Topic: Korg MR-1000 Dissected

[hoccusfoccus]

Can anybody guess... that what I'm gonna try? Hint: It relates to moving parts.

Will post more & clear pix later.. but in the meantime.. the plot thickens..

[yltfan]

Bye bye hard drive?

[hoccusfoccus]

Bye bye hard drive?

you got it.. I didn't find a thread so just wanted to document insides/the potential mod out.. dunno if anybody else has had success with it..?

[H₂O]

I tried cf and ssd mods with the mr-1 but neither worked - I could get up to 24/88.2 to work on the ssd mod - keep us posted - you can get much faster 2.5" ssds though so I would think you could make it work

[F.O.Bean]

What are you putting in the HDD place?

[Gutbucket]

What are you putting in the HDD place?

A miniature stenographic pool of young single women from the early 60's wearing leopard skin pill box hats.

they write faster than the old guys-

[jb63]

they write faster than the old guys-

oh god that is great.
i want them in my phone, too, but i think they are already in there yakking it up by the water cooler and taking extra long coffee breaks while discussing the most recent exploits of george & gracie.

[Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)]

Curious on the reasoning for replacing the HD.

SSD is great for fast reads, but is overkill for writing audio.

Only advantage that I can think of is to not have the moving parts, and even then I only see the advantage if the unit is really getting bumped around. Normal taping (even stealth) is usually fine with a standard HD.

Of course, I've been known to do something like that anyway...just for fun.

[hoccusfoccus]

I want to use this for foley as well and the "moving parts" HDD makes it suspectible to vibrations, shocks and all that... also the HDD is ages old and may fail any day..

The HDD is a standard 1.8" IDE PATA run on ribbon ZIF 40pin connector (this is a standard thing)

I need some new bits still to make this happen and test if the software accepts the new "HDD" seen thru transparently on IDE

What I have is a ZIF IDE to CF adapter where I plug a CF card.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/cf-zif-convertor-circuit-board-with-zif-cables-11814

Next mod could be if I get this work to make it able to easily replace the CF card.. would need a hole and a mount thing...

[tedyun]

Hmm.....this sounds very similar to my experience in replacing the HDD in the MR-1 with a solid state solution.

What we figured out with the MR-1 at least, is that it requires SLC flash media (which is very expensive). The MLC flash that is commonly found in SSDs or CFs had problems in writing long streams of data. It did fine up to a certain bit rate (I forget if it could do 16/44), but after that it gave errors or incomplete writes.

Also, if you get a SLC CompactFlash for your ZIF > CF adapter, when I tried this in the MR-1, I got a series of periodic faint "clicks." I spoke with someone with a similar experience, and the clicks turned out to occur with the little light on the adapter board goes on. He tried to disable the light but inadvertantly messed up the board.

Anyway, those are just some words of caution. Best of luck and I look forward to your results.

As to the question of why replace the HDD with an SDD, the hope was that less moving parts would save on battery life, but the experience with the SLC media was that it did not. An SLC CompactFlash or an SLC SSD drive get approximately the same battery life as the HDD. When we put an MLC CF card in there, we could get better battery life, but it did not record at the higher bit rates.

On a related not to RichF, will Korg ever release an update for the MR-1 which could enable it to write to MLC flash? I assume the MR-2 can write to MLC since it is using standard SD cards, so perhaps that bit of code can be incorporated into the MR-1?

I want to use this for foley as well and the "moving parts" HDD makes it suspectible to vibrations, shocks and all that... also the HDD is ages old and may fail any day..

The HDD is a standard 1.8" IDE PATA run on ribbon ZIF 40pin connector (this is a standard thing)

I need some new bits still to make this happen and test if the software accepts the new "HDD" seen thru transparently on IDE

What I have is a ZIF IDE to CF adapter where I plug a CF card.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/cf-zif-convertor-circuit-board-with-zif-cables-11814

Next mod could be if I get this work to make it able to easily replace the CF card.. would need a hole and a mount thing...

[hi and lo]

As to the question of why replace the HDD with an SDD, the hope was that less moving parts would save on battery life, but the experience with the SLC media was that it did not. An SLC CompactFlash or an SLC SSD drive get approximately the same battery life as the HDD. When we put an MLC CF card in there, we could get better battery life, but it did not record at the higher bit rates.

Wow Ted.. didn't know you had so much modding experience!!! I must have missed the thread for this.

So anyways, the statement about hoping an SSD would save battery vs. a traditional HDDs and it not actually turning out to be the case is a standard finding as the solid state technology progresses. SSDs consume, seemingly against logic, to consume just about as much power an HDD with moving parts. The advantages then become increased speed (not really applicable in a 2-channel recorder) and lack of moving parts that could be subject to force-of-impact damage. This could change as new solid state technologies are developed, but presently they are really no better than traditional storage technology.

[H₂O]

I want to use this for foley as well and the "moving parts" HDD makes it suspectible to vibrations, shocks and all that... also the HDD is ages old and may fail any day..

The HDD is a standard 1.8" IDE PATA run on ribbon ZIF 40pin connector (this is a standard thing)

I need some new bits still to make this happen and test if the software accepts the new "HDD" seen thru transparently on IDE

What I have is a ZIF IDE to CF adapter where I plug a CF card.

http://www.dealextreme.com/p/cf-zif-convertor-circuit-board-with-zif-cables-11814

Next mod could be if I get this work to make it able to easily replace the CF card.. would need a hole and a mount thing...

Good luck with this - I did not realize that the MR-1000 only had a 1.8" drive -

I tried the following CF Card with no success

http://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Compact-Flash-Card-400X/dp/B002WE4H8I

You will need at least a 600x card and again there are no garantee's

I am pretty sure the way the Korg firmware writes to the HDD involves alot of Random writes which does not translate well to the flash realm (CF or SSD).

[tedyun]

I wish I knew that before dumping all that money on SLC SSDs and CFs!!   

You can read the long journey here:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=93710.120

I had success in using an MTron 16 GB and 32 GB SSD drives. In fact the 32 GB drive is in there right now and has performed flawlessly.

http://www.amazon.com/Mtron-SSD-MOBI-MSD-PATA3018-internal/dp/B001LGIMN4

I forget what the CF card was, but aside from the clicking sound, it worked as well. I can get the brand information tonight.

Edit: The SLC card is a RiData Supreme series 300x 16 GB. I bought it at Amazon, but I don't see it there anymore.
http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ridata-16gb-300x-supreme-compact-flash-card/

That also reminded me that not all ZIF > CF adapters are compatible. I think the one you are looking for is "Startech" or something, but be careful especially with Chinese sourced stuff, because there are a lot of counterfeits out there. The first adapter I tried did not work, but after others reported success, I ordered from a different company, and it worked.

Edit: I just noticed the link to the adapter you have. I think this one works, and I believe I have the same one. DealExtreme used to sell another one (I'm not sure if they still do) that is darker in color. The darker one did not work.

As to the question of why replace the HDD with an SDD, the hope was that less moving parts would save on battery life, but the experience with the SLC media was that it did not. An SLC CompactFlash or an SLC SSD drive get approximately the same battery life as the HDD. When we put an MLC CF card in there, we could get better battery life, but it did not record at the higher bit rates.

Wow Ted.. didn't know you had so much modding experience!!! I must have missed the thread for this.

So anyways, the statement about hoping an SSD would save battery vs. a traditional HDDs and it not actually turning out to be the case is a standard finding as the solid state technology progresses. SSDs consume, seemingly against logic, to consume just about as much power an HDD with moving parts. The advantages then become increased speed (not really applicable in a 2-channel recorder) and lack of moving parts that could be subject to force-of-impact damage. This could change as new solid state technologies are developed, but presently they are really no better than traditional storage technology.

[FOB_Taper]

I swapped out the stock 40GB drive for a 120GB drive two years ago when I first got my Korg. Never had any issues in the last two years... it gives me 24 hours of recording time, which is great for festivals. The 1.8" drives are the same drives as in early iPods, so you can find them cheap and they are easy to install. OK, not that easy... The damn ribbon cable that is on the Korg motherboard does not come off, or at least I could not get it to come off. So you have to feed the ribbon cable into the replacement drive with very little finger room. It took awhile and was frustrating, but it worked. I was afraid to try to disconnect the ribbon from the motherboard of the MR-1000. IF someone can figure out how to detach it, it would be a lot easier to upgrade.

FYI, I first mounted the replacement hard drive on a computer, and did a clone of the software from the internal hard drive. When you boot the new drive, it thinks it is still a 40GB drive... you then go in and reformat t he drive. The key is you need to have the Korg OS ON the drive before you install it... there is no Korg OS installer

The stock 40 GB hard drive is about 8 hours of recording. The 120 GB upgrade gives you 24 hours, well worth the trouble to do the install.