The Organ Forum

Hello,

       Let me start by admitting I am not a musician by any stretch of the imagination. I have a Kawai Xr7000 and a Dx1900, on wich I rely heavily upon auto accompaniment. The Xr7000 is a giant leap forward for me in technology when compared to the Dx. So here I am again hoping that someone else can overcome my stupidity. I ran right out to buy midi disks for my new toy, only to find that they don't work. It seems as though Kawai used double density disk drives in their organs, and apparently they went the way of Betamax. Does anyone know what, if anything, can be done to overcome this setup. I'm hoping that my own lack of knowledge is the true roadblock - Any input would be greatly appreciated.   

Most organs of that era used DD disks rather than HD, and getting hold of them has been a problem for some years. I'm not aware of any sources of DD disks now. I had a student with a Technics organ that used DD disks, and we were able to use some HD disks if we reformatted them in the organ's drive. However, after a while, we'd start to lose data so it wasn't a total solution.

The XR7000 came out after I'd left Kawai (I was only responsible for the main spec and voicing) so I don't know what type of 3.5" drive they used. There's just a chance that it might have been a 'standard' PC compatible drive that might be interchangeable with a newer drive that would accept HD disks even if the organ's firmware couldn't format them. Worth trying to find out.

Andy G

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It's not what you play, it's not how you play. It's the fact that you're playing that counts.

        Thanks for the advice Andy. So theoretically, if a pc floppy drive will plug in, the organ should be able to read HD disks?  Would it be able to write to it? Thanks!  

I'd guess the firmware in the organ would probably only let it write a 720k disk - theoretically!

Andy

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It's not what you play, it's not how you play. It's the fact that you're playing that counts.

  I just this moment ordered a 10-pk of DD disks online from a seller on Amazon.com.  With shipping, they ran $3.00 each.  These are for my Kawai SR-70.  I also saw some offered on eBay.com.uk.  There is also an embroidery firm who offers DD disks for sale [the machines use them; ergo, they need them too...]  The site is smrsoftware.com.

Good luck,

Mary Carolyn

I forgot to mention that the power requirement is different for writing to a DD disk that that for an HD disk.  And some have reported losing data after a while by using an HD instead of a specified DD.

Mary Carolyn