card.img \
  --catalog shared/dp03/projects_catalog.csv \
  --project-idx 140 \
  --out-dir ./out/song140

Extract all cataloged projects from a source checkout:

python3 -m dp03extract extract-all-projects /path/to/card.img \
  --catalog shared/dp03/projects_catalog.csv \
  --out-dir ./out/all-projects

The wheel / sdist package contains the app and backend code, but not local validation assets like card images, extracted WAVs, or the example catalog CSV in shared/. For catalog-based examples, use a source checkout or GitHub source archive.

Optional mixer dependencies

The core extractor uses the Python standard library.

The optional live mixer / render features use:

• numpy>=1.24
• sounddevice>=0.4.6

Install them with:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Packaging for release

Python package metadata

A pyproject.toml is included so the app/backend can be packaged cleanly for GitHub release and future pip-style distribution.

Build local source + wheel artifacts with:

python3 -m pip install --user build
python3 -m build

That creates:

dist/

Windows standalone build

py -3 -m pip install --user pyinstaller
py -3 -m PyInstaller packaging/dp03app.spec

That creates:

dist/DP-03 Extractor/

Ship the whole folder, not just the .exe.

Suggested GitHub release assets

For the first public release, include:

• Windows build zip of dist/DP-03 Extractor/
• Source code zip / tarball from GitHub
• DP-03 Extractor User Guide.pdf
• A few screenshots of the GUI
• Short release notes explaining image-first extraction and current limitations

Verification

Regression test:

python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v

CLI smoke check:

python3 -m dp03extract --help

Known limitations

• The GUI app itself does not expose a --help flag; launching it starts Tk
• Some workflows still rely on a known project catalog CSV for full CLI extraction
• Validation depends on local card images that are intentionally not shipped in the repository
• Windows raw-disk access still requires Administrator privileges when reading directly from \\.\PhysicalDriveN

Reverse-engineering notes

This repository includes selected technical notes used to decode the DP-03 hidden storage format:

• shared/dp03/notes/FORMAT_SPEC.md
• shared/dp03/notes/AUDIO_LAYOUT.md

Those documents are useful if you want to understand how the extractor works or help extend support.

Contributing

Bug reports, card-compatibility notes, and extraction edge cases are especially helpful.

Before opening a PR:

1. Run python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -v
2. Run python3 -m dp03extract --help
3. If you changed packaging metadata, also run python3 -m pip install --user build && python3 -m build
4. Keep raw card images and extracted audio artifacts out of Git

Use the issue templates for bug reports and feature requests. For contributor workflow details, see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Licensing

Copyright © Zachary McIntyre. All rights reserved.

This repository is shared for evaluation, testing, and product development context only. No open-source license is granted for copying, redistribution, modification, resale, or commercial reuse without explicit permission.