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File Ops on Tyros & PSR-S Models

When you are viewing one of the many file display screens, the bottom two rows of the screen show the various file operations that can be performed. The choices are similar on all the screens, although there are some differences depending on the file type and the storage area. The illustration below shows the options for the five display screens that you access via the MAIN page on the Tyros3. The options will be similar on your keyboard. (The original discussion of file operations on the PSR-2000/2100 is provided below after the Tyros3 discussion.)

All File Options

Note that the first seven file/folder options in the bottom row are all identical. In the illustration above, all the options are active. If an option is not available in any particular screen, then it will be shown darkened out and can not be selected. For example, if you were looking at the styles in the PRESET area, the only option available would be COPY; none of the others can be used on preset files. I'll summarize these options below.

There is no 8th option on the SONG and STYLE display screens, but in the VOICE screens, a DEMO option demonstrates the sound of the selected voice and in the MULTI PAD and REGISTRATION screens an EDIT option allows you to edit the names of the 4 multi pads and the 8 registration buttons.

On the top row, the first few entries are for displaying "pages" of files. The last two options provide access to an alternative VIEW of the files and the ability to move UP to the parent folder. We'll discuss the alternative View and some of the other unique options in this row in the Viewing Files lesson.

Standard File Operations

Naming Files and Folders

NAME IconThe NAME option opens the NAME Input box and allows you to provide an alternative name. When you select this option, you are then asked to select the file or folder that you wish to rename. You make the selection and the NAME input box opens with that file or folder name inserted in the Name box. You can then alter the name or delete all the characters and enter a different name. For example, in creating a new folder, the default name will be "NewFolder". Usually, you want to provide a more descriptive title for your folder and so you rename it to something more appropriate. Similarly, if you are copying a preset file to the USER area or your USB drive, you may want to alter the name to indicate that this is a copy of the original file.

The icon shown with a file name is included as part of the file name. You would choose this NAME option to change the icon associated with any particular file. The next lesson on Naming Files focuses on how to use the Name Input box to rename your files and to select alternative icons.

Cutting Out A File or Folder

CUT IconThe next three options, CUT, COPY, and PASTE are used to move or copy a file, a group of files, or a folder to a different storage location. The CUT option removes the file from it's current location and places it on a "clipboard" where it is held until you "paste" it in some other location. When you do, you have effectively moved the file from one location to another, for example, moving a file from the USB drive to the hard drive or from the USER area to the USB. You might also want to move a file from one subfolder to a different subfolder on the same storage area.

When you choose the CUT (or COPY) option, you are asked to select the files or folders that you want to cut (or copy). You can select a single file and then press OK, or you can select several files and then press OK. If you want to select all the files, there is an ALL option that you can select so you don't have to actually select and highlight every file on the screen. Since none of the internal preset files can be deleted, the CUT option is not available when you are looking at files under the PRESET tab.

Copying A File or Folder

COPY iconThe COPY option, like the CUT option, places a copy of the selected file or folder on the "clipboard" so that it can be pasted in a different location. However, the original file(s) or folder(s) are not impacted; they remain in place. If you are a very careful person, you might opt to copy a file to a new location and then, only when you see that the copy is in place, go back and delete the original file. This entails an additional step, but you are also unlikely to lose a file by making a mistake somewhere along the line. As mentioned in the CUT option above, you are asked to select "files and/or folders" to be copied so you can copy several (or all) files at once.

COPY Input

Pasting A File or Folder

PASTE IconPASTE puts a copy of the file currently on the clipboard in the location you select. For example, if you COPY a preset style to the clipboard and then [TAB] over to the USER area and select PASTE, a copy of the file is placed in the USER area. This does not remove it from the clipboard. You could then [TAB] over to your USB drive and PASTE the file there as well.

You can only store one selection on the clipboard at a time. If you select another item to copy, it will replace what was previously on the clipboard. Note that "one selection" does not mean "one file". You could select a folder to copy and, when you paste that folder in a new location, the folder and all of its contents are copied to the new location.

Deleting a File or Folder

DELETE iconAs you might expect, the DELETE option does just what you would expect it to do -- it erases the files or folders you select. You want to be careful when using this option since mistakes can happen. If you have just spent hours "tuning" a particular style to get it sounding the way you want, you don't want to delete that file by mistake!

But mistakes can happen and that's why backups are so important. You could create backups on your keyboard by having a copy of the files in your USER area also stored on your USB drive. And, since they are on a USB drive, you would probably put a copy of your USB drive on your computer hard drive somewhere. And, of course, you have your computer hard drive backed up, don't you?

There will be times when you want to use this DELETE option as needed. You may be testing out a batch of new styles you downloaded from the internet. They are on your computer and on your USB drive. As you test them out, you'll find styles that you really don't want, so feel free to delete them. No reason to keep styles on your keyboard if you are not likely to be using them. Similarly, if you have been working on a midi file and it took you a dozen attempts to get it the way you want, no need to keep all the earlier versions. Delete them and just keep the final version, which you would, of course, back up.

Saving A File

SAVE IconSAVE is an option you need to use if you want to keep anything you are creating on your keyboard. If you are doing a quick record of a song, you may be able to play it back and hear your wonderful performance, but unless you save that performance in a midi file, it will be lost when you turn off the keyboard. Similarly, if you have carefully set up your keyboard to play a particular song and saved all the settings in a registration memory button or buttons, that are part of a registration bank, they will all disappear if you don't save that registration file permanently in your USER area or on your USB drive (or FLOPPY or CARD or HD).

You are saving whatever is currently loaded into memory. So, if you have a style loaded and you go to the STYLE display screen and select the SAVE option, you will be saving a copy of the currently loaded style. If you were to go to the MULTI PAD display screen, you would be saving a copy of the currently loaded multi pad. If you were to go to the REGISTRATION display screen, you would be saving a copy of the currently loaded registration. If you have loaded a right hand voice and then used various voice parameters to alter the sound of that voice, when you go to the VOICE display screen and select SAVE, you are saving a copy of the preset voice parameter changes that you made to that voice.

SAVE applies to files and not folders since you never have a folder loaded into memory. You would use COPY/PASTE to copy a folder and save it in a new location. The next option is used to create new folders.

Creating a Folder

FOLDER iconWith the expanded storage options of larger and larger USB drives and even hard drives, most users find that the number of "files" they have will soon be growing. Not so much if you are creating your own files, since this does take some time, but if you are downloading files from the internet, thousands of new files may become available. Organizing these files into some kind of manageable system will become necessary. Whatever system you use, you will undoubtedly be creating new folders to help with the organization of your files.

At the highest, or "root" level, of your storage device, say your USB drive, you don't have to have folders. You can just dump all the files you want there. But there is a limit to the number of files that the Yamaha can handle at this level. If you get too many files, and that may mean as few as a couple hundred, the system won't recognize any additional files even though you may have plenty of available storage on your drive. The solution is to create folders. Using folders, you can put thousands of files on your USB drive, just don't put too many in any single folder.

So, you can create folders at this highest level and, within each folder, you can create additional sub-folders with even more sub-folders in them. If you put a lot of files in a single folder, you then may have to search through multiple pages to get to the file you want. On the hand, if you use a lot of sub-folders, now you are searching through multiple sub-folders to get to the file you want. So, there is a tradeoff and each user will have to decide how they want to organize their files.

For some suggestions on how you mght want to organize a folder structure for your Yamaha keyboard, check out the Workshop on "Organizing Files" by Heidrun Dolde.

Whatever you decide, it is not difficult to actually create a new folder. You navigate to where you want to put your new folder. You then select the FOLDER option, which opens up a NAME Input box with the default name of "NewFolder" already inserted. Change that name to what you want and select OK. You now have a new folder and you can put whatever files you want in that folder. You'll see an example of this in upcoming lessons in this section.

What's Next?

In subsequent lessons in this section, we'll work through some common tasks and illustrate how many of these file options work. We'll also discuss some of the unique options you see in various display screens above. In almost all the file tasks we try, however, naming something will be necessary. So, the next lesson focuses on how to name files and/or folders.

If you have a PSR-2000 or PSR-2100 or even the PSR-3000, you may want to take a look at the File Operations lesson that was drafted originally for the 2000. The illustrations there may be more familiar to what you see on your own keyboard. Click on the banner below to open (or close) the lesson on PSR-2000 file operations.

File Operations on the PSR-2000/2100

The lesson below was originally drafted for the PSR-2000 and applies equally well to the PSR-2100. By and large these operations have all been carried forward on later keyboards although the FLOPPY DISK has been replaced by the CARD on the PSR-3000. The USB option was also on the 3000 and later keyboards. Tyros models also have a hard drive (HD) storage option. All of the screen shots in this section were based on the PSR-2000.

What Can You Do With a File?

Multipad screen, floppy disk tabConsider the example of the two multipad files on the floppy disk.  If you had loaded the second file, when you press [I] to go back and look at the Multipad screen, you will see that 8BtSoft NPoh is selected.  Whenever a file is (or files are) selected, they appear in inverse video.  To load that file, you would simply double-click button [B] and the multipad file would be loaded into the PSR clip board.  Actually, there really is no clip board, but I am using that expression to represent all the files you see on the MAIN screen that are currently loaded.  This includes the style file, the main, layer, and left voices, the multipad file and the registration file.  They are all loaded where the keyboard can use them for your performance.  But they are not permanently stored in this performance area -- that is why I have called it a clip board.  When you power off the machine, everything stored in that performance area disappears.  Of course, when you turn your keyboard back on, the style says HeartBeat, because the PSR-2000 always loads HeartBeat when you start.  Similarly, it puts an empty NewBank in the registration area.  In fact, there is a "default" file that it sticks in all the main page file locations.

Note: 2000 vs 2100, 3000, ... Here is one difference between the PSR-2000 and the later PSR keyboards. In the 2000, the registration file is automatically set to an empty NewBank file when you power on. On subsequent PSR models, the initial registration file contains the same entries that were there when you last shut your keyboard off.

Now, everything loaded into that performance area can be changed or modified.  But, if you want to SAVE your modifications permanently, you need to save a copy of what is on the "clipboard" to some more permanent storage area.  Your permanent storage area will be the USER area in your keyboard or a floppy disk.  You save the file by using the SAVE file option.  All the file options are shown at the bottom of each file screen.  You see the list of file options in the Multipad screen shown above.  When you select one of these file options, by pressing the corresponding numbered button under the option, your screen changes and you are prompted for the next step.  The prompts, and the meaning of each option, are explained in the table below:

NAME

file name input box This is actually a "rename" option since the file you are selecting is likely to have a name already.  Note that you can also use this option to check the full name of a file if the name happens to be larger than will fit on the file display screen.  The PSR uses variable width letters (the "M" takes up much more space than the "i") so the number of characters that will display varies.  For example, if you use lower case for file names you can show more characters. "ABCDEFGHIJKL" -- ll characters -- takes up the same space as "abcdefghijklmn" -- 14 characters.   If the name is too long for the file display screen, a tilde "~" appears at the end of the name.

To rename a file, follow these steps:

  1. Press [1B] to select the NAME option.  Note: instead of saying the button Above the number 1 or the button Below the number 1 at the bottom of the screen, we will simply refer to [#A] or [#B] to reference the 16 buttons associated with the numbers below the main screen.
  2. Press the appropriate lettered button ( [A] - [J] ) to select the file or folder you wish to rename.
  3. The Input Name screen appears.  It shows the name of the file you picked in a box located above two rows of characters.  You will encounter this name input box many times, so we provided a separate lesson on How to Name a File.
  4. When you have your name entered as you want, press [8A] to indicate [OK], which will implement your name change.

CUT

CUT file input boxThe CUT operation is similar to COPY, which is explained below.  The primary difference is that CUT will not only copy the file you indicate, it will also delete it from its current location.  For example, if you wanted to move a file from the USER area to the FLOPPY DISK, you could use the COPY operation to copy the file and then use the DELETE operation to delete the file from the USER area.  The CUT operation accomplishes this in one step.  If you are conservative, you may want to take the longer approach.  When you are sure you have copied the file successfully to where you want it to be, you can always go back and delete the original.  The steps for CUT are the same as those for COPY and are explained in the following paragraphs.

COPY

Here is an option you will use many times.  If you want to move any of the PRESET files to a floppy disk, you would use the COPY option to copy that file to a new location -- either the USER area or the FLOPPY DISK area.  Similarly, if you wanted to copy a file from your floppy disk and store it in the USER area (you can not, of course, store it in the PRESET area), you would use the COPY option.

COPY file input box

When you select COPY, you are presented with the COPY option screen and are prompted to "Select files/folders."   Note the plural.  You may select more than one file (or folder) to copy.  You select the files by pressing the relevant lettered button.  Every time you select a file, it will be shown in inverse video so you can see what is selected.  If you want to copy all of the files, just select the ALL option and every file will be selected.  When you are done selecting one or more files to copy, you press the [7B] key to indicate OK.

Now you must move to the area where you want to copy the files to.  If you were copying from the FLOPPY disk, you would press [BACK] to move to the USER area.  If you were copying from the PRESET area, you would press [NEXT] to move to the USER or press [NEXT] again to move to the FLOPPY DISK area.  When you arrive at the file display screen where you want to copy your file to, you will notice that the PASTE option is now available.  Select PASTE [4B] to paste the file in the desired location.

Let's summarize these steps to copy a file from the FLOPPY DISK to the USER area.

  1. With the file display showing the file you want to copy, select COPY [3B].
  2. Select the file that you want to copy by pressing the appropriate lettered button.
  3. Press OK [7B] to indicate that you are done selecting files.
  4. Press [BACK] to move to the USER tab.
  5. Press PASTE [4B] to paste your file in its new location.  You will see a message that the operation is being executed and warning you not to turn off your computer until its is done pasting the file.
  6. The file now shows up on the list of files in your USER area.

PASTE

If you have chosen to copy or cut a file, the PASTE option will become active when you move to a memory area where the file can be pasted.  Simply select PASTE to complete the copy or cut operation.  Note: you will obviously never see PASTE available when you are looking in the PRESET area.

DELETE

DELETE file input box

  You may delete a single file or multiple files.  Like the cut and copy options, after you select DELETE, you are prompted to select the files that you want to delete.  You can choose to delete ALL the files by selecting the ALL option.  When you have selected all the files you want deleted, press OK [7B].  You will be prompted to confirm that you wish to delete the file.  Press [F] "YES" to confirm the delete; press [G] to choose "NO" -- do not delete the file.

If you had selected multiple files to delete, the warning message for the first file would give you four options:  [F] YES, {G} YES to ALL, [H] NO, or [I] CANCEL.  If you select [G], all the files will be deleted.  Be careful here, there may have been a file highlighted that you were not aware of; and, if so, it, too, would be deleted.  If you are not sure, you can always select [F] YES to delete the first file and then review each file name, in turn, to make sure you are deleting the correct files.

SAVE

 SAVE is used when you have loaded a file to use in a performance and, perhaps modified some of the parameters, and now want to save that file in a permanent location. For example, if you load a preset style and then make modifications to the style instruments or volumes, you can not save your changes back into the PRESET area, you must save these changes either to the USER area or to a FLOPPY DISK.  If you modify the one-touch settings to a style and want to save these new settings, they will be saved in the style itself, but this can only happen if you can save the style and you can only save that style to the USER or FLOPPY DISK areas.

SAVE file input box

When you choose to save, the current name, if any, will be shown in the name box.  You can modify that name as desired.  Review the lesson on How to Name Files if you need help. 

This is a very important operation if you are trying to save a registration file.  Many users are confused by this.  You use the [MEMORY] button plus the registration buttons to save your setups in any of the 8 registration buttons.  These, together, make up a single registration file.  But they will all be lost if you turn power to your machine off.  You must SAVE this registration file (in the USER area or on a FLOPPY DISK) and give it a unique name.  Every time you turn on your PSR-2000, the registration file is set to NewBank -- which is completely empty.  To load a registration file that you created, you must access the REGISTRATION BANK screen and select the appropriate file -- which you SAVED when you created it.

NEW

NEW FOLDER input box Just like a floppy disk can have "folders", so, too, can the PSR-2100.  In fact, if you load a floppy disk that has folders, those folders will be visible from your PSR screen.  You can use folders to help organize your data, although using a folder means you have to open the folder before you can see the files in it.  If you have 50 files, you could store them all at the root level and you would find that the PSR file system shows this as 5 pages of files (10 files per page).  To see all the files you would use the [1A] to [5A] buttons to select among the 5 pages.

You could alternatively group your files into 5 folders of 10 files each.  Your PSR display would show the 5 folders, but you would have to select a particular folder and open it to see the 10 files stored there.  Whether using folders is preferable or not is an individual choice.

UP

If you do have folders, then the last choice, UP, becomes available.  As soon as you select a folder, you will see the UP option.  This lets you move UP from the folder you selected to its parent folder.  You may have a folder within a folder within a folder.  So, if you have "nested" folders, you will need UP to take you "up" the hierarchy to get to the top-level folder.

EDIT

If you are looking at the REGISTRATION BANK or the Multipad file screens, you will see an EDIT option.  EDIT is used when a file has individual components that you may want to name.  In the case of the registration files, each of the 8 registration buttons can be given a unique name.  Similarly, each of the four multipad settings can have a unique name.

DEMO

If you are looking at the VOICE file screen, you will see an additional DEMO option.  By selecting the DEMO option, you can hear a short musical demonstration of what that instrumental voice sounds like.  You may wonder how, if you download a voice file from the Internet and put it in your PSR, there could be a demo of that voice.  If you remember in our lesson on demonstrations , there are demos for all the voices in the PSR.  A voice file contains, basically, parameter modifications to one of the preset voices available in the PSR-2100.  You create new voices by modifying the preset voices.  Thus, when you want to demo the "new" voice, it simply uses the musical demo that was stored for the original preset voice upon which the new voice is built.

Well, that covers all the File Operations.  You should now be an expert in using the PSR file system!


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This page updated on February 15, 2024 .