Topic: Korg MR-1000

[rokpunk]

i predict the price on these will drop even further due to the low dealer cost on these.
neat lookin' unit, though.

[guysonic]

My wish list includes a deck with BOTH hard drive AND flash card RECORDING ability. 

This is where recording can be selected to ONLY write to flash card for additional reliability/battery run time, AND then have ability to BACKUP the lower capacity flash card to the huge capacity hard drive LATER when adequate power and vibration free mechanical stability is more assured.

[jerrythek]

At the recent NAB show, staff at the Korg booth said
the MR-1000 is selling for less than $1000, even close
to $900, from Korg's retailers.  I haven't found any
that low, but don't accept the advertised price of
$1200 as the final word.  Ask for a discount!

Flintstone

I'm not sure where you got that impression, I was one of the two staff members at the NAB show.

The list price/full retail for the MR-1000 is $1,499. I see it regularly advertised for around $1,199. No dealer is going to be selling it as low as $900, there must have been some confusion/misunderstanding.

Regards,

Jerry

[jerrythek]

Dang, my first issue with the mr-1000. I too got 'Disk too busy'. I restarted the recording and seemed to run ok.
After a song or two I placed a folded up jacket underneath the unit assuming vibrations was the cause.

Listening back, I've got skipping until I placed the jacket underneath. Mostly ok the rest of the show until
near the end when I got more skipping in the recording...

The unit was positioned on stage fairly close to the drummer and a stage monitor, although we
are not that loud a band at all and I've done multi-tracking in a similar position with no such HDD issues...

So I believe the mr-1000 HDD is overly sensitive to vibrations. Dang-nabbit!

So we need better shock absorbing for the HDD... Jerry, are you listening? Someone else reported this
issue as well.

Anyone else have this issue with a solution? Seems like a shock absorbing case is going to be needed here
and/or better gromits inside.

Thanks,
Mandoman

OK, I've here - I don't chekc in every day so I'm sorry you were waiting for me.

I see a lot of assumptions going on here, let's try to cut to what we actually know. I checked with the engineers and this "Disk Too Busy" may actually be part of a pre-1.50 bug, and not related to vibration. It seems we had received some reports about this and it was fixed in 1.50. I just heard back from them and the people who reported the problem have now reported that it has gone away with the new OS. So I'd ask you to first update and then check things out and report back here.

We chose the 1.8" drives specifically because they are more resistant to vibration as compared to 2.5" and other drive formats. And we mounted the HDD with anti-shock material called Sorbothane to enhance the tolerance. So while we cannot guarantee no shock/vibration issues with a device that uses a moving drive, we feel that this software fix is actually the issue, and not a mechanical one. Let's all confirm together, OK?

regards,

Jerry

[mandoman]

OK, I've here - I don't chekc in every day so I'm sorry you were waiting for me.

I see a lot of assumptions going on here, let's try to cut to what we actually know. I checked with the engineers and this "Disk Too Busy" may actually be part of a pre-1.50 bug, and not related to vibration. It seems we had received some reports about this and it was fixed in 1.50. I just heard back from them and the people who reported the problem have now reported that it has gone away with the new OS. So I'd ask you to first update and then check things out and report back here.

We chose the 1.8" drives specifically because they are more resistant to vibration as compared to 2.5" and other drive formats. And we mounted the HDD with anti-shock material called Sorbothane to enhance the tolerance. So while we cannot guarantee no shock/vibration issues with a device that uses a moving drive, we feel that this software fix is actually the issue, and not a mechanical one. Let's all confirm together, OK?

regards,

Jerry

Thanks for chiming in Jerry. I was running firmware 1.50 when I had my issue...
I ran the unit with the same firmware 1.50 two nights before in a quiet environment
with no issues. So I'm pretty sure vibration was the cause in my case.

[carlbeck]

I have to agree, vibration will cause this exact issue. It's obvious the Hdd is insulated well but maybe not well enough? I think this issue needs to be addressed as there are a few people who will be using it for onstage taping, I generally do not but I know plenty of folks who do. I can assure you if people end up with errors on a regular basis it will certainly affect your sales, the perception will be that the unit is not well suited for field use, just something you might want to pass on to the higher ups. Also, Jerry thanks for participating in this forum, I certainly appreciate having someones ear at Korg.

[flintstone]

Hi Jerry,

When I visited the Korg booth, you were being interviewed by some
press representatives.  So I spoke with the other Korg employee, a
young man.  If I got bad information, I'm glad you corrected me.

My feeling is that Korg's retailers have agreed not to advertise
prices lower than $1195.  But it doesn't hurt to ask for a price
break.

Flintstone

[rokpunk]

My feeling is that Korg's retailers have agreed not to advertise
prices lower than $1195.  But it doesn't hurt to ask for a price
break.

Not only do the retailers agree not to advertise them for lower than MAP, but they can loose their contract if they do. Just because a MAP is set, that doesn't mean the item can't be sold for less than that price....it just means they can't advertise it for less.

[simplicisimus]

Dear Jerry,

Thanks for bein' here, and givin' support to final users of this great sounding product.

I was wondering, will there be a software update solution to the problem of monitoring routing matrix inside mr1000. There has to be a monitoring routing matrix in a portable hdd recorder, eg. to choise what you are listening (mono L, mono R, or Stereo L+R (default), & meybe some MS decoding matrix?). Also, there should be a option if a user want to record only one (mono) channel, instead of wasting precious hdd space on stereo file.

This is the options that every professional field sound recorder have, so i don't see the reason not to include these functions on next firmware updates, unless it's not possible ?

many thanks, and hope we'll together make this product - S h i n e !

 

[carlbeck]

I wanted to bump this topic to see how people were feeling about the internal pre's vs. external now that the decks have been in use for a little while longer? I am really curious how the internal compares to the Portico & if it is still as good?

[carlbeck]

Another question, does the TRS 1/4 phone jack input on the MR1000 reduce the signal or not? I tested with some adapters & I could see a DB drop with my XLR>1/4 TRS adapter vs. just straight up XLR in the high & low gain settings. I am wondering if maybe my adapters also attenuate? I have no real way to test this unless I make a pair of TRS/XLR cables.

[TNJazz]

Another question, does the TRS 1/4 phone jack input on the MR1000 reduce the signal or not? I tested with some adapters & I could see a DB drop with my XLR>1/4 TRS adapter vs. just straight up XLR in the high & low gain settings. I am wondering if maybe my adapters also attenuate? I have no real way to test this unless I make a pair of TRS/XLR cables.

The XLR is mic only.  So going in XLR will add a certain amount of fixed gain at it's lowest setting, won't it?  I doubt that your adapters have built in attenuation. 

More likely the fixed gain of the mic input at its lowest setting is greater than the line level signal, which is why you're perceiving a drop in level going in TRS.

[carlbeck]

OK, I made the cables tonight & the 1/4 TRS does in fact have a lower gain setting. I ran one XLR (mic in) & one 1/4 TRS (line in) to find the line in is lower in either high or low gain settings. So it now looks like I need to make a nice right angle TRS cable to female XLR.

[kskreider]

OK, I made the cables tonight & the 1/4 TRS does in fact have a lower gain setting. I ran one XLR (mic in) & one 1/4 TRS (line in) to find the line in is lower in either high or low gain settings. So it now looks like I need to make a nice right angle TRS cable to female XLR.

Carl, out of curiosity, what kind of dB difference are you see between the two?

[carlbeck]

It was hard to tell exactly but one channel was into the "over" while the other was peaking at -12 db so there is quite a difference between the Mic in & Line in.