A5000 Explore v1.0
(c) 2009 Padre P.C. / Atrabilis Sunrise / P.C.M.
This is an index of the HTML documentation.
A5000 Explore is a Windows program to explore Yamaha A3000/A4000/A5000 drives.
The A-series samplers use Yamaha's own proprietary file system called Sampler Disk Format (SFS) which is incompatible with the usual FAT32 or NTFS filesystems. As a result, an Ax000-formated drive connected to your computer won't show up as a readable device. So far the only way to deal with SFS drives was to use Jay Vaughan's A3kDisky program, but it only works through SCSI. I started asking Yamaha for documentation back in 2008 but never got a reply from them. Jay was nice enough to answer my emails but he's linked to Yamaha through an NDA and therefore couldn't help much. I totally understand and respect that. As a result, I had to reverse-engineer my own A5000 drives to figure out how SFS works!
A5000 Explore is currently working in read-only mode. I've started working on write features but won't made those publicly available until I can verify what I'm doing and make sure everything is safe with actual documentation coming from Yamaha (so if you like this program, now you know what to do!). An alternative is to generate .a3k files, which are easier to figure out, and transfer those with A3kDisky. Another one is to generate ISO-9660 CD images, which is the format used by the Sample-CDs that came with the A4000/A5000s. I'm working on that.
A5000 Explore is fully A-series compatible (despite the name!).
What you can do with A5000 Explore: read Ax000-formated drives (partitions, volumes, programs, samplebanks, samples, sequences), take a look at several file parameters, listen to samples or export those as .wav files, export binary images of your drives (HD, ZIP, CF card, etc.), read the above images or other ones coming from programs such as Disk2File, read A3kDisky volume archives (.a3k files). Floppy disks and ISO Sample-CDs (the one that came with your Ax000) are NOT supported yet.
What I'm working on: export programs/samplebanks to .sf2 files, export sequences to .mid files, export volumes as A3kDisky .a3k files, read/write Ax000 floppies (another filesystem), read the Sample-CDs that came with the A4000/A5000s (another filesystem again!)
What I could do with support from Yamaha: copy/paste data from drive to drive, backup/restore full disks, volumes, or individual programs/samplebanks/samples/sequences, convert .wav/.sf2/.mid files and import them directly to Yammy drives.
Technical note: the application was coded in C++ using wxWidgets, which is a cross-platform GUI library, and RtAudio, a set of C++ classes that provides a common API for realtime Audio input/output across Linux, Macintosh OS X, and Windows operating systems. The idea behind this is to keep an open door for Linux/Mac versions. I still have to clean up source code and make it OpenSource (same deal with my other program A5000 Remote).
This program is freeware. You may copy, distribute and rant about it freely as long as you always include this file in distributions.
Since it is free, I take absolutely no responsibility for ANY damage WHATSOEVER, direct, indirect, physical, mental, financial, social, etc. as a result of using this software.
- IBM PC running Windows 2000 or XP with admin rights (you need those for low-level drive access).
Launch A5kExploreSetup, install to a convenient location and run the application.
A dialog should appear. If it doesn't, drop me an email!
Open Disk Image: open a drive image file. If your file contains valid data, it will show up in the explorer within the 'Disk Images' folder.
Open A3kDisky File: open an A3kDisky .a3k volume archive. If your file contains valid data, it will show up in the explorer within the 'A3kDisky files' folder.
Save Disk Image: save a drive image file. Make sure a disk is selected otherwise this menu won't be accessible (greyed out).
Exit: have a guess!
Sample model: this option let you decide how file paramaters will show up depending on the selected device (mostly useful for Program Effects parameters)
Refresh: refresh the 'My Computer' folder.
The usual 'about' dialog nobody cares about + this documentation!
1.0 (2009/07/21) - Bug fix regarding 64-bit data (4Gb+ drives)
1.0 (2009/04/20) - First public release
Windows: Available, tested successfully with XP (admin rights required!)
Linux: Planned
Macintosh OS X: Planned
TODO: lots of new features, Mac/Linux versions
NEEDED: Yamaha documentation on SFS format, Macintosh computer, Yamaha A3000 Sampler, time, beta-testers
Comments, bug reports, ideas and large sums of cash are always welcome (penis enlargement proposals are NOT!).
Email me directly at: a5k_remote@p-c-m.org (with 'A5000 Explore' somewhere in the title)
Note: if this mailbox happens to receive too much spam because of bots I may have to shut it down, in this case try to find a contact anywhere at http://www.p-c-m.org/, or look for a project called 'Atrabilis Sunrise' in Google.
Thanks to Jay Vaughan for A3kDisky and for his limited yet appreciated support.
Also thanks to Peter for bZone, Richard for A3000Rmt, the late A3K-list, the (late?) a-list@ampfea.org, the YamahaA5000 Yahoogroup, and anyone who helped.
Padre P.C.
April 20th, 2009