In MMDigest 110312, Jim Moore asked how he could go about converting
his PianoDisc floppy diskettes to PianoDisc CDs.

Doing this yourself is currently a bit awkward due to PianoDisc's
proprietary diskette format.  Using a computer equipped with a floppy
drive and running MS-DOS, you must first use the PianoDisc diskette
tools from Giebler.com to extract each song as a MIDI file.

Once you have MIDI files, you must transfer them to a Windows PC,
where you can convert them to PianoDisc CD tracks or MP3 files using
MID2PianoCD, a software utility I wrote that encodes MIDI and ESEQ
files into the formats required by various electronic player piano
systems ( available at http://dp70.dyndns.org/mid2pianocd/ ).

I've been considering adding an "Import from Floppy" button in
MID2PianoCD to combine the floppy file extraction and CD track
generation into one operation.  This would also permit the use of
external USB floppy drives.  I've held off due to the fact that most
commercial music diskettes include a protection scheme that would
need to be bypassed.  I'm still investigating whether I can legally
implement extraction from such diskettes, perhaps by displaying
a warning that the source diskette was protected (as the Giebler
utilities do) or by setting the copyright bit in the encoded results,
when applicable.

Some technical considerations to keep in mind are that PianoDisc's CD
format has a much lower bandwidth than wireline MIDI, and events lack
the time-stamping present in PianoDisc's floppy format.  Consequently,
playback of PianoDisc CD tracks is temporally less accurate than
playing the same material from floppy disk.  The difference may be
noticeable, particularly in "busy" pieces or arrangements with large
chords.  QRS Pianomation and Yamaha Disklavier CD tracks have the same
limitation.

PianoDisc does offer a legacy media exchange program that some readers
may find useful when upgrading from one PianoDisc system to another:

   http://www.pianodisc.com/newsroom/details.aspx?id=92572496 

Mark Fontana