Ensoniq ASR-10 help, for ASRonians.

Thanks Sam. I'll check on that

Going to see of there is an old computer at work I can do it on as money is tight. Will give that a shot but if I end up getting stuck I'll grab one through your site.

MGStudios wrote:Hey Syntaur, question for ya. My ASR 10 DOESN'T have SCSi, but I am wondering how to get drum samples from my computer onto a floppy and into the ASR10. Thanks.

Well, I have to admit I'm a bit out of the loop regarding computer software and that end of things. The ASR won't import a WAV file, so you'll need software that converts the WAV (or AIFF, or whatever file type you have) into an ASR-format file, then you'll have to write that to an ASR-format disk somehow. I'll have to defer to the computer guys for what software to use for that... I think Chicken Systems makes something to do this...?

Sam
Syntaur Productions

Ok well this is unexpected Just jammed the floppy disk internal on my ASR10 somehow so the floppy won't come out. When I press the button in it gets jammed so I have to flick the floppy for the button to eject. What do I do from here?

MGStudios wrote:Ok well this is unexpected Just jammed the floppy disk internal on my ASR10 somehow so the floppy won't come out. When I press the button in it gets jammed so I have to flick the floppy for the button to eject. What do I do from here?

WOW How did you manage to do that?

One rule of thumb to always remember...never jam or force anything. This always seems to be a recipe for disaster.

MGStudios wrote:Ok well this is unexpected Just jammed the floppy disk internal on my ASR10 somehow so the floppy won't come out. When I press the button in it gets jammed so I have to flick the floppy for the button to eject. What do I do from here?

If the metal sleeve of the disk is spread apart some (not laying perfectly flat against the plastic), that will catch on the drive when you try to eject it. That's not uncommon, especially for a well-used (or abused) disk. Is the disk still stuck in there, or is it out now?

If it it out, don't put it back in yet, and I can walk you through how to get your data copied to a new disk.

If it's still stuck, I'll walk you through getting it out. Don't force anything, or you can destroy the drive!

Sam
Syntaur Productions

The floppy is still in the drive, I can't seem to unjam it.

MGStudios wrote:The floppy is still in the drive, I can't seem to unjam it.

Here's a section from my book, "Sample Magic: Mastering the Ensoniq EPS/ASR Samplers", that I think will help. Let me know how this turns out!


Removing a Disk Stuck in the Drive

Sometimes a disk will just refuse to eject from the drive. It will act like it’s starting to exit, but then it stays there in purgatory – not physically poking out, yet not all the way in and seated either. You can usually push it in again and seat it, but you can’t get it out.
Disks get stuck for usually one of two reasons. The first is that the paper disk label is starting to come up, and it’s catching on the inside of the drive – usually right there on the plastic bezel (faceplate). If you make a close inspection, perhaps with a flashlight, you might see the paper label lifted up and catching on the bezel. If you see that this is happening, you can probably slip a thin knife or letter opener in just enough to hold that pesky label down while you slip the disk out. Peel the label off, and use a new one.
The other scenario is when the metal disk cover gets slightly bent, and no longer lays perfectly flat against the disk. It usually catches in the same place – right on the plastic bezel. The difference is that the disk will come out about halfway before it catches. This is dangerous, because it gives you a nice bit of plastic to grab onto, so that you can give an angry, frustrated yank. This will no doubt break the plastic faceplate, and perhaps do more significant damage to the drive mechanism. The fix is the same as above – peer in there, and find where the catch is, and carefully hold it down with a knife or letter opener. You’ll probably need to pull the metal cover off completely, so that you can load your data one last time; then resave it to a new disk, and discard this damaged one.
If you cannot see any trouble, but the disk is no longer seated – in other words, the eject button is pressed in – then grab the disk with some forceps and gently try sliding it out. If it is still not giving in, or if the disk will not unseat, do not force it. If the disk is seated, then the heads are still pressed against the magnetic disc. Removing the floppy disk by force will shear the heads off the drive, and you’ll be hunting for a very hard-to-find replacement. Your only choice may be to remove the entire drive, then pop of its cover to try and remove the disk. You may want to call on a repair shop for this.


More info on the book is available here:

www.syntaur.com/books.html

Sam
Syntaur Productions

Collected my ASR10 last night (£185, mint condition with a flight case thrown in, no SCSI). I don't have the boot disk to test it fully but at least its asking for it when turned on.

I've been browsing through this thread tonight and have a couple of questions. First off, what spec RAM should I be looking for to max it out to 8 meg?

I need to find myself a SCSI board for it still but has anyone here installed an internal compact flash reader and how much work was it? I want to avoid dealing with floppy disks from the get go.

Other than not having another drive to place somewhere carefully, is there any other reason to go for the internal reader over the external or vice versa..? I wouldn't want to use it with any other kit. If I were to get an external compact flash drive can I use it to boot the OS from? I'm presuming yes, but considering I don't have the floppy boot disk, will the ASR10 just boot from the SCSI if there was a compact flash with the OS on it inserted?

samuraibattleagent4 wrote:Collected my ASR10 last night (£185, mint condition with a flight case thrown in, no SCSI). I don't have the boot disk to test it fully but at least its asking for it when turned on.

I've been browsing through this thread tonight and have a couple of questions. First off, what spec RAM should I be looking for to max it out to 8 meg?

I need to find myself a SCSI board for it still but has anyone here installed an internal compact flash reader and how much work was it? I want to avoid dealing with floppy disks from the get go.

Other than not having another drive to place somewhere carefully, is there any other reason to go for the internal reader over the external or vice versa..? I wouldn't want to use it with any other kit. If I were to get an external compact flash drive can I use it to boot the OS from? I'm presuming yes, but considering I don't have the floppy boot disk, will the ASR10 just boot from the SCSI if there was a compact flash with the OS on it inserted?

I advise people against replacing the floppy drive. First, there are just too many sounds available for the ASR-10 that are only on floppy disk - why preclude yourself from being able to use any of those? But perhaps more importantly, the ONLY way to format a SCSI drive (and that includes a CF drive hooked up through SCSI) is to boot up from the OS FLOPPY DISK. The ASR firmware is set up so that if you boot from any other device, the FORMAT SCSI command is diabled.

You can use any of those devices (SCSI drive or CF drive) without replacing the internal floppy drive, so why do away with it if you don't have to?

For the memory, you'll need 30-pin non-parity 4-Meg SIMMs in matched pairs. Syntaur sells them here:

www.syntaur.com/asr-mem.html

Good luck - sounds like you got a great deal on your ASR!

Sam
Syntaur Productions

Thanks. Yup I'm pretty pleased with the deal I got on it! I got the feeling the guy selling was happy enough it was going to a good home.

My reasoning that I was just going to replace the floppy was only so I didn't need to have an external card reader hanging off the ASR and I pretty much sample all my own sounds (and so don't plan on using any pre-made sound libraries). But really, you're right, there's not much point in cutting myself off from the option of using floppy disks and an external cardreader is no real bother.

Ok it has been unjammed Now I want to start using some of my own sounds from my computer and put them on a floppy for the ASR10.

I have an external USB floppy drive for my computer.

Whats next? Do I format a floppy in the ASR10 and then put it in my floppy drive and convert that way? What would be the easiest/most productive way to go about this?

I also need to downlaod chickensys to convert to .efe

MGStudios wrote:Ok it has been unjammed Now I want to start using some of my own sounds from my computer and put them on a floppy for the ASR10.

I have an external USB floppy drive for my computer.

Whats next? Do I format a floppy in the ASR10 and then put it in my floppy drive and convert that way? What would be the easiest/most productive way to go about this?

I also need to downlaod chickensys to convert to .efe

I answered your earlier post about this, but for some reason, it never appeared here...

The ASR and your computer write to floppy disks in different ways (the disk sectoring is different), and as a result, the disk from one won't be recognized in the other. For instance, if you format a floppy in the ASR and then put it in your computer hoping to "drag and drop" WAV files to it, the computer will simply tell you that the disk isn't formatted. And if you format the disk in the computer, and then put it in the ASR, the ASR will say the disk isn't formatted.

So, you will need to convert the WAVs to Giebler format (Gary Giebler wrote the EDE software), then use his software to make an ASR-format disk with those sounds. But this is out of my area - I don't know the translation software that is out there, and so I can't make any recommendations on how to do this.

I do know that to run EDE (or the commercial version, EDM), you will need an old, slow computer, and I'm guessing that if your computer has no floppy drive, it is too new and too fast to run the software. (I think Win 95 was the last version that it would run under, and DOS - with NO windows - is best.) So you've got to jump through a number of hoops to get that taken care of.

But before any of that, you should decide if it's worth all the trouble. If you just want one-shot samples (snare hit, orch hit, etc.), maybe it is worthwhile. But if you're hoping to build a nice piano instrument from a WAV sample you have, you'll be sadly disappointed. An instrument playable over a large note range, with dynamic response, will require numerous samples, all looped, mapped out, set up with key ranges, etc. Getting the WAV sample translated will be a small fraction of the overall work involved!

Hope that helps!

Sam
Syntaur Productions

Yeah I was just hoping for drum samples that is all.

i miss mine sold it years ago and regret it. gonna buy another off ebay

Well I was thinking, since my ASR10 doesn't have SCSI, I am in a bit of a dilemma. But, if I grabbed say an MPC200xl that had SCSI that I could midi up with the ASR, would this work? I'm pretty sure it would, and seeing as how I cuold grab a 2000xl for the same price of just the SCSI kit for the ASR 10 this might be a better option. Can anybody confirm this?