USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Forum for JD, JV, XP and XV synthesizers from 1990's
FJSeraf
Posts: 4
Joined: 12:19, 10 December 2014

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by FJSeraf »

kvnz wrote:HI all! i have Roland xp-50... So i can buy any usb floppy emulation and it will work?
I have read somewhere that the xp-50 uses a different floppy drive than the 60s and 80s which has caused incompatibility problems with the very popular Gotek emulator serial# SFR1M44-U100K, However, it is possible that with the 2014 Gotek update that problem may have been addressed, but I'm really not sure. You could write to Gotek at www.gotek.in and ask them. They have a contact section on their website and seem quite approachable.
I have seen a Flexdrive emulator advertised as being compatible with the XP-50 but I'm not familiar with it in a first hand way.
FJSeraf
Posts: 4
Joined: 12:19, 10 December 2014

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by FJSeraf »

I have now got around to using the optional software for the Gotek model SFR1M44-U100K. It would not work on my windows 8.1 laptop but it did work on my old windows XP computer. I had to download a program off the net to open the .rar file and my first attempt to do so was blocked by my anti-virus software. Then I downloaded a free 30 day trial offer of Winrar and it worked fine. I was able to plug my formatted USB sticks into the computer and access all of the partitions on the stick, rather than just the 1st partition which is all you can otherwise access. Though the software isn't absolutely necessary it was very convenient to be able to easily load all of my old svq files from my computer onto subsequent partitions of any one usb stick rather than having to load the files onto the first partition of many usb sticks. Also, the 2014 Gotek SFR1M44-U100K does work with modern fat 32 usb sticks as well as the old 1 or 2 gb usb sticks. I had a bunch of old fat 16 1 and 2 gb sticks lying around and so they came in handy again because I didn't really need to use my newer fat 32 16gb sticks and it would have been a waste of capacity. However it is nice that you can use the newer fat 32 sticks being that you really can't buy the old ones anymore.
floppyemulator
Posts: 1
Joined: 19:15, 22 December 2014

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by floppyemulator »

Hello everybody.

You can use Floppy emulators on your Roland Keyboard besides old series like E86, E96, G600 and G800.

You can watch on youtube and buy from Ebay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_NjUlmV3n4
nax
Posts: 4
Joined: 18:36, 30 November 2014

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by nax »

FJSeraf wrote:
kvnz wrote:HI all! i have Roland xp-50... So i can buy any usb floppy emulation and it will work?
I have read somewhere that the xp-50 uses a different floppy drive than the 60s and 80s which has caused incompatibility problems with the very popular Gotek emulator serial# SFR1M44-U100K, However, it is possible that with the 2014 Gotek update that problem may have been addressed, but I'm really not sure. You could write to Gotek at http://www.gotek.in and ask them. They have a contact section on their website and seem quite approachable.
I have seen a Flexdrive emulator advertised as being compatible with the XP-50 but I'm not familiar with it in a first hand way.
Yes, I can confirm XP50 use different floppy drive than XP60, XP80
I get my emulator form EU seller-http://www.floppydrive.eu (the price for me was 60€) and my XP50 have now second life
:):)
kvnz
Posts: 4
Joined: 16:13, 23 November 2014

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by kvnz »

Cool!
nes
Posts: 1
Joined: 06:41, 13 February 2017

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP 50 Series

Post by nes »

I have try to installed in roland xp 50 but there is not show pen drive iif I try so I think there is problem to install proper I don't know what humber I set any one please help me to jumper setting for xp 50 what I have try pendrive that's work in xp 60 and that emulator also work with xp 60
User avatar
BNordlund
Posts: 1
Joined: 16:16, 27 May 2017

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by BNordlund »

I know this is an old thread, since I have been in search of a gotek-cost floppy emulator for my XP-50 and I am here to report that I have found a version that worked perfectly without any messing around. As others have noted, the XP-50 uses a drive with a Shugart interface, meaning it does not work with a standard PC HD drive. Therefore most of the commonly-available floppy emulators won't work, at least without hardware and/or firmware modifications.

So, after many google searches and finding mostly dead-ends, I found a listing on a Chinese site that seems to be doing a pretty good job of catering to customers who might otherwise be concerned about the foreign transaction or the shipping costs. The site is AliExpress, which operates on behalf of many independent vendors, much like Amazon or eBay. The shipping is very inexpensive, using what is called 'Epacket'. The items seem to be held for a few days to be combined into a bulk shipment to Los Angeles, and there the items are handed off to the US Postal service for delivery. Items seem to take 3-4 weeks for delivery, but many items have free or at least very cheap shipping. They also claim to hold the funds from the vendor until you verify that the item has been received.

So now for the drive: There is a seller called 'BT computer digital accessories store'. They have a listing for a gotek model SFR1M44-U100K-R. The 'K-R' is the unique thing to look for. I paid $27.40 with free shipping. They say that it is a 'new version', and they specifically list the XP-50, as well as the G800 and a few other models that seem to have unique drives (according to the boards).

This drive is clearly different than another gotek I recently installed into an old MC-300 sequencer. First the K-R model is only a two-digit model, apparently 'only' supporting 100 floppy images per thumb drive (not a concern for me). My other gotek requires that the thumb drive be removed and reinserted in order to switch from one image to another. My understanding is that is how most of the goteks work. This new one allows me to keep the thumb drive inserted and I can switch from one image to another as long as the drive is not being accessed at the time. The K-R model also does not require you to use the buttons to read and write to the thumb drive (it just seems to do it automatically, as needed).

While most of the gotek models have a mode where the drive will format the thumb drive for you, this model does not seem to do that. However it does not seem to be necessary. I was able to insert a new 8gig thumb drive, formatted as one FAT partition and it worked without having to use the old time Windows software that nobody can get to run on recent versions of Windows.

So here's a brief rundown of the (few) steps I followed. The drive came with three jumpers installed, and I simply left those untouched. My new thumb drive came with some software installed on it, so I deleted everything on it and left it formatted as one FAT32 partition.

Once the drive was installed, I followed the normal gotek self-format procedure of holding both buttons down while powering it up (with the thumb drive inserted, of course). However this model did not display the firmware version, nor did it count up through the image numbers. I went ahead and left it alone for a few minutes just in case it was actually doing something to prep the drive, but I suspect it does not do anything to the thumb drive at that stage.

This model allows you to step through the disk numbers (00 through 99) while the thumb drive is inserted. I started by selecting '00' then using the XP-50 disk utility mode to format the 'floppy'. While I was at it, I stepped through from 00 to 20, formatting all 21. The XP-50 sees a valid disk for all 21 selections and I was able to save a small sequence file to several of them as a quick test (saving to disk, deleting the sequence from in the sequencer, then loading it to verify it came back intact). I also powered the system off and all the files were still intact on the drive when powered back on.

As long as the XP-50 has stopped writing to the drive, it seems safe to remove the thumb drive if necessary. However, since this model does not require removal of the thumb drive to change disk selection, it doesn't seem like it would need to be removed very often. Once I had written a few small sequence files to various drive numbers, I put the thumb drive into my laptop to see how it was organized. Windows 10 shows it as one 8-gig partition, but can only see the files that had been saved to drive #00. Somehow the other disk images are invisible to Windows.

I only have one HD floppy, with only seven song files that I wanted to keep. Using the normal Windows File Explorer, I simply copied all the files from my floppy to the thumb drive (over-writing the song list file on the USB). When put back into the XP-50 it saw all my files on disk #00. I was able to load one song at a time, then switch and save to a different drive number. Therefore, someone with more than one disk full of songs, should be able to transfer everything onto the thumb drive, one disk at a time, without having to use the weird software that everyone hates.

This vendor on AliExpress shows that they have over a thousand of these in stock, so they must really think there are a lot of us who want them. I was not expecting it to work on my first attempt, so that was a surprise. I do have a couple pictures (including one of the jumpers) in case some one wants to see them for reference.

Thanks for enduring such a long post, but I am so happy to have this working, I just had to share.
Brian
User avatar
Candy
Posts: 274
Joined: 06:30, 15 November 2008

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by Candy »

In the last few days I learned a lot of Floppy Emulators, because I bought an old Roland-Keyboard from the 90ies (JW-50) and tried to implement a Floppy Emulator.
I bought the Gotek SFR1M44-U100K, which I almost have in my XP-80 and tried to bring it to work.
I did 6,7 Million Jumper-Settings, but the JW-50 didn´t work with the Emulator.

A Professional told me, that the JW-50 has a Chinon FZ-354 Floppy inside. This is a Floppy, which works ONLY with DD-Disks (720k). The SFR1M44-U100K emulates 1,4MB-Disks (HD-Disks), Instead of the Chinon FZ-354 you MUST buy a Floppy Emulator, which can emulate 720k-Discs (DD), something like the SRFM72-TU100k!
There are some old Devices, like Roland SD-35, which have the Chinon-Floppy inside.

This information from the Professional was very helpfull for me and I hope, also for you!

Candy
ITC-CrossBow
Posts: 4
Joined: 08:18, 3 March 2018

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by ITC-CrossBow »

I registered just so I could reply back to this thread. I realize this could be considered Necro bumping, but I just successfully installed the above mention Gotek SFR1M44-U100K into two Roland MT-200 sequencer/modules tonight. No reflashing or modification of the Gotek was needed. However due to Windows 10-64bit, it took some doing but I finally found software that can format the USB drive and browse the floppy partitions is creates within Windows 10-64bit just fine. However, the formatted partitions will show up with an "Improper" disk error on the MT-200. So to actually use one of the floppy partitions, you have to format it through the MT-200 itself. Once this is done, the parition will work just fine. I was able to get 999 parts to get created and work, but found stability issues and decided to keep it at 100 for now. I'm using a 32gb Sandisk Ultra drive as the USB btw so as long as the software formats everything at 1.44mb as was stated above, the USB drive works.

Now if I format the drive through the software or through the Gotek itself, and then copy over some standard .mid files to those parts, then the MT-200 can read them just fine without having to format them through the MT-200.

Anyway, I've got some another drive on order and if I can make that work..that would be three for three and then I feel I can document it and make a write up for it. I realize the MT-200 is different from other modules and sequencers out there, but my guess is that the MT-120 and most others like the MT-80s, MT-300, MT-90s can use these GoTeks in the same way that I have set up mine.

BTW...the MT-200 uses a Chinon FZ-357 drive...

To get the Gotek working on my MT-200s, I had to put jumpers on MO, SO, JA, and JC. However my Gotek only came with two jumpers so I had to scrounge up some extras off dead hard drives laying around.
lennyhyc
Posts: 1
Joined: 23:31, 9 April 2018

Re: USB Floppy Emulation for Roland XP Series

Post by lennyhyc »

roland g600 can't get gotek usb emulator to work need help
Post Reply