From bruce@ashbysolutions.com Wed Mar 27 05:13:30 2002
Subject:Re: On the road

Mark,

>I'm in a gigging band for which I use my XK-2. I've created loads
>of patches, and dump these regularly to my PC using a fairly bog-
>standard sound card and MIDI cable.
>
>My question concerns what would happen if I got to a gig and found
>that the XK-2 had lost all my patches. I don't know even if this
>is very likely or not, but I hear horror stories of similar things
>happening to other keyboard players with other keyboards etc.

You would have to use drawbars for the gig, and you would lose any customizations (percussion, vibrato, overdrive, etc.) that were saved. This is an extremely unlikely occurrence; at least, until the organ is 5-10 years old. Most electronic keyboards use RAM backed up by a lithium battery, which should go for years. In some of the newer equipment, flash memory is used, which needs no backup power at all.

>I also tour with a Korg N264 and a Roland XP-80. They, of course,
>have a floppy drive, and I take a couple of backup diskettes for that
>with me to every gig so I'm pretty confident that I could restore all
>my patches for these with minimum effort.
>
>My question is: is it possible somehow to dump the MS2000r
>patches "through" the N264 or XP-80 and onto a diskette in their
>floppy drives, and upload them by reversing the process should the
>unthinkable happen? If not, would anyone recommend something like a
>Yamaha MDF-3?

If the N264 or XP-80 can accept general (i.e., non-Korg or non-Roland) SysEx messages into their sequencers, then you should be able to back up the XK-2, MS2000r, or any other MIDI keyboard. The patch storage for an organ is a small SysEx file, maybe 5-20KB in size. I've never used either of your keyboards, so I don't know if they can accept this data. In many cases, acting on someone else's SysEx data is a really bad thing, however, so manufacturers tend to filter this information out. You would probably need to review the manuals, and maybe contact tech support.

The alternative is a dedicated MIDI data storage device, or a laptop computer with MIDI interface.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Ashby Solutions™ http://music.ashbysolutions.com
CloneWheel Support Group moderator
978.386.7389 voice/fax
bruce@ashbysolutions.com