Korg Forums

[Korg MR-1 1-bit]

12/06/2008 - If you are here, it is because your KORG recorder (or other device) is not connecting through your USB to your PC and you are receiving the message, New Hardware Found - Cypress AT2LP RC42.

My KORG MR-1 recorder is about one year old. When trying to connect to my PC (Windows) by USB from my KORG MR-1 recorder, this past weekend, I received the message, New Hardware Found - Cypress AT2LP RC42. After exchanging e-mails, I am waiting for Brian at KORG support to return this Monday to finish assisting me in resolving this problem. I will let you know what his response is. I backup regularly in case the MR-1's hard drive ever failed. And, I use a second recorder as a backup as well. I prefer the MR-1 for its quality and ease of recording.

If anyone viewing this has encountered this message, New Hardware Found - Cypress AT2LP RC42, with their KORG recorder or other device (when connecting through the USB to their PC), please let me know of your experience or outcome. Thanks for your reply.

12/16/2008 - I spoke with Brian today. He said that he is not the technician servicing Korg MR-1 recorders. He suggested that I call back Monday to speak with Matt. I'll keep my fingers crossed. The MR-1 works except for communicating through the USB with my PC.

12/23/2008 - After speaking with Matt at Korg Support today, he recommended that I place the Korg MR-1 recorder into a service center for hardware repair. After taking the MR-1 to the repair center today, the technician said that it would be about two weeks to see what it will take to repair the MR-1, if it can be repaired.

01/05/2008 - The repair technician said that the PC board should be replaced at a cost $189.00. The part is currently on backorder with Korg.

Note: On November 6, 2007, this Korg MR-1 recorder was purchased at B&H PhotoVideo for $699.00. On January 16, 2009, the Korg MR-1 recorder is being offered by B&H PhotoVideo for $299.00. I have as yet to submit my review on the B&H PhotoVideo web site for my Korg MR-1 recorder.

02/07/2008 - Repaired MR-1 returned at a cost of $85, under warranty. I believe that I received a new replacement instead of my old one being repaired by the technician because my p-wheel now works without skipping. About one-half of the old p-wheel did not work before. Turn one-half with movement in the menus and turn one-half with no movement. Now, it moves totally as it should have been scrooling through the menus in the beginning. Anyway, my current MR-1 works okay, but the internal battery life is now less than two hours. I could record to about 2 3/4 hours on the old MR-1's internal battery.

02/28/2009 - I'm now using the external battery pack (with four fresh AA batteries) and a fully charged internal battery to record less than three hours. If this battery combination goes beyond three hours, the recorder fails to shutdown properly and no recording is made. I am afraid to use the MR-1 beyond this point (any time greater than three hours) without recharging the internal battery.

[ksi]

It seems that the same has happened to my MR-1 digital recorder.

I've used the MR-1 for about two months, and I made a couple of records with it. Everything worked fine, and I could connect it to the computer, too.

However, something must have happened to the recorder, because suddenly it was no longer recognized by the computer when connecting via USB. Tried to connect it on different computers with different platforms (Linux (Gentoo, Ubuntu), Windows), but no success. The Linux machines show the "Cypress AT2LP RC42" message, and the Windows machine just reports a hardware failure.

I also tried resetting the recorder, and reformatting the harddisk, but the USB problem remained.

So now I have sent the recorder to my dealer for repair, and I hope I'll have it back soon. However, there are some questions that I'm still concerned about:

How do I know that the USB problem will not occur again?
Has anyone experienced that the problem occured again after a repair?

How am I supposed to access my records in dff format, which I transferred to my computer at the time when the MR-1 was still accessible via USB. I cannot use Audiogate on them without a working USB connection to the recorder, can I?

[Korg MR-1 1-bit]

[b]How do I know that the USB problem will not occur again? [/b]

It did for me. The USB problem recurred, and I churned through another burned PC board. Because as I noted in February 2009 report, I kept using the external battery pack.

I was okay with using the MR-1 with the external battery pack. And, not using the them together more than three hours. But, the internal battery failed while using the external battery pack. When the internal battery failed, the scenerio of the failed PC board repeated itself.

My experience is that the PC board fails on the MR-1 when the battery pack does not allow the MR-1 to not shut down properly.

So, my advice is now: DO NOT USE AN EXTERNAL BATTERY PACK ON THE KORG MR-1 RECORDER.

[b]Has anyone experienced that the problem occured again after a repair?[/b]

Yes, I have had the PC board on Korg MR-1 recorder repaired twice. Each time the PC board failed, I was using the external battery pack. The MR-1 shuts down properly with the internal battery, but, for me, it does not shut down properly with the external battery pack. The use of the external battery pack prevents the MR-1 from shutting down properly and, subsequently, damages the PC board.

[b]How am I supposed to access my records in dff format, which I transferred to my computer at the time when the MR-1 was still accessible via USB. I cannot use Audiogate on them without a working USB connection to the recorder, can I?[/b]

That is correct. You will have to wait until your repaired MR-1 is returned back to you before you can access your file through Audiogate. The MR-1 must be attached to your PC (via USB) while you use Audiogate to access and edit your file.

So, I continue to use my Korg MR-1 recorder, but I do so without attaching the external battery pack. I checked over the weekend, and Korg still offers the MR-1 recorder on their web site, but I note that B&H Photo, where I purchased and reviewed mine, no longer offers the Korg MR-1 recorder for sale, although they do still offer the external battery pack for the MR-1 for sale.

I have as yet to review the external battery pack there.

My costs for maintaining the Korg MR-1 recorder (two PC boards and one internal battery) have far exceeded the cost for buying the product. Thankfully, I have not had any more problems with my MR-1 since I stopped using the external battery pack. I am able to record over 2 1/2 hours while using the latest replaced internal battery.

Thank you for your questions. My reply to them has allowed me to keep others updated on my experiences with the Korg MR-1 recorder. I hope that you and other MR-1 owners post their experiences and updates, as well.

[ksi]

[MonoPolyMan]

[nmeronek]

It happened to me on a Korg MR-1000. I shut it down while plugged into the wall. When I powered it up on batteries at home to listen to my recording of the evening, i noticed it said it was trying to connect to the usb. There was no usb cable plugged into it at the time so something was wrong. After canceling out of the usb mode and looking for my recordings i got a fatal system error. I could not get it to work on a usb port on a computer to copy my files off. The device after that would still play the recordings as long as I turned it on with the usb cable connected to a computer at startup. Otherwise it wouldn't find the hard drive in it. Still I couldn't copy my files off of it. It just needed the usb cable to boot properly. Sometimes I could get it to start without a usb cable plugged into my computer and the hard drive would be working for the play/ record functions. It was hit and miss.

After doing some research I found out that the Cypress AT2LP RC42 is an error message that is shown when the Cypress chip looses its programming. The cypress chip is some sort of usb controller chip that reads its instructions for communicating with the HD from an EEPROM. As long as the Cypress chip can read the EEPROM all you see is the storage device and not a cypress chip. This can happen with a power failure or in my case no reason at all. I found the information by researching the Cypress AT2LP RC42 window driver install issue and leaving out anything to do with Korg. Lots of people have problems with usb portable HD's that fail due to this. This solution is not always going to work on every piece of hardware but it worked for me just now. So I would like to share it with you.

Be warned that this could make the problem worse by making windows unable to detect the korg unit at all. I never had any problems with it but you never know. I bought my Korg MR-1000 within the first 6 months of release. If korg is using any different hardware now this fix could fail.

Before i found this info I called about getting a new system board and they cost about $500 with most likely a 12 week back order notice. Thats just the board and no service tech putting it in.

http://daltrey.org/linux/cypress.html

You download a self extracting zip file with the files you need in it. This whole system is basically like flashing a BIOS on your computer. The utility comes from Cypress but they only give it to manufactures so you have to find it else where. The zip file contains the driver needed to show the flash utility how to flash the hardware, a flash program called primer.exe, and an image file along with some other extra ini files and stuff.

Make sure the Korg unit is in USB mode.
I extracted the files from the zip file to the C Drive on a windows XP machine. From there I tried to install the korg using the driver given in the zip file. It failed to install because the EEPROM was corrupted. I had to force the install by selecting what type of hardware it was manually. The driver has to be installed first for this to work.

After that I unplugged the usb cable from the korg and rebooted the computer. When windows came back up i ran the Primer.exe program that sat on the screen waiting for me to plug in the korg unit. When I plugged in the korg unit the EEPROM on the korg was flashed and the program said it was finished. The flashing process took less than 5 seconds. Then I rebooted everything including the korg unit and it started working again as a storage drive. The EEPROM that is flashed is only for the Cypress chip and not the whole korg OS.

It appears that Cypress AT2LP RC42 is being replaced by a different chip with a different number at the end. The primer program and EEPROM image file has to match the chip you have, so if windows is trying to install something other than "Cypress AT2LP RC42" then you need to find the correct zip file for your hardware.

In my case there was no bad hardware in the korg, just a corrupted EEPROM for the Cypress chip. Everything works again for me. If things arn't working, reboot again. I rebooted several times playing around with this tool for about an hour before I got it to work.

Good Luck

[Henry Olonga]

Dude.You deserve a medal. Worked just as you described. Awesome advice.
_________________
www.henryolonga.net

[Mberg]

I also got this Cypress problem. My computer does not find the hard disk in my MR1000
I fix this error with help from Cypress website: http://www.cypress.com/?rID=38494
Everything works fine except now I can not get AUTHORIZATION of new installed AudioGate software.
Have someone got the same experience?
Hopefully will Korg fix this problem in next version of AudioGate because it looks not like a hardware problem.

[Miki Mart]

Hi there,

I have the same problem with my MR-1.

Please, does anybody know the MR-1 VID (Vendor Identification) and PID (Process Identifier)?

I contacted American Korg, Italian Korg, Dealers, Retailers, Tech Supports.

Nobody knows them, maybe because I should send my unit to a Korg Customer Service and give them good money for doing something I may do myself sitting in front of my PC at no cost at all...

Thank you for your help.