Topic: KORG MR-1 pt.II

[DavidNJ]

No input. I have two, so one, no problem, the other, no signal.

[H₂O]

Never heard of that issue - What are you feeding it?

[DavidNJ]

Mic output. Usually lav. Otherwise with XLR to unbalanced TRS (R unconnected).

[DavidNJ]

May have found the problem. One of the cables had a transformer, so the resistance couldn't tell be the wiring. On the balanced side it had +/- (red/white) to one side of the transformer, and ground and the lead from the cable to the other. Ground was connected to the shield which in turn went to the sleeve on a 3.5mm TRS. The problem may be that tip and ring are both linked the the yellow transformer output (there is a buried resistor between the yellow lead and the shield, which is connected to the other side on the secondary. If going into a TS it would have had both leads going to sleeve.

Would that have caused the problem? Would taking a stereo to mono airplane connector and just using the tip side avoid that problem?

With the other jacks the worst would have been connecting negative to ground.

[rocket]

tested with a 2GB silicondriveII CF card, recorded in WSD till full, played back smoothly. sustained write speed is 6MB/s according to the data sheet, more than enough for the ~672kB/s of stereo DSD64. card is ATA-5 and i have a feeling success in running this mod has more to do with ATA standards than random write speeds or SLC/MLC. will try again with a higher capacity – this card only holds about 48 minutes in 1-bit.

update 16.03.24 – tested a 32GB sandisk ultra 50MB/s CF card with a two-hour WSD recording. recording went well, closing the file went well, playback went well. i'm satisfied that this works. using a generic IDE ZIF adapter bought over amazon.

between this CF card replacement and an earlier battery replacement (EEMB 963450), this recorder feels new and modern again. nothing else in its size that i've seen has balanced inputs, so even imagining a replacement is a tall order even before taking into account binary recording. opening it up i was surprised and impressed by the RF shielding inside. it's a shame the included mic isn't shielded at all.

i owe everyone in this thread a debt of gratitude. i wouldn't have attempted either mod without you all.

[rocket]

so far, i can only get a CF card to work in software version 1.0.1, the later versions just freeze up on me and none of their updates are worth going back to the original HDD for me so i've downgraded back to 1.0.1, which is still available at korg's support site.

[goodcooker]

If you need a battery solution to go with your recorder I can walk you through what's needed to do this external but still wired to internal battery hack that came up with for the MR1 in this thread - https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=133941.msg2365005#msg2365005

[beatkilla]

I have a MR-2 which uses 2 AA batteries and a SD card I can sell if that’s helpful.

[rocket]

If you need a battery solution to go with your recorder I can walk you through what's needed to do this external but still wired to internal battery hack that came up with for the MR1 in this thread - https://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=133941.msg2365005#msg2365005

ooh, i like that. i think maybe i'd run a molex out to the edge of the case to do something a little more modular. i've had issues powering through the barrel jack while recording in the past, it'd be good to bypass it.

[rocket]

i've successfully modded two more MR-1s this way. i had to downgrade each back to software version 1.01 to get it to work. someday, someone good at hex editing may be able to incorporate some changes from the later versions but keep the drive formatting of 1.01. that someone will not be me. till then, there are known adapters, known cards and a known software version that work, to bring the MR-1 more up to speed with the hardware of the present.

for my battery mods, the batteries i had have too large a connector, so i cut the old and new battery cables and spliced the old connector to the new battery. applied heatshrink and it works like a charm.

in combination, these mods cut 30g out of the unit's weight, which takes some getting used to.

[jb63]

I'd love to see pictures fo these battery mods!
I have a drawer full of MR1s that I don't know what to do with.
They have different amounts of charge left in their batteries and ALL of them want me to use deoxit on the scroll wheel before taking them to a gig.