4 May
2008
4 May
'08
6:39 a.m.
Hi folks,
There hasn't been any action on this group for months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of floppy
disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be used
anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work with
Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this is
is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become sick and
says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But that's
another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
4 May
4 May
8:25 a.m.
At 05:39 AM 5/4/2008, you wrote:
There hasn't been any action on this group for
months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of floppy
disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be used
anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work with
Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this is
is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become sick and
says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But that's
another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
The new Translator Mac beta supports S-50/550 floppy images and it
can convert them to EXS24 format (or Structure, or Independence, or
Kontakt, or others). And this week (at least I think; we are in
striking distance) the beta will support -Roland S-7x, just like the
Windows version does.
I put you on the list; you'll be getting an email Monday with details.
Garth Hjelte
Sampler User
1:31 p.m.
The new Translator Mac beta supports S-50/550 floppy
images and it
can convert them to EXS24 format (or Structure, or Independence, or
Kontakt, or others). And this week (at least I think; we are in
striking distance) the beta will support -Roland S-7x, just like the
Windows version does.
I put you on the list; you'll be getting an email Monday with details.
Thanks Garth!!
That's really good news.
I see that you mention floppy images. So will I have to make disk
images of my disks first?
I still have an old Iomega superdrive which could read S550 floppies
directly to Mac - if Translator supports that......
Regards - Colin
4:13 p.m.
Hi Colin and everyone!
Nice to see some activity on this list too.
I have many disks for my S330 and have given thought to archive them.
I was either going to use the S-Mac and/or 'dd' command on Linux to
create an image of each floppy as a directory, and then burn the
whole thing to CD-ROM. Of course, I would want to have the samples
exacted too since there is no telling if any sort of format from the
Roland sampler library would be supported. It seems a shame to have
to lose the set-ups for the samples and patches themselves by going
to another format whatever that might be. But at the very least,
preserving the raw samples is possible.
Yes, there might be better samples available now for certain things,
but those you created yourself or edited it would be good to keep
them. Hard to believe that hundreds of those floppy disks could be
stored on a single CD-ROM now for less than the price of what I paid
for a single 3.5 floppy disk. :-)
Loading them into Mach 5 would also be a good idea as well!
David A. Roth
david(a)roth-music.com
On May 4, 2008, at 6:39 AM, Colin Shapiro wrote:
Hi folks,
There hasn't been any action on this group for months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of
floppy disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be
used anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work
with Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this
is is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become
sick and says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But
that's another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/
sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
6:24 p.m.
I also have the Roland fioppies. If we are planning to archive these,
shouldn't we all work together to not duplicate work.
Or has this been done already for the Roland floppies?
I've found many of my old disks are now unreadable....
At 5/4/2008 01:13 PM, David A. Roth wrote:
Hi Colin and everyone!
Nice to see some activity on this list too.
I have many disks for my S330 and have given thought to archive them.
I was either going to use the S-Mac and/or 'dd' command on Linux to
create an image of each floppy as a directory, and then burn the
whole thing to CD-ROM. Of course, I would want to have the samples
exacted too since there is no telling if any sort of format from the
Roland sampler library would be supported. It seems a shame to have
to lose the set-ups for the samples and patches themselves by going
to another format whatever that might be. But at the very least,
preserving the raw samples is possible.
Yes, there might be better samples available now for certain things,
but those you created yourself or edited it would be good to keep
them. Hard to believe that hundreds of those floppy disks could be
stored on a single CD-ROM now for less than the price of what I paid
for a single 3.5 floppy disk. :-)
Loading them into Mach 5 would also be a good idea as well!
David A. Roth
david(a)roth-music.com
On May 4, 2008, at 6:39 AM, Colin Shapiro wrote:
|_e_/ Dennis Barton <db(a)skylab2000.com>
) skylab2000
~\/\ Brainforest Productions, Los Angeles
/ http://skylab2000.com
Hi folks,
There hasn't been any action on this group for months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of
floppy disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be
used anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work
with Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this
is is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become
sick and says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But
that's another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/ sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information. 
6:39 p.m.
It's been a while, but wasn't Awave also capable of doing some Roland-ish
conversions ?
Might have been just the samples though...
Regards,
Peter
----- Original Message -----
From: "Colin Shapiro" <musos(a)icon.co.za>
To: <sgroup(a)sgroup.ca>
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 12:39 PM
Subject: [sgroup] Any S-news out there?
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
_______________________________________________
9:11 p.m.
At 12:31 PM 5/4/2008, you wrote:
Yeah. I've never really used SMac but if you can get it to work then
great. Otherwise I just always tell people "find a PC and make your
images" using SDisk.
The new
Translator Mac beta supports S-50/550 floppy images and it
can convert them to EXS24 format (or Structure, or Independence, or
Kontakt, or others). And this week (at least I think; we are in
striking distance) the beta will support -Roland S-7x, just like the
Windows version does.
I put you on the list; you'll be getting an email Monday with details.
Thanks Garth!!
That's really good news.
I see that you mention floppy images. So will I have to make disk
images of my disks first? I still have an old Iomega superdrive which could read
S550 floppies
directly to Mac - if Translator supports that......
The best thing to do is to make images, because 1) it's good to have
backups anyway and 2) it avoids any issues of Translator seeing the
disk. Best to just get the information off the disk. Disk Utility is
a good program for this. However, the ability for it to read
proprietary floppies is suspect.
Personally, I would always use a PC with a floppy controller (not
USB) to read proprietary disks. That always works; other ways are suspect.
Garth Hjelte
Sampler User
9:21 p.m.
At 05:39 PM 5/4/2008, you wrote:
It's been a while, but wasn't Awave also
capable of doing some Roland-ish
conversions ?
Might have been just the samples though...
S-550 .out image files is included in their set and it reads the
Patch info. I did not have much success with S-50 stuff, which is different.
Translator Windows now includes floppy support, using the new
OmniFlop driver, so you can read the floppies directly off floppy.
Garth Hjelte
Sampler User
11:10 p.m.
Hello, everybody! Great to see some traffic on this excellent list,
dedicated to a great (if somewhat dated) technology.
I've backed up lots of my s-disk images which I'll gladly make available to
anyone who's interested. As a matter of fact, one very kind list member
sent me a CD of some of his backups in exchange for my backups, but I never
finished my own backups and I've since forgot who sent me the disk! :(
Very big apologies to whomever it was - please let me know and I'll correct
the situation immediately.
If anyone is interested this would make a good excuse for me to start again
to complete backing up my disks to sdisk images and put those on a CD.
Oh, and I also have a very large collection of blank 720KB floppy disks for
sale, if anyone is interested. They are very good quality - they came from
the software company where I used to work, and in all the years I've worked
with them (since the late '80s) I think I've only had one or two fail on me.
Let me know if anyone is interested in that.
Jesse
-----Original Message-----
From: sgroup-bounces+jsegovia=mindspring.com(a)sgroup.ca
[mailto:sgroup-bounces+jsegovia=mindspring.com@sgroup.ca] On Behalf Of
dennis barton
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:24 PM
To: David A. Roth; sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
Subject: Re: [sgroup] Any S-news out there?
I also have the Roland fioppies. If we are planning to archive these,
shouldn't we all work together to not duplicate work.
Or has this been done already for the Roland floppies?
I've found many of my old disks are now unreadable....
At 5/4/2008 01:13 PM, David A. Roth wrote:
Hi Colin and everyone!
Nice to see some activity on this list too.
I have many disks for my S330 and have given thought to archive them.
I was either going to use the S-Mac and/or 'dd' command on Linux to
create an image of each floppy as a directory, and then burn the
whole thing to CD-ROM. Of course, I would want to have the samples
exacted too since there is no telling if any sort of format from the
Roland sampler library would be supported. It seems a shame to have
to lose the set-ups for the samples and patches themselves by going
to another format whatever that might be. But at the very least,
preserving the raw samples is possible.
Yes, there might be better samples available now for certain things,
but those you created yourself or edited it would be good to keep
them. Hard to believe that hundreds of those floppy disks could be
stored on a single CD-ROM now for less than the price of what I paid
for a single 3.5 floppy disk. :-)
Loading them into Mach 5 would also be a good idea as well!
David A. Roth
david(a)roth-music.com
On May 4, 2008, at 6:39 AM, Colin Shapiro wrote:
|_e_/ Dennis Barton <db(a)skylab2000.com>
) skylab2000
~\/\ Brainforest Productions, Los Angeles
/ http://skylab2000.com
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
Hi folks,
There hasn't been any action on this group for months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of
floppy disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be
used anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work
with Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this
is is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become
sick and says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But
that's another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/ sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information. 
5 May
5 May
11:01 a.m.
hi everyone
well, looks like the old gang is still reading the list, even if most
of us haven't fired up our samplers in a while. yet i can't bring
myself to get rid of it. i did a live show a couple of weeks ago and
one of the performers did an amazing solo set with an old akai
sampler (i think an s1000) which just showed me that it's how you use
it that counts. same thing with my old oberheim matrix 6R - i know as
soon as i sell it i'll have an idea that calls for some meaty analog.
back on the s550 front, i too have a ton of old disks and would be
willing to participate in a collective archive if there is interest.
one thing i wonder is if there is any lingering legal issues we
should consider. i have a couple of commercial cdrs of samples from
companies long gone - are we safe in including these? what about
roland samples?
cheers
bruce
On May 4, 2008, at 11:10 PM, Jesse Segovia wrote:
Hello, everybody! Great to see some traffic on this
excellent list,
dedicated to a great (if somewhat dated) technology.
I've backed up lots of my s-disk images which I'll gladly make
available to
anyone who's interested. As a matter of fact, one very kind list
member
sent me a CD of some of his backups in exchange for my backups, but
I never
finished my own backups and I've since forgot who sent me the
disk! :(
Very big apologies to whomever it was - please let me know and I'll
correct
the situation immediately.
If anyone is interested this would make a good excuse for me to
start again
to complete backing up my disks to sdisk images and put those on a CD.
Oh, and I also have a very large collection of blank 720KB floppy
disks for
sale, if anyone is interested. They are very good quality - they
came from
the software company where I used to work, and in all the years
I've worked
with them (since the late '80s) I think I've only had one or two
fail on me.
Let me know if anyone is interested in that.
Jesse
-----Original Message-----
From: sgroup-bounces+jsegovia=mindspring.com(a)sgroup.ca
[mailto:sgroup-bounces+jsegovia=mindspring.com@sgroup.ca] On Behalf Of
dennis barton
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2008 6:24 PM
To: David A. Roth; sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
Subject: Re: [sgroup] Any S-news out there?
I also have the Roland fioppies. If we are planning to archive these,
shouldn't we all work together to not duplicate work.
Or has this been done already for the Roland floppies?
I've found many of my old disks are now unreadable....
At 5/4/2008 01:13 PM, David A. Roth wrote:
bruce tovsky
www.skeletonhome.com
"Reality is whatever refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.."
Philip K. Dick
Hi Colin and everyone!
Nice to see some activity on this list too.
I have many disks for my S330 and have given thought to archive them.
I was either going to use the S-Mac and/or 'dd' command on Linux to
create an image of each floppy as a directory, and then burn the
whole thing to CD-ROM. Of course, I would want to have the samples
exacted too since there is no telling if any sort of format from the
Roland sampler library would be supported. It seems a shame to have
to lose the set-ups for the samples and patches themselves by going
to another format whatever that might be. But at the very least,
preserving the raw samples is possible.
Yes, there might be better samples available now for certain things,
but those you created yourself or edited it would be good to keep
them. Hard to believe that hundreds of those floppy disks could be
stored on a single CD-ROM now for less than the price of what I paid
for a single 3.5 floppy disk. :-)
Loading them into Mach 5 would also be a good idea as well!
David A. Roth
david(a)roth-music.com
On May 4, 2008, at 6:39 AM, Colin Shapiro wrote:
|_e_/ Dennis Barton <db(a)skylab2000.com>
) skylab2000
~\/\ Brainforest Productions, Los Angeles
/ http://skylab2000.com
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/
sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/
sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information. Hi folks,
There hasn't been any action on this group for months so I thought
I'd get something going....
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally hundreds of
floppy disks of sounds. It seems a shame for all of these to not be
used anymore. This is really just laziness and ease of use - I work
with Logic Pro 8 and tend to use their EXS24 sampler exclusively.
I have the old S-Mac set of utilities for reading and writing S550
disks and sometimes use them to just lift sounds off the floppies,
for import into EXS24. This works okay for very simple things like
drum samples and hits.
I also use CDXtract and sometimes Translator to convert S760 disks
and these work well. I know it's possible to do a convert load of
S550 disks into S760, then convert via CDXtract to EXS24, but this
is is long process. To add to this, my S760 has suddenly become
sick and says I only have 1.2 MB RAM - I actually have 32MB. (But
that's another problem....)
Has anyone come across new (or old) utilities for bringing S550
sample disks into the 21st century? Something to read and convert
these precious old treasures.....
Regards - Colin
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/
sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information.
_______________________________________________
Sent by the sgroup mailing list
sgroup(a)sgroup.ca
For subscribe/unsubscribe: http://www.sgroup.ca/mailman/listinfo/
sgroup
See http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/ for more information. 
3:10 p.m.
Hi,
I actually still use my S550 for one simple thing:
Mellotron samples!
Some Mellotron was once sampled into the EMU "vintage keys" (or
something similar), and a friend of mine in Sweden sampled the EMU into
his S-50 (the keyboard version), and much later I got the disks from
him. Converted them into S550 format, and presto; A rackmount
Mellotron!
I use the flute, strings and choir voices.
Use them on every recording and every concert with WintherStormer.
Lots of fun!
I hardly use my S550 anymore but I have literally
hundreds of floppy
disks of sounds.
Terje Winther
WintherStormer
email: terje.winther(a)wintherstormer.no
URL: http://www.wintherstormer.no/
3:12 p.m.
At 5/4/2008 03:24 PM, dennis barton wrote:
I also have the Roland fioppies. If we are planning to
archive
these, shouldn't we all work together to not duplicate work.
Or has this been done already for the Roland floppies?
I've found many of my old disks are now unreadable....
I see that the sgroup archive on general concepts still has tons of
the Roland disks archived. I think they are .out files, which I think
are sdisk archives.
Maybe we should collectively convert these to AKAI, or WAV or Battery
or kontact something that most modern soft samplers can read?
Anyone know what Windows program is best for this?
|_e_/ Dennis Barton <db(a)skylab2000.com>
) skylab2000
~\/\ Brainforest Productions, Los Angeles
/ http://skylab2000.com
3:51 p.m.
Garth wrote:
The best thing to do is to make images, because 1)
it's good to have
backups anyway and 2) it avoids any issues of Translator seeing the
disk. Best to just get the information off the disk. Disk Utility is
a good program for this. However, the ability for it to read
proprietary floppies is suspect.
Personally, I would always use a PC with a floppy controller (not
USB) to read proprietary disks. That always works; other ways are
suspect.
Thanks Garth.
I had an OS9 extension which allowed the reading of Roland floppies -
still works on my old laptop. Don't know if it works in Classic....
4:06 p.m.
I also have the Roland fioppies. If we are planning to
archive
these, shouldn't we all work together to not duplicate work.
Or has this been done already for the Roland floppies?
I've found many of my old disks are now unreadable....
Whew!!! I really started some action on this group. :-)
I think most of the disks I have come from old web collections that I
downloaded as disk images.
I just had a quick look and it seems I actually have lots of original
files in this format:
5505_1.OUT
I also have them de-archived as SAM_2 type files (i think these are
the disk images that Garth mentioned, so most of my work appears to
be done.
I'm happy to share all of these if we are going to update or
re-create an archive of S550/S330/S50 disks.
Regards - Colin
17 May
17 May
4:25 a.m.
Hi!
I think most of the disks I have come from old web
collections that I
downloaded as disk images.
I just had a quick look and it seems I actually have lots of original
files in this format:
5505_1.OUT
I also have them de-archived as SAM_2 type files (i think these are
the disk images that Garth mentioned, so most of my work appears to
be done.
I'm happy to share all of these if we are going to update or
re-create an archive of S550/S330/S50 disks.
Maybe I miised something (didn't read the whole thread) but The whole Roland
collection ist still online at
http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/archive/samples/Roland/
and then select the sampler you have...
The CD Jesse talked about could have been mine. I made a Roland Sampler
Collection CDROM years ago and sent it to some users...
If the Cover Graphics has a knitted paper background it is my CDROM.
But as I don't know about all sampledisk imagaes if they are legal I can't put
it online...
The whole Roland Library is on the CDROM too.
Attention: Remember that there are about 3 Roland disk images in the Archive
that are not 100% OK!
Ciao
Peter
\|/
(o o)
--oOOO--(_)--OOOo------------------------------------------------------
Ing. Peter Ullrich
Hardware & Software Developer / Electronic Musician
Private Homepage: http://www.ullrich.at.tt
.oooO
( ) Oooo.
\ ( ( )
-----\_)----) /--------------------------------------------------------
(_/
--------------------------------------
Ein Service von http://www.networld.at
5845
days inactive
5858
days old
14 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
Bruce Tovsky -
Colin Shapiro -
David A. Roth -
dennis barton -
Garth Hjelte -
Jesse Segovia -
Peter Ullrich -
Peter V -
Terje Winther