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Viewing 1 to (7 Total) GA3 about 20 years old - need advice |
United States
Total Posts: 3
Joined: March 11, 2016
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Our church (Louisiana, USA) purchased a GA3 organ about 20 years ago. It has performed beautifully for all these years. In the earlier years I played on the instrument about 6 hours/week. I have played and saved hundreds of hymns and songs creating a vast library for myself. Since I am the organist, cantor/soloist it is vital for me to have these pieces saved so that I do not have to play AND sing at the same time (20 years - eyes are not what they use to be,
So, here is the problem I face. When loading the disks I often get an error messages. Error 00 or Error 02 (either no disk in the drive or disk is not readable). I simply pop the disk out and push it back in. Sometimes I may have to do this several times before the disk can be loaded.
Is there a way to repair the problem or do I need to replace the disk drive? If a new disk drive is necessary is it as easy as switching the old one for the new, unplug old drive and plug in new drive? Are parts sold in the US?
Tags:
disk drive
Posted on June 21, 2016 at 7:02 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 360
Joined: June 8, 2014
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Hi, thank you for your enquiry, lets take your problem one step at a time
1) your drive is as you say is about 20 years old your drive may well have had little or no maintenance, most people unfortunately do not service such items (don't feel too bad as most of us have fallen into this trap ) like most tape machines the heads on a disc drive collect dirt and a build up of deposits on their faces. To help with this like you VCR or Tape recorder you normally use head cleaning kits . For disc drives you can obtain a disc cleaning kit from any good electrical retailer in the old day I would have advised "Radio Shack" but there are many suppliers on the web. The best type are the ones that use a cleaning fluid , use the cleaning disc as per the instructions on the pack. This is no ten second fix but should improve your situation.
2) Right now lets look at your collection of discs, these like all things they tend to deteriorate over time, so it is good practice to have a set of back-ups. The disc drive fitted to the GA is suitable to use HD type discs ,when the drive heads have had a good clean, I suggest you make a back-up set of discs using the new discs.
hope this is of use to you , if you have any further questions feel free to post again, if you drive is beyond cleaning I will look at your best alternate options
Yours John Dawson
Posted on June 21, 2016 at 11:50 PM
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United States
Total Posts: 3
Joined: March 11, 2016
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Thanks for the quick reply!
1) I have a cleaner as you suggested. I have used it. Should I run this more often? How does it run exactly since this drive will only accept a limited number of file types. If I remember from the last time a used it I couldn't get it to work. I will try again this week.
2) Not only do I have them backed up I have copies of all files generated burned to CDs. I think I even placed copies in my fire safe (I really do not have the time to redo them; each hymn song took me about 4 hours to create with the many channels). Sometimes I simply transfer the files I need from computer to floppy before I go to church.
I have many many other questions. I have felt isolated for 20 years as the company that sold us the organ did not have adequate user support, Also, the salesman/musician and company owners parted ways. The salesman/musician played around on it for a month to figure out how it worked. That is the extent of my training on the instrument; I have learned everything else on my own.
So, can I pick your brain?
Posted on June 22, 2016 at 2:07 AM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 360
Joined: June 8, 2014
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Hi, It's that mad Englishman again, To get the cleaning floppy to work I suggest you inst the disc and ask the drive to format it, This will spin up the disc as it tries to find magnetic material to format, you will get an error but at least the disc will have run enough to start to clean the heads. I had this problem when I tried to clean the heads on my KN7000, as the disk does not spin up for long enough when just inserted .
The problem with the Disc Drives in the organ range is there were a number of upgrades made during the time the instruments were on sale. I would assume the upgrade/modification kits are now long gone from production at Technics. One other thing which I have found is as Panasonic listed a range of their own Drives, it was very common for them to fit units from other makes ie:- Alps, Matsui, etc. often what was the best buy in the marketplace at the time !!.
If the drive does not respond to a good cleaning, one of the other options is to replace it with an Emulator that takes a USB stick Some people have done this already as you remove the reliance on a unit with moving parts and exchange this with solid state electronics. It would mean a little work to transfer you music over to the USB stick but would speed up loading,and also mean you could store around 99 discs worth on ONE stick.
Please let us know how you get on
Best regards John.
Posted on June 22, 2016 at 1:18 PM
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United States
Total Posts: 3
Joined: March 11, 2016
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Great tip about using the format command. I am going to try that sometime this week.
I have been asked about switching it over to a USB drive. That would be fine; however, my question then is this: Unless I have been told incorrectly the GA3 allows only 20 compositions on the floppy disk. It cannot read more than 20. Is this correct or incorrect? If it can read more than 20 how do I get the others visible on screen?
Another question: Is there computer software that allows editing of the digital files created by the GA3? Not talking about MIDI software; I have already that. MIDIs do not sound as professional on this organ.
Pam Martin
Posted on June 22, 2016 at 1:36 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 360
Joined: June 8, 2014
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Hi Pam, the emulator stores the files in sets of 20 not unlike the SD card used in the KN7000 keyboard, thus giving you the equivalent of 99 discs that means 1980 file sets. on one USB stick/drive. you will need some software to transfer your Discs to USB but I believe the drive suppliers provide it. As I have not personally fitted an Emulator to an organ yet I can cannot comment further,other than to say you may find one of our members who has experience of this procedure. I will check with Dave Tutt our Engineer to see if he has any advice you.
Regards John.
Posted on June 22, 2016 at 7:18 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 166
Joined: January 12, 2015
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Re: GA3 about 20 years old - need advice
Hi there
The USB and memory stick solution can be rather troublesome. Having tried it on a number of machines it was more trouble than it is worth. The USB hardware usually imposes a formatting regime on the memory stick which can result in it being unreadable on a PC which is less than helpful. Also the average small memory stick will be around 1GB and it is rare to find them smaller now. This is the equivalent of hundreds of floppy drives which makes managing your files just about the most horrible exercise ever! I have installed them in Yamaha and other organs and found that the user was not prepared to spend the time trying to find the right files! Of course you can't do the transfers on the organ as you cannot generally install both at the same time as the firmware in the organ isn't capable of doing this.
My suggestion would be to find an engineer to swap out the drive for you. It is only a matter of a few screws under the keyboards to lift the entire front panel including the floppy drive and the printed circuit board that sits over it (when you have the organ open) and it is not too difficult to swap it out.
I'm almost certain the GA3 uses high density floppy drives so a standard 1.44 3.5inch floppy will work. These are still relatively cheap at around $12 brand new so its not an expensive experiment. I think the ones that fit are actually made by ALP's although as I say if you can find a local computer supplier who has a stock of different makes it might be a good idea to buy a Sony and a NEC makes too as being across the pond what is fitted in your GA3 might be different from what we have over here.
I will have a look at editing software. It isn't all that useful if it doesn't understand the keyboard its intended for. Unfortunately when things get old they get left behind! I know i'm feeling it myself! LOL
Hope this helps
Regards
Dave Tutt
Posted on June 27, 2016 at 11:45 PM
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