Using the P-100 with a MIDI data recorder
If you perform on stage and want to make the most of the P-100’s versatility, you will probably find a device with
MIDI data recorder (MDR) capability to be a necessity. Such a device will let you store your P-100 setups
— including voice selections, DSP effect and MIDI settings, controller assignments, and transmit and receive tables —
for fast and easy recall, thus saving you the trouble of changing a host of settings between every song.
There are many devices, including sequencers, synthesizers such as Yamaha’s SY99, and peripheral devices such as
the MDF2 MIDI Data Filer, which possess MDR capability. The illustration above shows how you would connect the
P-100 to Yamaha’s MDF2, a compact, portable data filer suitable for use with the P-100.
With this arrangement, you would use the P-100’s bulk dump procedure to send its settings to the MDF2, which would
record this data in MDR mode. You could then transmit the data back to the P-100 at any time, as long as the bulk
protect function is turned off. Since the MDF2 can store up to 99 different MDR files on a single 3.5” floppy disk, one
disk would probably be enough to store your song setups for an entire show.
The MDF2 also has an easy-to-use sequencer function that you could use to record songs you play on the P-100. When
playing back songs recorded with this function, you would want to be sure to turn off the P-100’s MIDI merge
function, to prevent received sequence data from echoing back to the MDF2.
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