About the Floppies

Maybe a stupid question but I prefer to ask before I place my order on something that could not work...

What about those floppies labeled as "MAC formatted", should work on MPs too? or I just need to buy those formatted for IBM/PCs??

Thanks in advance.

any floppy will work. you can always reformat.

I had a few older mac formatted disks but they were double density ... for the XL the best option is any floppy that is 1.44 megs because you can later reformat them in the mpc... just like nogginj said.

Thanks, just what I thought but it's better to confirm with people who already have experience with this things...

What about brands? I was looking on Ebay and they have known brands like Imation, Maxell, etc but also lots of Office Depot, Staples even those with "no" brand, are those less known brands good floppies or it is better buy the most known brands?

I'm following a couple auctions at this moment and they are really cheap, you can buy a 100 lot for less than $30... but the less known brands are even cheaper...

In another hand I would like to know how do you guys use those floppies? 1 song per floppy? a floppy for drums, other for efx? etc?... I just want to figure out the best way to deal with the space limitation... from my 1K background with HUGE Hard Drive and CF cards, now dealing with space limitations have me asking me this things about how to deal with my samples.

I recently purchased a 2K classic and I'm loving it but I have this little question in my mind.

Personally, I have had nothing but bad luck with no-name, cheap floppies. Samplers are not as sophisticated as computers when it comes to their floppy-handling code and they are less tolerant of problems and bad spots. I have had too many of the no-name floppies come up bad at the worst times. These days I use nothing but Sony HD floppies for my upgrade, os install and boot floppies and it has more than paid for itself in saved time and hassles.

If I were storing my musical creations, I know that I would spend that little extra for the peace of mind. This is just my personal experience and ymmv.

I believe sony stopped manufacturing them 2 years ago so scoop those up while you can. I have had good luck with maxell floppies too.

Thank you very much for your recommendation, I know Sony always have good products, I can assume that Imation/3M are in the same good level as well, it is a little easy to find those on Ebay since are most common, I just found a 100 new floppies brand KAO, I know this brand but IDK if they are 100% trusted, although in box says for government use only... and price is good... did you ever tried this brand?

I have not tried the IDK brand but I agree about Maxell. I use Maxell floppies as an alternative to Sony and have had excellent results.

Look at this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... _600wt_905

It says "for use by government and educational institutions only"

Also found some Maxell and the Imation in good price... but those KAO captured my attention because the "for the government use" sign... lol

Never heard of thet brank KAO but if they are made for the government they should be good enough for you
I bought two 100 boxes of EMTEC (formaly known as BASF) although BASF doesn't produce them anymore on their own (since its called EMTEC the production is made by a korean company) the quality is ok and I had no problems with them.
I bought some packs of the floppies from staples doesn't have problems with them (just the black disks, cause I bought some colored and they gave me read errors)

peace

Thanks peter, I was thinking the same about the government thing, also price is really good to buy at least one of those 100 lots... What about the saving? do you save a beat per floppy? or how do you use them?
Thanks to everybody for the answers!

I have a few KAO disks that work, and I have never experienced any issues with them... keep them clean though just in case.


as for maxell disks, I've had some that were missing the sliding guard at the bottom and still worked for a long time hahaha... that was for the computer though, not an instrument.

shoot me 10 bucks for shipping and i'll mail you a bunch of floppies, alot with programs on them already too. i think i have about 85?????????with a case for them too. can do a flat rate box.

hell I might be interested in that haha