Disklavier

Hello folks,
Im new to the group, but have owned a disklavier model MX80 for 
several years. My questions are as follows;
What format do I use to format blank disks. Fat32?
Will my piano play midis?
Please help with thanks,
Tamlin

> My questions are as follows;
> What format do I use to format blank disks. Fat32?
> Will my piano play midis?

Hello Tamlin.  I am new to the group too.  I have just purchased a 
Disklavier model HQ100 (10 years old) and am having a wonderful time 
with it.  I can't purchase 2S2D 720K floppies locally, so I buy the 
2SHD 1.44MB floppies and reformat them.  To do that, I tape over the 
HD hole in the disk using opaque tape (I use black vinyl electrical 
tape).  It is important to use opaque tape because many modern disk 
drives use optical rather than mechanical recoginition to see what 
kind of disk it is.  Then I use the DOS command 

format a: /T:80 /N:9 /X /V:label /FS:FAT

which formats the disk as 720K.  Putting this command in a one-line 
batch file makes it easy to run - just point and click.

There was a posting in one of the earlier messages in the Yahoo 
group to the effect that reformatting HD floppies was not a good 
idea, but I have had no problem.  I have found reasonable mail order 
prices from the States on the internet, but by the time I pay 
postage and import duties, that would be costly.  If I ever have 
problems with my reformatted diskettes, then I will reconsider.

I download the midi files, and because my piano plays eseq files 
only, I use the MID2ESEQ.EXE programme in the dkvutils.zip file 
available from this group site.  It works great.  I see that Carol 
Beigel says you can convert only one file at a time (msg 3358) but I 
can drag and drop 30 or more at a time.  The only proviso is that 
MID2ESEQ is limited to filenames of only 8 characters, and any 
duplications of the first 8 characters will be overwritten.  So, for 
example, when converting a batch from the Yamaha e-Competition, be 
sure to shorten the names first or you will convert 5 files and end 
up with only the last one.

In just a few weeks, I've filled 40 floppies and my piano is going 
almost non-stop when I'm at home.  It's wonderful.  I should have 
bought one years ago.

John Sutton



--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "Tamlin" <tamlin@c...> wrote:

> Hello folks,
> Im new to the group, but have owned a disklavier model MX80 for 
> several years. My questions are as follows;
> What format do I use to format blank disks. Fat32?
> Will my piano play midis?
> Please help with thanks,
> Tamlin