Proprietary Drives / Images

Note: due to the recent advent of image-based storage peripherals such as ZuluSCSI, BlueSCSI, and PiSCSI, this functionality is much less necessary that it was before. We strongly suggest that you move on from fixed hard drives, ZipDrives, SCSI CD-ROM Drives, and even SCSI2SD and get a ZuluSCSI drive. These are image-based, using common image files as their SCSI data source, and do completely away from all the computer incompatibilities that reading storage devices low-level entails. Although we (Chicken Systems) pioneered and innovated these proprietary-access processes since the late 1990's, we are very glad to see those days pass away and are no longer necessary.

f you have one of these proprietary drives or media, image all of them - it's a good backup - with Translator using the Create Virtual Drive function, and then use the images (we call them Virtual Drives) on ZuluSCSI or another image-based solution. Translator can read/write/format them and accesses then on average 4x-5x faster than before, plus the operating system (Mac or Windows) perfectly cooperates with it. Finally, the good days are here!

ZuluSCSI drives in various models can be purchased from our retail partner SamplerZone. These include Internal versions, External, Mini (plugs directly into your sampler), and even a rack-mounted model.

Translator still supports full proprietary-drive access, reading and writing. However, we are not sure how much longer modern Mac and Windows operating system will put up with it, as it is a security issue. Already Windows 10 and 11 have shown some serious signs of resistance. Instructions for proprietary access are below.

Translator™ has the unique ability to read "proprietary drives"; that is, CD's, disks, and SD cards that are formatted in a old/unique way as a regular computer (Mac/Win) cannot read it natively.

Most hardware samplers were designed and sold before the standard FAT-type disk file systems were standardized. As a result, sampler manufacturers used what was closest to their hardware designs. Remember, all hardware samplers are simply specialized custom-design computers. It wasn't until about 1995 where hardware samplers (such as the Akai S5000 and Ensoniq ASR-X) started using computer-readable FAT-type file systems. By then, the 'age of the sampler" was declining and software samplers were poised to take over.

Historical Note: the specialized programming to reverse-engineer, and to coax a computer to read a custom file system, is one of the things that propelled Translator to mass popularity back in 1999.)

And with the recent popularity of these old samplers and SCSI2SD, the need to not only read but also to write these custom file systems has taken off again. Below is a description on how to handle proprietary drives on your computer with Translator, including SCSI2SD. Translator fully supports all facets of SCSI2SD.

We know most users reading this are anxious to read all about SCSI2SD and how Translator supports it. All the information below applies to SCSI2SD as well - at the bottom we'll explain the new twists SCSI2SD brings to what we explain in regards to other disks (CD, Zip, Jaz, etc.)

About Proprietary Drives
A "proprietary drive" is almost always a removable media, such as a ZipDisk, Syquest cartridge, Jaz Disk, or more recently memory cards such as CompactFlash or SD/MicroSD. They always fit into a SCSI device in order to communicate with the sampler itself. Fixed SCSI Drives are much harder to deal with, as modern computers are extremely resistant to SCSI technology. (We recommend imaging fixed SCSI drives, using a computer with a installed SCSI interface, and using that resulting Virtual Drive to read off of it. We do not recommend continuing to use these drives.) Since your "proprietary disk" is always it's own free-standing media, you likely will be inserting it into a USB device connecting to your computer, such as a USB ZipDrive or a SD card reader.

Please note that we will be using the terms "proprietary drive", proprietary disk", and proprietary CD" interchangeably. Sometimes we'll just say "disk".

It should be clear that if you try to read this disk with your computer's facilities, it will say "not formatted!" and ask you if you want to format it. DO NOT DO THIS! This warning is just your computer telling you it can't read the file system. We always know that is not the case. Just blow off these warnings, and instead start Translator to view, read, and write the disk.

After opening Translator, you SHOULD see the proprietary disk under the Proprietary Devices section in the Container Pane. (If not, see below.) From there, you can access it just like you would a normal hard drive. Select a the drive or "folder" on the left, and contents appear on the right. To translate off the disk, select what you want to translate (whole disk, or individual folder or file) in the Object List (on the right) and click the Translate button on top. (Or, to convert/copy/move onto another proprietary disk, drag from the right to the left and drop the object on the folder/disk you want to write it to.)

Special Note regarding Proprietary CD's: We highly recommend creating a Virtual Drive of these CD's before you do anything with it in Translator. There are couple of reasons for this: 1) this gives you a backup, 2) access is sped up by a factor of 4x-5x. See the Virtual Drive's section for more information how to create virtual drives from your CD's.

Proprietary File systems are often a little different than the normal hierarchical file system you are used to on your computer. The computer uses a simple and almost unlimited parent/child system, where you create a folder and put files in it, or even another folder (called "nesting") that can have it's own files, and on and on.

• Kurzweil/Ensoniq/Akai MPC2000XL: Uses the common computer parent/child nesting folder system.
• Ensoniq: Files are numbered from 1-38; and a directory (Ensoniq parlance for "folder") is limited to 38 files or sub-directories.
• Akai S1000/3000: uses 60mb-max Partitions as a folder-type; within Partitions you can create up to 100 Volumes (another folder-type). No nesting beyond this is possible.
• Akai MPC: Also uses Partitions; except for the MPC2000XL files only exist in the root of the Partitions
• Roland: Flat file-system, no folders are supported. (Although, Roland uses a 3-character category system that in effect suggests a folder system; e.g. "STR:Violins")
• Emu: EOS/E4 uses one level only of Folders; otherwise (Emax, ESi, E3), there is only one file-type called a Bank, and that carries with it all it's own objects (Presets, Samples).

Also, names are limited in size; mostly they are 12-char-max. Emu's are mostly 16-char-max, whereas Kurzweil is limited to 8-char-max, with no spaces. And while we are on it, proprietary names often have a limited character set, such as no spaces, or few special characters, etc.

Ejecting a Proprietary Disk
It is important - more for the computer than Translator - to "software eject" your proprietary disk before you remove it from your USB reader. It usually isn't the end of the world if you don't, but make it a consistent practice to do so. You do this by right-clicking the drive in the Container Pane and selecting Eject.

Formatting a Blank Disk to Proprietary Format
If your disk is not formatted at all:

• Insert your potential proprietary disk in your device, wait about 10 seconds
• Blow through any dialogs your computer may put up
• Click Refresh in Translator
• Click the top menu Operations-Format-[your device] (if Format does not appear, than you may have detection issues; see below). Typically this says GENERIC Storage Device or something else that is obviously your device.
• Go through the dialogs, they are self-explanatory

If your disk is already formatted for proprietary format, of course it will show up under Proprietary Devices. Right-click on your Device and click Format. From there, the dialogs are self-explanatory.

Writing ("Slapping") a Virtual Drive to Disk
You can write a Virtual Drive (that is, an "image") to a blank disk to make it a "proprietary disk". The common term for this is "slapping" an image to the disk. This is handy and works for certain instances, but a bad side effect of this is that the formatted size of the Virtual Drive is often not the same as the capacity of the disk/ID you are writing it to. Either you waste space (the disk is larger than your Virtual Drive) or you set yourself up for corruption (the disk is smaller than your Virtual Drive). If possible, it's a better idea to move the files onto a newly formatted proprietary disk. Sometimes, though, that isn't possible or practical.

You can "slap" a Virtual Drive to a disk by first formatting the disk to the required format (actually, any format will do), then right-click on the disk under Proprietary Devices

Renaming and Deleting Objects, and Creating Folders
Renaming and deleting objects - even folders/directories - work pretty much just like your computer works. Click a second time on a object to rename it, and select an object and hit DEL to delete it. (Don't worry, we confirm with you first.) Also, with renaming, you need to have Disallow Renaming unchecked in Preferences-General.

To create new folders/directories (if your proprietary file system permits it), right-click in the Container Pane where you want the folder/directory created. Translator will create it, then you can rename it to your liking.

Device Detection Issues
It is our hope that your proprietary disks - or the ID's on SCSI2SD'fied SD cards - show up right when you start up Translator, or click Refresh. Sometimes it doesn't. Below is a list of things to check, whether you are using Mac or Windows.

• Preferences-General-Show Proprietary Devices MUST be checked. If it is not, check it and restart Translator.
• We have found much more success, especially with Windows, using external card readers (NOT the SCSI2SD itself, but a regular USB one) instead of internal ones. We also do not recommend cheap adapter-type SD card readers. Use regular external card readers; we use the Belkin F4U003.
• The SCSI2SD v6.0 allows you to use it as a USB card reader with your computer. Your computer will recognize the multiple ID's on your SD card as discreet devices. However, we recommend that you DO NOT do this; instead, use a regular USB card reader and allow Translator to read each ID itself via the Preferences-SCSI2SD Partition Map dialog.
• It does not matter how your SD card is formatted. It does not impede or restrict access in most instances.
• If you are using SCSI2SD, IT IS ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY to have the numbers in Preferences-SCSI2SD Partition Map match the way your SD card/SCSI2SD board is set up. Either enter these in manually (not recommended) or use the presets on that page, or best make a XML file using the SCSI2SD Utility of your board/card's configuration, and read it using Load XML in the SCSI2SD Partition Map dialog.
• Also, if you are using SCSI2SD, it is pretty much mandatory to have a "mini-partition" at the physical front of the SD card, in order to fool the computer's OS that it's a so-called legitimate disk and to help it ignore the proprietary data written on other areas of the disk. See the article on www.scsi2sd.info for more information on this.
• Try reinserting the SD card a time or two, and refresh Translator.
• If you are using a microSD card, try putting it in a SD-card adapter and insert it into your external card reader that way.

As a last resort, if none of these advices - general or platform-specific - work for you, contact support at [email protected] and supply the Logs folder zipped up. They are happy to help.

Device Detection Issues -Mac Specific
Here's some additional detection issues we've found when using Mac computers.

• Starting in OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion, a standard Mac Authentication Dialog comes up asking you for your Mac password. (If it doesn't, it means the Preferences-General-Show Proprietary Devices is not checked.) This is necessary because the Gods at Apple have determined that accessing drives low-level like Translator does is a security risk. Make sure you authenticate correctly.
• Try opening up Disk Utility and "unmounting" (don't eject!) the device in question, then try starting Translator.

Device Detection Issues -Windows Specific
Here's some additional detection issues we've found when using Mac computers- Windows 7, 8, 10, and 11.

• We believe you must ALWAYS run as administrator. Confusingly, this does not mean your running User Account is the administrator, it means you have to explicitly run Translator "as administrator". You do this by either checking this option under Properties-Compatibility in your shortcut or actual file, or by right-clicking the shortcut/file and clicking "Run as administrator".
• Check the "Check Unlettered Drives" option under Options-General, and set the amount to 30 or similar.
• Most detection issues that come to us involve Windows computers; if you are using Windows - please re-read the general detection advices listed above as well as these.

SCSI2SD
This has resurrected the SCSI drive world, and revised the entire interest in vintage samplers. Translator fully supports SCSI2SD. You can regard SD cards that are used with SCSI2SD just like regular SCSI proprietary disks, with the following additions:

• SCSI2SD supports up to 7 (4 with the v5.5 and v5.1 and lower) SCSI ID's - that is, SCSI devices, on one single SD card. You actually have MULTIPLE DRIVES on one SD card. It does this NOT USING THE STANDARD MAC/WINDOWS PARTITION SCHEME; Translator supports this using the sector start/length numbers in the Preferences-SCSI2SD Partition Map dialog.
• Mac's put up some resistance to reading/writing SD card's outside it's normal schemes, for some reason. because of that it is highly recommended - really mandatory - to have a "mini-partition" of at least 9.4mb at the physical front of the SD card, formatted to HFS, and the proprietary data in free space after that mini-partition. (See the article on www.scsi2sd.info for more information on this.) You will know this is the case if your first ID in SCSI2SD Partition Map's sector start is 20480 or higher.

IMPORTANT: If you are using a SCSI2SD v6.0 board, and are connecting it using USB and not reading off the SD card, DO NOT enable SCSI2SD in this dialog. The reason is that the computer is now seeing each ID on the SCSI2SD as individual devices and Translator does not need to separate them using this dialog.

It is MANDATORY that your numbers in SCSI2SD Partition Map match the way your SD card is set up with your SCSI2SD board. If they are not correct, you will not see your SD card proprietary data in Translator.

Note that we do not call the multiple "devices" on a SCSI2SD-equipped SD card as "Partitions". This is because the term Partition is used in many other ways, such as Akai and MPC Partitions, and with the standard computer partitioning scheme, which SCSI2SD does not use. So we use the term ID instead. (If you've noticed that we still use "Partition" with SCSI2SD Partition Map, you are correct, but it's too late the change the name of the dialog.)

When Enable SCSI2SD is checked in SCSI2SD Partition Map, Translator each drive for the presence of proprietary formats at the sector locations on that dialog. When one or more are detected, they are listed as separate devices under Proprietary Devices.

Once you have your multiple-ID's on your SD card detected by Translator, you can operate off them in the same way you would with any other proprietary disk. You will see just as many ID's under Proprietary Devices as the SD card has formatted.

Translator fully supports different formats (e.g. Akai on one ID, Emu on the others) on different ID's of a SCSI2SD SD card. However, the first ID (listed in SCSI2SD Partition Map) MUST contain a proprietary format. This is so that Translator doesn't have to check all the areas of every drive on your system.

Translator makes special accommodations for computer-friendly formats that use SCSI2SD. These include Kurzweil, Ensoniq ASR-X, Akai S5000, Emu EOS v4.7, Motif, RS7000, and a couple others. These are formats that are readable via a computer, but when using a SCSI2SD-fied SD card, and computer will never know about the ID's contained within the SD card, because SCSI2SD doesn't use the standard computer partitioning system.

So if you have one these formats on your SD card, Translator will detect them and show them as one or more (usually more) drives under Proprietary Devices. All reading and writing of the drive/ID will be done via Translator, not the OS routines. Because of this, the drive/ID that the computer detects (usually the one starting at Sector 0) will be unmounted and lose it's drive letter. Translator also respects the naming limitations of the drive/ID.

For more information on SCSI2SD in general, see www.scsi2sd.info.