Re: [sgroup] New S-550 user with Mac floppy disk questions - sgroup

29 Sep 2015

At 04:46 PM 9/29/2015, you wrote:

...
 Yes! That's so awesome! Thanks for posting this
Garth. I'll email you directly with more info, but wanted to publicly say that this
rules. 
It's definitely fun to do. I got it done, loaded it in my S550, works perfect.
Unusual because I'm so used to using a XP computer for floppy things. Nice to use a
Mac for once.

...
 On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 1:52 PM, Garth Hjelte
<<mailto:garth@chickensys.com>garth@chickensys.com> wrote:
At 05:30 PM 9/28/2015, you wrote:

I read with interest on this thread, and I got Translator and Translator Free
<http://www.chickensys.com>www.chickensys.com running where you can write S5x floppy
images (usually .OUT files) to DS/DD floppies using a USB floppy drive on a Mac.
Fortunately this works because the Roland is a 9-sector geometric format, just like a
MS-DOS disk. (If it were a 10-sector one like Akai or Ensoniq or Emu, it'd be
different.) But of course it's not a MS-DOS file system so that's where
Translator comes in.

It's not public yet, but it's done, so if the OP is interested, or anyone else,
please email privately and I'll give details and link info.

For a screen shot on what this sort of looks like, see:

<http://www.chickensys.com/_images/s5xfloppy.png>www.chickensys.com/_images/s5xfloppy.png

Also, using the USB floppy of mine, which is nothing special, it works just fine in
Yosemite. OSX formats a DS/DD floppy as well as a DS/HD - just go into Disk Utility and
Erase to MS-DOS (FAT) format. AFAIK these things never need "drivers" or
anything so I'm a little confused what you guys were talking about.

 I used to use CDXtract to convert S550 and S760
sounds to EXS24 format to use in Logic. (I also have many disks for both machines.) If I
ever want to use CDXtract, I still have it available on my old G4 or on an alternative OS
boot drive (10.6). The conversions are very good. There's also Translator for
conversions. 
Just to note, CDx does NOT support S5x, only S7x. (Perhaps you were using the Convert Load
S5x images that you converted into S7x images.) Translator has a very advanced S5x
convertor to other formats, does the job very, very well. It also is a modern program that
runs on Yosemite and even El Capitan, as well as Windows 10 down to XP. (And it runs as
low was Tiger OSX 10.4 and PPC machines.

We are also working on a ->S5x conversion routine, it's not done because - well,
it's an old format, and people aren't threatening us with death on getting it
(as opposed to other more modern needs). If you are all desperate for it, threaten us with
death or torture and maybe we'll hurry it up. =)  

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User