does e series have flash drive?

[ekurburski]

Does the e series have a flash drive?  any way to save registrations and styles?  What  format are the styles?

[SciNote]

Depends on which E-series you are talking about.  The PSR-E400 series -- from the PSR-E433 on up, has a USB-to-device port that allows you to plug in a flash drive and save the various keyboard data as user files, which are files that contain the registrations, aftermarket styles, and sequencer recorded songs that are in the keyboard.  But the PSR-E300 series -- even the newer PSR-E373 and PSR-EW310 -- do not have this feature.

I'm not sure about the styles -- I think they are SFF0, with the newer E300 and E400 series keyboards having the ability to play back SFF0 and SFF1 files loaded from an external source.  But I am not sure about that -- double check that with someone more familiar with loading and saving styles.

[SeaGtGruff]

Styles are SFF1. (The two formats are SFF1 or SFF2; AFAIK there's no SFF0 per se.)

There's internal flash memory which is divided into two partitions-- one is "system memory" for loading (or "registering") style files, saving registration memories, and recording user songs; the other is "user memory" that you can transfer song files and style files into using the Yamaha Musicsoft Downloader software.

The transferred song files can then be played back from the internal memory by simply selecting them after you press the SONG button and scroll through the list of internal and external songs; there is no "load song" operation per se, you simply scroll to the song you want to play and press PLAY.

On the other hand, the transferred style files cannot be used "directly" like that; you must instead use the "load style" operation to select the style you want to load, specify which "style number" you want to load it to, and that will read the style and store it in the system memory in the specified style number slot.

There is no way to save anything directly into the internal user memory, or for that matter to delete anything from the internal user memory (aside from erasing the entire user memory partition using the "flash clear" operation); you can only move files into or out of the internal user memory by connecting to a computer and using the Yamaha Musicsoft Downloader.

The early models in the E400 series-- PSR-E403, PSR-E413, and PSR-E423-- did not have a port for attaching a USB drive, only a port for connecting to a computer (or "host"). But beginning with the PSR-E433, the E400 models also have a port for attaching a USB drive.

You can save a selected user song to an attached USB drive, which converts the user song from Yamaha's internal song format into a standard MIDI file. The user song itself is recorded into the system memory, not the user memory, and is stored as MIDI message data although it's missing the "MIDI header" information and is stored in small data blocks such that a single song might be split up into several data blocks which are not stored contiguously with each other in the memory. Also, the auto-accompaniment portion of the user song is stored in a special abbreviated form that records the style number, style section changes, and chord progression changes, but not the actual style data. Furthermore, if you record multiple tracks in a user song, each track is written to its own data blocks, separate from the data blocks used by the other tracks. The "save SMF" procedure creates a MIDI header chunk and combines all of the song data-- including the actual notes and other events for the auto accompaniment, and all of the individual tracks-- into a single unified MIDI track chunk, writing the resulting song file to the USB drive.

You can also save the system memory to the attached USB drive, which writes it as a sort of "backup file" that contains the internal user songs, the 32 registration memories, and the style files that have been registered to the user style numbers. This file is called a "user file," and can be loaded back from the USB drive into the keyboard's system memory.