This is a collection of answers to frequently-asked questions about the Edirol R-1 digital recorder. It also provides results of real-life tests, in addition to various usage tips and tricks.
Author/editor: Artemiy Pavlov. Thanks to: Jeff Friedman.
This is a collection of answers to frequently-asked questions about the Edirol R-1 digital recorder. It also provides results of real-life tests, in addition to various usage tips and tricks.
Author/editor: Artemiy Pavlov. Thanks to: Jeff Friedman.
With your R-1 powered on, press [MENU], then scroll to +13:Firmware Ver+. and you will see your OS version there (e.g. 1.03).
You can download it at the following locations:
Note that Roland Japan FTP always has the update much earlier than other sites, but all the supplied documentation is in Japanese. OS itself is equal at all download locations (e.g. interface is in English everywhere).
Read the instructions available at the Roland Clan site or read the official ReadMe file.
According to the measurements performed by an R-1 user with an SRS SR780 signal analyzer (view the original message at the CNet forums), the built-in converters are of a very decent quality. Below is the measured total harmonic distortion (THD) for playback (DA converter) and recording (AD converter):
The frequency response from 20 Hz to 20 kHz appeared to be very flat, with maximum inequalities of 1.1 dB.
Below are real-life recording times with accumulators, reported by various R-1 users.
[accumulator] [recording time] [format] NiMH 2000 mA/h 4 h mp3 (320kbps) 2500 mA/h 6 h 35 m wave (16 bit) Lithium 2900 mA/h 8 h 30 m wave (24 bit) Varta 2000 mA/h 4 h mp3 (320kbps) 1700 mA/h 4 h 36 m n/a
Here is the official Edirol information regarding the relation between the number of shown bricks and the signal level in dB, as of R-1 OS version 1.03.
[brick] [level] blank -infinity..-50.0 1 -50.0..-40.0 2 -40.0..-36.0 3 -36.0..-33.0 4 -33.0..-30.0 5 -30.0..-27.0 6 -27.0..-24.0 7 -24.0..-21.0 8 -21.0..-18.0 9 -18.0..-15.0 10 -15.0..-12.0 11 -12.0..-9.0 12 - 9.0..-6.0 13 - 6.0..-3.0 14 - 3.0..0.0 15 0.0..clip
Edirol officially tested the R-1 with cards of up to 4 GB. However, cards of up to 8 GB capacity are known to work. Though, due to FAT32 filesystem limitations, maximum file size is 2 GB (read the Q/A below for more info).
As of OS 1.03, R-1 will gracefully stop recording and save the file. With OS version prior to OS 1.03 (that has no official support for cards larger than 2 GB) R-1 won't stop recording and the file will not be easily accessible: you'll have to repair the card with your OS utilities and then import this file as raw data (more on this below). So make sure you update your R-1 OS to the latest version.
R-1 will gracefully stop recording (saving a normal file) and then power off.
You may be left with a recording file whose size will be seen as 0 bytes and you will have to perform these following operations:
1. Connect the R-1 to your computer with a USB cable and power it on.
2. Depending on your OS type, perform a disk check/repair procedure:
fsck.vfat -a /dev/sda1where "/dev/sda1" is the disk device that was assigned to the R-1 by the system.
chkdsk Y: /Fwhere "Y" is the drive letter assigned to the R-1 by the system.
3. Launch a sample editor which can load raw sample data, and load the restored file with a specified offset of 44 bytes (if you do not specify the offset, you will get a click sound at the very start of the wave). For example, if you use the free Audacity editor (http://audacity.sf.net), go to Project → Import Raw Data, then browse to the restored file, click "OK" and in the next dialogue specify the bitrate (16 or 24 bits as you recorded), little-endian byte order, 2 channels (stereo), start offset: 44 bytes, amount: 100%, sample rate: 44100 KHz.