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Re: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

2014-07-02 by John Rank

I have about 45 Yamaha diskettes for my Mark IIXG grand piano and want to make sure that when I get the DKC-850 that I will still be able to use them. I was told by one of the local dealers that I need to keep my old control device to use them all –something to do with copyright issues(?). that seems crazy since I paid for them all and they would be for my personal use. I have not read anything that says how to transfer the contents of the disks to the DKC-850., Are there instructions with the unit that tell how to do this? or is there indeed an issue? I would prefer not to have two units attached to the piano; it always sounds easy for anyone to “cleanly upgrade the instrument yourself,” but I have my doubts! Is it possible to just pay someone from the local dealer to come out, install the upgrade and do whatever is necessary to transfer the disks to the harddrive of the 850? (if my phrasing of the question is even close to correct).
Thanks,
John
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2014 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

Good morning, everyone.

I'll do my best to demystify the upgrade situation for Mark II Disklaviers. I should qualify what I am about to say by pointing out that I don't work for Yamaha Piano Service. In general, I recommend consulting one's local dealer about available upgrades and then proceed to contact Yamaha Piano Service if the information from the dealer is incomplete.
You might want to start by taking a look at a history of the Disklavier that is recounted on the Disklavier Education Network website:
You'll note from the article that the Mark II series was introduced in 1990. The Mark IIXG series was introduced in 1992. The article discusses the improvements offered by the Mark IIXG series.
During the 1990s, Yamaha offered an upgrade kit for Mark II pianos. I believe that the exact components of the kit were slightly different for each particular model. In general, these kits included a replacement control unit, any necessary cabling, and replacement circuit boards as needed.
In the case of the upright Mark IIs, there was a replacement component for the upper portion of the instrument case. Mark II uprights had a control unit that was built into the upper portion of the instrument's case. The Mark IIXG control unit, however, was not designed to fit into that cavity but was designed to sit on top of the instrument or be mounted under the keys. To take care of the empty cavity problem, upgrade kits for upright Mark IIs included a replacement bezel (for lack of a better term) that ran the width of the piano.
The Mark II—>Mark IIXG upgrade kits substantially improved the user experience with these instruments. It is worth noting that the upgrade kits did not replace the components of the record and playback system. Having said that, one can generally think of an upgraded Mark II as the functional equivalent of a Mark IIXG.
In general, if you want to upgrade an older Disklavier so that it has most of the modern amenities of an E3, you should get a DKC-850. If you have a Mark IIXG (or Mark II that has been upgraded to a Mark IIXG), you can cleanly upgrade the instrument yourself. The DKC-850 kit comes with all of the necessary cables and remarkably clear instructions. Anyone can do it.
If you have a Mark II and want a clean upgrade to a DKC-850 in which you completely rid yourself of the Mark II control unit, you have to pass through the Mark II—>Mark IIXG upgrade phase. However, this does not mean that you actually have to purchase a complete Mark II—>Mark IIXG upgrade kit. In fact, those kits don't exist any more. What you need are any of the necessary updated circuit boards, some of which--I believe--are still available. This is the point at which a call to Yamaha Piano Service is probably in order.
It is certainly true that older model Disklaviers are quite functional by virtue of their MIDI ports. This means that you can record to external devices and playback from external devices. Other modern features require a modern control unit.
I'll point out that you can add a DKC-850 to a Mark II piano by simply connecting it with MIDI cables. The DKC-850 comes with cables and instructions for that purpose. You do end up, however, with two control units. However, as long as the old unit is turned on, you can ignore the old unit and just focus your activities on the new DKC-850. In fact, you can even mount the old control unit somewhere on the piano that is out of sight, if you wish. The primary limitation of this arrangement is that you will not have access to DisklavierTV or DisklavierRadio. And, your only way to establish a connection with an external MIDI device will be via the USB device port that is available on the DKC-850.
Regards,
PianoBench
On Jun 30, 2014, at 12:06 PM, 'Jon Arnold' jonarnold@... [disklavier] <disklavier@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Ok, now I am totally confused based on George’s very thorough answer and this answer.

Basically I want the disklavier to work again, but instead of simply replacing the floppy drive (which is probably the most economical solution), I was looking at what possible and cost effective upgrades could be done.

I’m not in a position to upgrade to the cosmic top-of-the-line $1700 unit recommended by my Yamaha dealer (where a disklavier specialist needs come from Orlando – 70 miles), despite the fact that it allegedly comes with $1200 worth of music inside it.

I am a piano player and enjoy the disklavier immensely (when it works) but I am not comfortable going with an unsupported or non-recommended solution, nor unfortunately a solution where I need to tape this and solder that where it SHOULD work. While I could probably get it to work by doing that, I do not have the time to put into that.

Is a unit with a CD better? I don’t know. Is it cost effective? Is that too much of a quantum leap from what I have now (that does not work)? Is it easier and more cost effective to do something where I can plug a USB thumb drive into a po rt and play the music from there, assuming that I can FIND the music, assuming I can FIND the music at a reasonable price AND format the USB thumb drive properly?

From: disklavier@yahoogroups.com [mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 11:29 PM
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

I upgraded a Grand Mark II to a Mark II XG and so far have not needed the extra circuit boards to make the upgrade from a DKC100R to a DKC500RXG.

All I needed was a single cable adaptor to convert from 9 pin to 15 pin (or x pins to y pins.)

It works perfectly and I have seen no issues despite NOT installing the two circuit boards Yamaha says you need.

I still do not know why the circuit boards are supposedly 'needed'?

< p class="MsoNormal">Dan

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, June 2 8, 2014 7:33 AM

Subject: RE: [disklavier] Disklavier problem - upgrade or fix?

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 [mailto:disklavier@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 28, 2014 9:28 AM
To: 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:

If the replacement 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' jonarnold@... [disklavier] <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!

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