Roland E96 with GOTEK solution

[karri]

I got a GOTEK drive years ago and never got it to work.

During isolation I finally decided to give it a try. The solution was simple.

All the GOTEK drives are equal. Only the firmware seems to be different depending on the usage.

Today there is an universal firmware for all GOTEK drives called "flashfloppy". It is free.

https://github.com/keirf/FlashFloppy/wiki/Downloads

I got the version v13.3a for my Roland E96
There is good instructions of how to flash the firmware.

Then I need to copy the file external/FF.CFG to the USB disk formattes as FAT32 (all sticks are FAT32 by default) and change just two lines:

pin02 = dens
pin34 = rdy

After that create floppy disk files of exactly 1474560 bytes (a 1.44m floppy).

Name the files
DSKA0000.IMG
DSKA0001.IMG
DSKA0002.IMG
...

Put the USB stick in Roland E96 and choose 00 from the GOTEK.

Press the red WRITE button.
Then 5 DISK
SHIFT
4 FORMAT

Once the format is complete you can use your first image DSKA0000.IMG

Choose some style, press REC and START and start playing.

Here is a video of my experiment to connect a hard drive to the Roland E96.

 

[artanoon]

Hello Karri,
Thank you for these useful info. I am having a question fro you and would be grateful if you help.
I am planning to buy a Roland E86 or E96 and I will come to GOTEK mod soon. Both are available now on ebay so I can purchase either. I have used E86 20 years ago and I remember each note could be individually tuned to arbitrary values. This let's me to tune to exotic scales such as Persian Systems and Arabic scales. Does E96 do that too? to be specific, I want individual Cs, for example, to be tuned differently not all to be changed the same. The online manual says all notes with the same name can be changed with the same value but I was hoping if E96 does like E86. ie., individual tuning of each note. An example would be where C1 is 50 cents reduced, C2 unchanged, C3 reduced, etc.
Many thanks for your help in advanced.
Arta

 

[karri]

The E96 has a huge number of options. But All the named keys are tuned to the same settings. So the only way that may do what you want is to split the keyboard into upper and lower and tune the upper section. I belive that the lower section cannot be tuned. But I may be wrong here. Perhaps I could test it next time I am at home at daytime.

 

[artanoon]

The E96 has a huge number of options. But All the named keys are tuned to the same settings. So the only way that may do what you want is to split the keyboard into upper and lower and tune the upper section. I belive that the lower section cannot be tuned. But I may be wrong here. Perhaps I could test it next time I am at home at daytime.

Thanks a lot! It is strange to see e86 can tune notes individually but e96 cannot. Would be great to make sure about it. Thank you so much for the help.

 

[karri]

Thanks a lot! It is strange to see e86 can tune notes individually but e96 cannot. Would be great to make sure about it. Thank you so much for the help.

i tried to tune notes on the E96. You can tune ALL or just UP1-2. But all the C-notes are treated at once. So get E86 if this feature is important to you.

 

[Zokas]

Thanks karri for your valuable information but the older e 70 has more than 86 and 96 as to me I wish for a simple detailed notes on how to make gotek emulator work on my e96 regarding I followed your thread on the issue but such technical information still difficult for me for Roland still cannot see the gotek hope you have the time to provide me with easy solution . thanks again