JOHN MCCUBBERY: Okay. Well, at this AES, Korg is showing two 1-bit recorders that are now shipping: the MR-1 which is the more small-profile 1-bit recorders, and the MR-1000, which is the most professional high-spec 1 bit recorder that's available at the moment. These recorders are both two-track and record in a multiple of formats: PCM such as, you know, from 1644 to 24, 48, 96, 192, and even MP3s. But the unique feature about these products is that they're recording in 1-bit format. The MR-1 does 2.8 mHz which is the standard for products like Sony's SACD, but this is the first recorder that's released that records at 5.6 mHz, which is the highest 1-bit resolution there is.

And the thing about these 1-bit recorders is that they record every frequency from 0 DC offset to 100 kHz, no filters, no EQ, no change of the sound. What goes in is exactly what is stored. Both units have hard drives built in. The MR-1 has a 20-GB hard drive. The MR-1000 has a 40-GB hard drive, which even recording at 5.6 mHz still gives you a few hours of stereo recording. The MR-1 has two mic/lines in, headphones out, and a menu control that's operated by the joy wheel and buttons here. The MR-1000 has balanced I/O and unbalanced, phantom power for the inputs.

Both recorders ship with a software program called Audio Gate, a crossplatform software program. It's not as easy to say as it sounds, and it takes through USB all of the audio from your MR-1 or MR-1000 into the computer, and then I can just simply go to the export button here, and then convert through the drop-down menu down to 24/192, 16-bit down to 44 or even MP3.

Now, it's a strange thing to say that you're going to go down to 24/192 when for all other people that's currently the highest standard there is, but in fact there are virtually no true 24-bit A to D converters on the market. They're all 1-bit and they sample at 2.8 mHz and then they have a decimation filter inside that cuts out 90% of the audio to store at 24-bit/192. And the difference between the quality of A-to-D converters typically is the difference of the decimation filters, so a converter that sounds better has got better decimation, but still it's decimating.

So, not only do you get extraordinary analog quality sound in a digital format, but using Audio Gate, you future-proof your mix, and the reason it's future-proof is by being 1-bit, everything is stored. At any point, you can go back and take it down from there to 24- or 16-bit, and today the standard might be 192,000 samples a second. In a few years, it could be 24/382, 386 or whatever it is, and the 1-bit still has more data, so you future-proof your recordings.

The 40-GB hard drive or 20-GB hard drive goes through USB into your computer using DSD, an industry standard 1-bit format. And once inside, you can just burn that as a data file onto a DVD or Blu-Ray disc or HD DVD for storage for as long as you want as long as you make regular backups.

So, Korg's broken out of the MI field, but we have some engineers in house that studied with the guy in Tokyo who invented 1-bit recording, and already we've got some serious mastering and mixing houses that are using the MR-1000 to their final mixes and masters.