Disklavier

Hmmm, confusion reigns supreme.

 

Ok, I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but this piano was very
well equipped from a disklavier standpoint when I bought it.  In addition to
the [slightly old] disklavier unit itself, the original owner also had
installed a Yamaha MU50 MIDI unit, a stereo amplifier, and a couple of nice
Pioneer speakers to the underside of the piano.  (Yes, he used to play in
piano coffee shop and bars with it).

 

So whatever I do to fix/enhance/replace/circumvent the existing disklavier
unit must absolutely be able to interface with that other stuff.

 

If this is not clear, would pictures help, which I can attach here for the
group to see (I think)?

 

 

From: disklavier@yahoogroups.com [mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2014 4:30 PM
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

 

  

Good afternoon, everyone.

 

The PNOmation system is a player piano retrofit system. With all due respect
to QRS, I would not recommend replacing a built-in Disklavier
record/playback system with a 3rd party playback system no matter how
brilliantly the 3rd party system is designed.

 

If one wants to tinker with the piano without doing a clean DKC-850 upgrade
that provides all of the modern amenities that Yamaha offers, one could
experiment with a floppy replacement that stores data on USB flash drives. I
believe that there has been some earlier discussion about this matter within
this group. Personally, I would not go that route unless I had a Wagon
Grand, MX100A or B, or MX80-series instrument whose control unit cannot be
completely replaced by a DCK-850.

 

For those you enjoy access to the piano via computer, external MIDI players
can be used with any model Disklavier and vanBasco is a popular free one for
Windows.

 

Regards,

PianoBench

 

On Jun 28, 2014, at 11:33 AM, 'uecker.juneau@...'
uecker.juneau@... [disklavier] <disklavier@yahoogroups.com> wrote:





 

Jon,

 

I'm no expert, but for the cost of the DKC 850, you might want to check out
what the QRS PNOmation system can do for you. Inexpensive options are
replacing the floppy drive with an emulator that stores many "floppy" files
on an SD card or just using a tablet or notebook to store MIDI files and
play them through the midi interface. Look at a midi player such as
vanBasco's.

---------- Original Message ----------
From: "'Jon Arnold' jonarnold@... [disklavier]"
<disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
To: <disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 10:33:00 -0400

 

 

Thanks for the great response.  Do you have any idea where to purchase one
of those and/or how much it costs?  Any recommendations for service in the
Melbourne Florida (Satellite Beach) area?

 

 

From:  <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> disklavier@yahoogroups.com [
<mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2014 9:28 AM
To:  <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com> disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

 

 

Good morning, everyone.

 

Jon, your model Disklavier is a Mark II and was made between 1992 and 1997.
It supports double-density floppy disks but not high density floppy disks.
It records in E-SEQ format and does not recording in the industry-standard
SMF format although it will play back SMF files if they are Type 0.

 

If you can get the necessary circuit boards from Yamaha, you can cleanly
replace your control unit with a DKC-850. The DKC-850 will provide you with
innumerable benefits. You can check it out here:

 

 <http://yamahaden.com/news/item/273-how-to-upgrade-an-older-disklavier>
http://yamahaden.com/news/item/273-how-to-upgrade-an-older-disklavier

 

If the replace ment circuit boards are not available, you can upgrade to the
DKC-850 in a piggyback manner in which the new control unit connects to the
old control unit with MIDI cables. Functionally, the main difference between
using the DKC-850 as a replacement control unit vs. an add-on control unit
is that the add-on scenario does not support DisklavierRadio and
DisklavierTV.

 

Regards,

PianoBench

 

 

On Jun 28, 2014, at 8:25 AM, 'Jon Arnold'  <mailto:jonarnold@...>
jonarnold@... [disklavier] < <mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
disklavier@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

 

I bought a beautiful Yamaha 5'2" grand, love it.  It came with a Yahaha
Disklavier DKC100R unit (the one that uses the floppy disks), and the
original owner had it wired up underneath with an amplifier, speakers,
really nice.  The original owner also gave me a few dozen floppies of
various genres which I have enjoyed immensely.

 

About 6 months ago the unit was generating an error every time I would put a
different disk in.  I took a handful of the disks that it failed with, down
to the local dealer, where each of them played just fine.  So the tech came
out and made some adjustments to the unit, then they worked fine.

 

Now 6 months later, the same thing is happening, and its not from overuse
because the number of times I've used the unit since the te ch was here 6
months ago can be counted on one hand.

 

Perhaps it needs an upgrade?  What would you suggest?  A new disk drive?
Upgrade to CD?  (Yikes, $1700!)  Or am I further ahead to get something
where I could put a thumb drive into a USB port and have it play music from
there?  If the latter, does the thumb drive need to be formatted in a
special way so that the unit can read it?

 

Thanks!