Topic: Korg MR-1

[62v8]

My MR-1 is being shipped today ... So what do I need to know about this thing? battery life how is it? etc etc....

Chris

I road tested my Rode NT4>MR1 on a 2 set (2.5 hrs) Bob Dylan Revue @ Pine Inn, Sydney.
MR1 was running on a 5V external battery rated at 6.8 Watt/hr plugged into the 5V input (see http://www.global-batteries.com.au/index.php/cPath/10/sort/2a/page/1 and yes they do have US/Euro distribution)

The internal battery barely got touched.

Maybe at some point I'll grab their 14.4W version which is just as cheap and will run the MR1 well past it's 20G hard drive.

OK if you are running internal battery for anything clocking 2hrs or more you'd be a little worried.
For $30-$40 it doesn't have to be an issue any longer and for me it's certainly no deal breaker.
 
Cheers
George

[Nick's Picks]

I'd love to hear that George.
I'll be snagggin' the same on 7-1.

[manamana]

here's simple battery life boost... no adapter needed:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147026

seems to have between 1/4 and 1/3 the power draw of a std. HD.

If I wasn't broke I'd probably switch to an MR-1 with the 16GB version of this.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Cool.. I've just been looking into those SSD's.. Their capacity and price are supposed to Explode this year. Dell has some on their website but the interface wasn't standard.  I had some high spl related hard drive problems recently with some studio recorder gear and was thinking something like that might help...

[SClassical]

Looking at the pictures from Nick the hard drive looks as if it is exactly the same as this:

http://www.productshub.com/Hitachi-Travelstar-C4K60-HTC426020G5CE00/

which you can replace it with this:

http://www.sandisk.com/Oem/Default.aspx?CatID=1478

That's about a $500 upgrade - but I'm sure the price to will drop. If it's about half the price it's worth upgrading. Having a 32GB solid state (SSD) drive in the portable recorder would be great.

I recently got a new laptop (Sony VGN-SZ330P/B) and with it there's a program (SonicStage Mastering Studio), which allows you to convert normal PCM to DSD, record music in DSD etc... It looks as if it allows you to edit DSD files, too. I should play around with it...haven't had a chance yet.

You can read more about it here:
http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/exploration/software/sonicstagems.jsp

[boyacrobat]

db levels all back as im used to seeing on meters.
chris church your help sorting out problem was spot on .
thanks again for support

g

[WiFiJeff]

I recently got a new laptop (Sony VGN-SZ330P/B) and with it there's a program (SonicStage Mastering Studio), which allows you to convert normal PCM to DSD, record music in DSD etc... It looks as if it allows you to edit DSD files, too. I should play around with it...haven't had a chance yet.

You can read more about it here:
http://club.vaio.sony.co.uk/clubvaio/GB/en/exploration/software/sonicstagems.jsp

This looks interesting (I wonder if I can upgrade my old Sony VAIO to get this?).  Does it do DSD to PCM?  (And what use is PCM to DSD, can it make the PCM any better?)

Jeff

[edtyre]

Recorded a very quiet show last night with the MR-1 and MK-4's
Chick Corea & Bela Fleck from about 3/4 of the way back
in the venue (Keswick Theater)

Had to bump the gain up to about +14db to get decent levels
and the results are shit, lots of hiss and noise

Wonder how i would have made out with the R-09 in this situation?
maybe i sold my 4061's>MMA6000 too soon 

[SClassical]

This looks interesting (I wonder if I can upgrade my old Sony VAIO to get this?).  Does it do DSD to PCM?  (And what use is PCM to DSD, can it make the PCM any better?)

Jeff

I haven't played around with it yet..but I will check it out this weekend. From what I've read on line it only does PCM and DSD (maybe I'm wrong). If there is no option to do DSD to PCM I hope Sony will provide users with an upgrade in the future if everyone requested it. It's still new and it's their version 1. What I know is it can edit DSD files with the .dsf extension and burn it on a DVD for playback in SonicStage Mastering Studio and Windows Media Player. So I guess this is good for sending DSD files to people who don't have the Audio Gate software. Everyone can listen to your DSD track on DVD rather than listening to your DSD>redbook CDRs.
Sony actually said that converting red book to DSD sounds better (don't know if that's true). Also this program allows you to convert your old analogue tapes and LPs to DSD DVDs.
So from what I know now is that this program helps us trade or send DSD music to people with WMP in their computers - making our DSD music discs universal.
If your old sony has "Sony® Sound Reality™ - Audio Enhancer" you will be able to use this program fully.

Had to bump the gain up to about +14db to get decent levels
and the results are shit, lots of hiss and noise

Wonder how i would have made out with the R-09 in this situation?
maybe i sold my 4061's>MMA6000 too soon 

+14dB is high!!! When I 1st got my mr-1 I was playing around with gain settings and I realized that the higher you set your gain the worse it sounded. My worse recordings had gain as high as 15dB. Now I keep my Mr-1 gain at zero dB and adjust the levels by changing the external preamp gain - now my recordings sounds amazing.
I don't think your recording will sound that much better if you were using 4061>MMA6000 or R-09 because you were far from the stage and the music was very soft. What preamp were you using with your MR-1 and MK4? If you were sitting close with better gain settings (with a good preamp) I'm sure you would have been very pleased with your recording.

[edtyre]

Had to bump the gain up to about +14db to get decent levels
and the results are shit, lots of hiss and noise

Wonder how i would have made out with the R-09 in this situation?
maybe i sold my 4061's>MMA6000 too soon 

+14dB is high!!! When I 1st got my mr-1 I was playing around with gain settings and I realized that the higher you set your gain the worse it sounded. My worse recordings had gain as high as 15dB. Now I keep my Mr-1 gain at zero dB and adjust the levels by changing the external preamp gain - now my recordings sounds amazing.
I don't think your recording will sound that much better if you were using 4061>MMA6000 or R-09 because you were far from the stage and the music was very soft. What preamp were you using with your MR-1 and MK4? If you were sitting close with better gain settings (with a good preamp) I'm sure you would have been very pleased with your recording.

I have the nbox+ which has a fixed 20db gain, and works great for loud shows where my settings have
been around zero db to -3.0 db. Got a free ticket at the last minute and really enjoyed the show, shame
i didn't have a closer seat. I mostly tape loud shows so this isn't going to be a problem in the future
but i'll get a chance next month to do an acoustic show, so i'll just have to get in a better position to
make a nice recording.

[Sanjay]

It seems then you are in a unique situation.  Stepped gain really is a necessity for many of these recorders with inferior preamps.   Perhaps record at 0db of added gain and see what you can add in post.  You'll bring the noise floor up for sure, but you won't get additional noise from the preamps.  I suspect that with DSD the noise floor won't be as bad as with 24 bit or 16bit when you do this.

Or buy a pre to go between the nbox and your recorder.... but i'd suggest the other alternative.

[Church-Audio]

Had to bump the gain up to about +14db to get decent levels
and the results are shit, lots of hiss and noise

Wonder how i would have made out with the R-09 in this situation?
maybe i sold my 4061's>MMA6000 too soon 

+14dB is high!!! When I 1st got my mr-1 I was playing around with gain settings and I realized that the higher you set your gain the worse it sounded. My worse recordings had gain as high as 15dB. Now I keep my Mr-1 gain at zero dB and adjust the levels by changing the external preamp gain - now my recordings sounds amazing.
I don't think your recording will sound that much better if you were using 4061>MMA6000 or R-09 because you were far from the stage and the music was very soft. What preamp were you using with your MR-1 and MK4? If you were sitting close with better gain settings (with a good preamp) I'm sure you would have been very pleased with your recording.

I have the nbox+ which has a fixed 20db gain, and works great for loud shows where my settings have
been around zero db to -3.0 db. Got a free ticket at the last minute and really enjoyed the show, shame
i didn't have a closer seat. I mostly tape loud shows so this isn't going to be a problem in the future
but i'll get a chance next month to do an acoustic show, so i'll just have to get in a better position to
make a nice recording.

I have found with my preamp anything above +12.50 db on the Mr-1 produces a faint hiss. This is the built in preamp in the MR-1 not my preamp but I find that for most things 32.5 db is enough if you have set the sampling rate high you should be able to boost as much as 12 to 15db max with out introducing much if any noise... This is the advantage of the higher sampling rate.. I find. So with 32.5 db in record and +10 to +15 in post thats more then enough gain for most types of shows..

Chris
It all really depends on your +20 db of gain on your preamp if its got a good noise floor of say -100 or so you should be ok..

[mwz]

back of the unit - just above the FCC warnings.  Mine is a sticker in the little box centered above the FCC warning, 2/3's down from the top.

[mwz]

   yep - on the box as well.

[gmm6797]

just rub it in