cbony,

This is every musicians WORST nightmare. Kudos for quick thinking and purchasing a replacement so quickly. You lucked out on many fronts with this episode.



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Al Giordano
www.al-giordano.com

Tyros 2, Yamaha P-250, Korg Triton Extreme 76, Roland VK8-M, DW Collectors Series Drums

Chony,

Hats off to you. You've exibited a professional and selfless attitude. My respect and admiration to you. You deserve the "Entertainer of the Week" award!

Tim

Wow! I wasn't expecting any tribute for this! I honestly didn't see an alternative!

Thank you all very much for your gracious comments. I have to tell you that I really felt a little irritated that I didn't even have to use the new keyboard. But upon reflection, I did what was right based on the information I had, and I would do it again. I've flown to at least 20 performances - arriving the morning of - and I guess a story like this was inevitable.

The airline is not going to reimburse unfortunately...

A few lessons learned:
- Always carry a back up with you! This was the real life saver.
- When flying to a performance, find out the address of a local music store! You don't neglect to book your flight or your reserve your car - don't neglect this either!
- Money cannot be an object - unless you're retiring. Besides the $800, I probably made $100 worth of international phone calls (calling from Canada to the US on a US cell phone), and paid more than that to a cab driver! But this is the price of self-insurance! In addition, I would lose much more than this had I not been able to do the job. News like this spreads!
- Another thing I'm going to do, is save my presets and styles from other keyboards onto my USB drive. My other keyboards include a PSR 2000, 8000 and Tyros, and in a last resort scenario, at least I could perform with these!

Thank you all,
Chony

Chony, amazing story. You definitely made the best of the situation. Have you ever considered shipping your equipment with UPS/FedEx etc. ahead of time to someone who lives in the destination area? (Maybe the bride's house or the like.) The cost is probably higher (perhaps much higher) but it may provide better piece of mind.

Yessir! A true pro.

If I may relate, I had a somewhat similar incident at a USAF base in Iraklion, Crete in 1969.

The scenario was that my old Hammond M102 was made for the UK market and ran on 220V, 50 cycles. So you can imagine my horror that the USAF base ran on 'American' power at 110V, 60 cycles (we had taken it for granted, obviously mistakenly, that the power supply would have been 'Greek', same as UK). The upshot of all this was that the generator drive shaft in the Hammond was now rotating at a different speed and in so doing, lowered the key of every song by four whole tones.

The solution? In those pre-transpose days?

I played a beat-up upright piano for the duration of the gig - four months.

The good old days, I suppose.

chony - An AMAZING story ... you are truly a PRO - Professionally Right On !!! ...
I congratulate and commend you, friend ...
t.

Hi Chony,

When I got my Yamaha PSR3000, I asked my family to get me a 1 Gig Flash Drive for Christmas. I ended up getting two 1 Gigs, a 512MB and a 256MB. I have enough styles saved on the 1 Gig which would fill over 50 floppies, and I also have the registrations and midifiles of all the songs I've played saved on it...about 100. I use the second 1 Gig as a backup and duplicate all that's on the first flash drive. I still don't need the other two smaller flash drives after 6 months because the 1 Gig Flash Drives are less than half full.

When I went to Florida to be with some KB friends at a reunion, all I took was my 1 Gig Flash drive and used it in another PSR3000 another member had taken there. In your case, you had to rent the KB you needed.

I'm just an amateur who plays by ear; but would like to give you a suggestion that might be worthwhile. Why not get an external USB Floppy Drive for your TYROS-2 and hook it to the back of your TYROS-2 using a simple 4 Slot USB Hub to use as a backup too? I have both the 1 Gig Flash Drive and the USB Floppy plugged into the hub and can access whatever is on both at will just by accessing them in my KB.

If what happened to you happened again,and you had both the Flash Drive and USB Floppy Drive, you could transfer stuff from your Flash Drive onto a blank Floppy using any computer and then have the option of using any other Yamaha KB that has a Floppy Drive...for example, a PSR740, PSR2000,or TYROS-1. Finding another TYROS-2 might be very hard to find in some areas.

For a gig, you need only transfer the styles and registrations you need for the songs you planned to play onto a blank floppy and put it into an appropriate Yamaha KB with a floppy drive. Certain instruments might not work on the lesser KB's; but at least you would have something to work with.

I like the above because I can still use all my floppies from the PSR740 and put them into my PSR3000 or copy or cut and paste stuff either way directly using only the PSR3000 instead of needing a computer.

You may already know all this; but thought I'd advise in case anyone else might like the idea.

A few years ago, I played an Organ for a relative's wedding and had it break down about an hour after starting to play. So, I can relate to your horrible experience.

BTW, the way you dealt with your situation was very impressive; and it's great to know that you would pull out all the stops to make sure your client got what was requested.I hope they realize what you did for them. Congratulations.

Del