Section 2 — System•MIDI
ASR-10 Musician’s Manual
10
System•MIDI Commands
Command/System•MIDI Page
Due to the large number of commands on this page, not all commands have a direct dial number.
Those that do will have that number listed in its command illustration. Commands without
direct dial numbers can be accessed with the Left/Right Arrow buttons.
CMD
FORMAT FLOPPY DISK
SYSTEM•MIDI
Press Command / System•MIDI / 0
Before you can save ASR-10 instruments, banks, or sequences to a disk it must be formatted. You
can use a blank disk or one that was previously formatted by a different device, such as a
computer. Note that formatting will completely erase anything on the disk.
• Insert the disk to be formatted into the drive.
• Press Command, then System and scroll to FORMAT FLOPPY DISK.
• Press Enter•Yes. The display will read DISK LABEL=
D
ISK000
Use the Data Entry Slider and the Arrow buttons to give the disk a unique name by which
you can identify that disk. This is very important, as the ASR-10 will ask you for this disk by
name if an instrument or song on the disk is used in a bank. Also, make sure you write the
Disk Label name on the outside of each disk after you are done formatting it. After assigning
a Disk Label, you can change the default prompt from DISK000 to the last label you assigned
by using the “SAVE GLOBAL PARAMETERS” command (discussed later in this section). In
doing this, you can ensure that all of your personal disks will have the same first four
characters.
• Press Enter•Yes.
The display will read FORMAT TYPE. Here you select which type of formatting you would
like to use to format your floppy disk:
ENSONIQ — this standard format allows the ASR-10 to read the disk, and offers the largest
amount of free blocks (DSDD disks format to 800k and DSHD disks format to 1600k).
COMPUTER — this unique format provides a lower disk capacity, but by having the first sector
labelled sector 1, allows MAC and IBM computers that are running the appropriate translation
software to read the disks.
• After choosing a format type, press Enter•Yes.
The display will read ERASE AND FORMAT DISK?
• Press Enter•Yes.
While the disk is being formatted, the display reads FORMATTING… When it’s done the
display says FORMAT COMPLETE. If the format fails, the display will read FORMAT FAILED.
Try again with a different disk.
Note:
After formatting a disk you can, if you want, copy the ASR-10 Operating System (O.S.) onto that
disk (see below). Having the O.S. on your sound disks can be convenient. However, putting the
O.S. on a disk leaves a little less space for saving instruments and sequences.
