With all the recent discussion of a newly discovered possible hard drive solution to the hard disk-less Yamaha PSR2000, several people have asked how I ever managed gigging without one, thinking I must be constantly having to juggle scores of floppy diskettes while performing.

Believe it or not, this isn't true. I actually only need to take 2 floppy disks with me when performing. How?! Because I've found most of the PSR2000's 'internal' styles suitable for most all of my material. In addition, all my frequently used custom USER styles (approx 20 styles) reside in USER flash Memory. My personalized MusicFinder database of my song repetoire (of over 495 songs) actually utilizies internal & USER flash memory styles ONLY. Though I've downloaded and collected as many PSR format styles as many other people here: hundreds?, or perhaps even a thousand , I rarely (if ever) use them when performing. As a result, I only take (to the gig) a floppy diskette dedicated to Memory Registrations files for specific custom songs & song medleys which require multiple registration setups. At only 10kb per file, a 1.4 MB floppy diskette can hold MANY MANY Songs (Memory Reg Banks). This floppy also holds my 'song specific' custom style files as well. The only other floppy diskette I take to the gig is a diskette full of midi song files. I've actually increasingly been using this less and less , preferring to do perform EVERYTHING live in auto-accomp. mode instead. As much as I'd still appreciate & prefer that the PSR2000 had a hard drive, floppy disk management hasn't been really much of a deal for me. The function of the styles (for me) are only to act as window dressing to enhance your performance, but not to distract from your live work. Even if we hired the BEST live (w/ real musicians) backup bands in the world, I doubt very many bands could pull off playing 'off the top of their hat' the diversity of stock styles included in our arranger keyboards. I've spent more than my share of time in the past composing, & customizng styles, but have realized that it's much more pleasureable & rewarding (at least for me) to spend MORE time making music by PLAYING & improving my chops, and utilizing the PSR2000's many decent sounding internal styles. Ok, these were just my thoughts. I apologize if I came off preachy. Take from it what you want and ignore the rest. Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing how others feel about this issue of course. Happy keyboarding. - Scott