Best USB Floppy Drives for Reading Yamaha Disklavier Floppy Disks

So you’ve decided to back up your Yamaha Disklavier floppy disks. And now you need a floppy disk drive that can read them! So what’s the best USB floppy disk drive for our purpose, and especially for reading those earlier, pesky 720 KB double-density (DD) variants used by early Disklaviers? This article explores various options, including … Read more

How to Use PSX (ESEQ Archive) Files for the Yamaha Disklavier

If you’ve downloaded music for a Disklavier Mark III or older model with a floppy drive, you might have downloaded a PSX file. If you have one of these files, hopefully this article can help you out! What Is a PSX File? For Yamaha MusicSoft, a PSX file is an archive format that contains the … Read more

How to Properly Ship Floppy Disks: Tips & Guidance

Are you shipping floppy disks to me so that I can transfer them to modern media? Or perhaps you’re just shipping some floppy disks, and arrived at this article? In either case, I can provide some guidance! When shipping floppy disks, the most important objective is to package them securely to prevent damage during transit. … Read more

Yamaha Disklavier, MIDI, ESEQ, and Floppy Disk Tools

I use a wide variety of software tools when reading floppy disks and preparing ESEQ and MIDI for the Yamaha Disklavier. Below is my attempt to compile the most useful tools I use on a daily basis. If you have any input or want any further information, please don’t hesitate to contact me. WinImage A … Read more

Convert Smart PianoSoft Disks for E3 and ENSPIRE

Yamaha sold Smart PianoSoft floppy disks for Yamaha Marks III and IV. This was a revolutionary technology: You could insert a floppy disk designed to play the actual acoustic piano alongside an audio CD. In other words, the piano would accompany your CD! Yamaha released many such albums, and because the piano is accompanying the … Read more

Conveniently Rename all ESEQ Files for use with EEXPLORE

This Python program will recursively rename all ESEQ (.FIL) files in the specified directory, ensuring they follow the naming convention described, and convert all filenames to uppercase. If, for instance, you have twenty albums, direct this program to run in their parent directory, and all the albums in subdirectories will be corrected. I’ve recently put … Read more

Nalbantov Floppy Disk Drive Upgrades: Life After Floppy Disks

I recommend customers with worn-out floppy disk drives upgrade them to “Floppy Disk Emulators.” There are a couple of these on the market. However, the easiest to install and use is the Nalbantov USB Floppy Disk Emulator. I install these regularly in Yamaha Disklaviers, but they can also be installed in keyboards. If you order … Read more

Using PPFBU to Back Up Disks: Disklavier Floppy Disks, ESEQ, and MIDI Formats

This post is intended to help you read from, write to, or replace Yamaha Disklavier floppy disks. Some of my customers choose to upgrade their older Disklavier’s floppy drive to a Nalbantov USB drive, and want to know how to copy songs from their old Disklavier floppy disks onto a USB. Some of them just … Read more