Mark (Wisner?) or another great Yamaha tech support professional
walked me through "how to burn MIDI onto CD-ROM" 2+ years ago.
That email is now *history* as my glorious IT department
implemented ARCHIVING of saved emails older than 6 months without
telling us ... and by archiving I mean to the "bit bucket in the
sky".
MIDI-to-CD-ROM-readable-by-DK can be done, but the only device
that could cost effectively do this, was the MIDIMAN tape-to-MIDI
sync device.
Altho I live in San Francisco, I tracked one used unit down via a
shop in Toronto and bought it via Internet and phone combo. It
has sat in my garage with other MIDI spares for the past 2+ years
(2 divorces ... don't ask).
So -- Yamaha tech support says use this device. I managed to get
my hands on one.
Your thoughts?
--Aaron
"Mark A.
Fontana" To: <disklavier@yahoogroups.com>
<mfontana@fronti cc:
ernet.net> Subject: Re: [disklavier] Re: difference in CD and floppy drives
04/22/2003 08:33
PM
Please respond
to disklavier
On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, jazornes wrote:
> Mark Fontana --
> I would like to migrate my huge Yamaha and PG Music etc. MIDI
> collections onto CD. I purchased a used MIDIMAN converter last
year
> to start this project. I have a MarkIII DC6A disklavier. I
live in
> the Bay area (Hillsborough).
>
> If you are still interested in helping the group learn how to
copy
> FDs onto Cds, let me know and let's see what we can work out.
Hi Aaron and group,
I've put together a Windows app called Mid2PianoCD that batch
converts
MIDI and ESEQ files into WAVE audio files that can be burned to
CD to
control PianoDisc and Pianocorder systems. I haven't figured out
the
format of Yamaha's CD control signal yet, but once that is known,
I
could add support for the Disklavier format as well. (In
addition, I'm
working on support for QRS Pianomation/Baldwin ConcertMaster
CDs.)
Anyone who'd like to try a beta version of this software may find
it at:
http://dp70.dyndns.org/mid2pianocd/
(Please don't copy this into the group archives or upload it to
other
sites yet, as this is still under development. A link to the
above URL
is OK, though.)
One thing I've learned recently is that Yamaha's CDs do NOT use
the
MIDIMAN encoding-- that format is used by QRS and Baldwin. Yamaha
appears to developed their own format.
Some of you may not realize that this "audio" encoding of MIDI
data
limits you to the audio capacity of the CD-R... typically 80
minutes.
Because the "audio" encoding is so inefficient, you cannot pack a
full
700 MB of MIDI files onto such a CD, rather just a dozen or so
files at
a time. So it will take quite a few CDs to hold a sizable
collection.
Another factor to consider is that the timing of the MIDI events
is less
accurate in this format than when playing from diskette.
Together, these factors make the current CD format
less-than-optimal
for the purpose of storing a large music library.
If you want to maintain the best timing accuracy on your
Disklavier,
here are the ways of playing music data ranked from most-accurate
to
least-accurate:
1. play from floppy disk or memory disk (delta times of zero
between notes can truly be played as such... NO transmission
delays)
2. use a "To Host" cable and send MIDI to the piano from a PC
(this
offers a higher data rate than standard MIDI but will still
result in
small delays between notes that are to be struck simultaneously)
3. use a standard MIDI link (results in greater delays between
notes
struck simultaneously)
4. play from CD (even greater delays... it's barely adequate)
I recently had the opportunity to see a Baldwin ConcertMaster
system
running the latest firmware. The engineers for this system have
added
support for playing standard MIDI files from a standard ISO9600
*DATA*
CDROM (no audio encoding required). This feature works extremely
well
and it would be nice if Yamaha and PianoDisc would follow suit.
Mark Fontana
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
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To Post a message to the group, send it to:
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To reach our group's web site go to:
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Todd's family web site was completely updated 01/15/03. It
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