A440

It would be great to hear what a first-rate mic sounds like with MD. Could you post a recording to the Gallery? If you can, use high-bitrate mp3 or .flac.

If you can play from the disc, then hook up the USB and SonicStage, get TotalRecorder for $11.95, play the disc back with SonicStage and use TotalRecorder to record the tracks as .wav files . Then you have them for copying, burning, etc. http://www.highcriteria.com/ Finding the data files with Windows Explorer (connecting via USB, right-clicking on the MD as a disc drive) won't do any good. The files are encrypted thanks to Sony's ridiculous DRM policy, and only SonicStage or an MD player can play them back as audio. If this is happening on a number of different discs then it may well be a hardware problem. The US guarantee for the NHF800 is 90 days parts and labor, 1 year parts, so unfortunately it could be an expensive fix.

Her mic is "ultra-miniature" and she shouldn't be so paranoid. I've had aisle seats at arena concerts with microphones clipped to my collar, pulling out the MD between songs to make track marks, and ushers don't notice or don't care. Seriously, have her wear something that will camouflage the mic and clip it to a collar, or clip it to a handbag strap. She'll never get a good recording from floor level. If she got it in the door, then she has little to worry about.

Hope you're not reinstalling SonicStage 2.0. Get 3.1 from Sony (first choice) or from the Downloads section (top of the page) here.

That's a one-point stereo mic. A pair of mics that you can separate further, like the BMC-2 or the Microphone Madness equivalent (perhaps the BSM-5), will give you a more enveloping stereo sound but with the same general response. For the next rung up, you'd have to get different capsules, like the Audio-Technicas that Soundprofessionals uses in these: http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/SP-BMC-12 Haven't tried them, but if you want to send me $100 I will.... I've tried battery box--line-in and to me, the results are too quiet to carry around the extra box. Other people swear by them, however.

System Restore definitely messes up SonicStage. But SonicStage 2.0 was awful anyway. Purge it from your computer by following this FAQ: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 Don't forget to remove all the registry entries. Then get SStage 3.1 from Sony (preferred) or from the Downloads link at the top of this page. It does work better. You may also want to use the MDAC repair tool in Downloads, it solves a lot of problems.

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...993entry49993 It will make more sense when you have the MD in your hand. Get the best pair of omnidirectional mics you can afford from www.soundprofessionals.com, www.core-sound.com, www.microphonemadness.com or www.reactivesounds.com . Even basic ones like SoundPros' BMC-2's are fine. Make sure the frequency response is 20-20000 hz. Clip one on each side of your shirt collar, or on either side of a hat, spaced like your ears. Mic-RS attenuator (see the thread)-Mic-in, manual volume 20/30 and you're good to go. The crucial thing is where you are standing at the concert. The mics will only pick up what you are actually hearing, not Shirley Manson's charisma. You can hear recordings and read about settings in the Gallery, link at top of the page.

Well, you can go crazy with that question. My own choice for portable recording--MD-NHF800 and basic omni mics--had to do with size, budget and my preference for removable media rather than a hard-drive-based recorder. I like minidisc because it's pocket-sized and unobtrusive and not monumentally expensive; because it's easy to insert track marks during or after recording, and because the MDs themselves are inexpensive for the amount of storage they offer. I like the MZ-NHF800 because it takes regular AA batteries without an add-on pack. On the other hand, there's the idiot Sony software, with all its restrictions, and the limitations of the MD preamp. For something bigger and more expensive and more flexible in some ways, there's the Marantz PMD660 flash recorder: http://transom.org/tools/recording_intervi...503.pmd660.html Other people like Creative Zen Nomad recorders, which record on a hard drive, and I think Archos and IRiver also make hard-drive recorders. No hurdles on uploading, but if the hard-drive fails you're back to zero. (Of course, if you drop your MD and knock its optical block out of whack you're in trouble too.) Meanwhile, the fanatics at Core Sound have a combination of analog-digital converter and PDA: http://www.core-sound.com/HighResRecorderNews.html#NEWS I'm sure there are other nifty recorders around, too. And if you don't care about portability, you could just plug a microphone into your soundcard and use your computer itself as the recorder with Sonar. In your original post, you were trying to capture classical guitar so that your computer could turn it into notation. Hi-MD and a pair of mics will easily do that with the uploading capability. Your Sharp will do that for recording in realtime. It's not the fanciest equipment, and it's not the ultimate in audiophile high fidelity. But unless you've got hypersensitive ears, you don't need either one to do the job quite nicely.

When you push the Stop button to save the data it goes back to AGC, end of story. Sony hasn't changed this in many generations of MDs and shows no signs of doing so. In the dark? Press Rec-Pause, then hold Menu. Click up two spots (from Edit to Option to Rec Set), hit Enter. Click down one spot. (Rec Volume) and Enter, click down one to Manual Volume and Enter. It will have your old setting if it's above 13/30.

A PDA is a handheld computer like a Palm Pilot or Ipaq that can download and upload information to your desktop. The information goes via the USB port, so that could confuse SonicStage. Can you use Edit on that disc at all with the MD unit? Erase All? If not, hook up via SonicStage again and see if Sonic Stage is still seeing tracks that you can erase.

I'm joining those who have given up on Hi-MD discs for crucial recordings. I recorded a (staid, seated) concert in PCM on a 1GB disc and it created a fraction-of-a-second silent glitch near the end of one track. SonicStage 3.1 tagged it as uploaded but didn't completely upload it--there's no .oma file for it. Since it's still on the disc I tried the Total Recorder method but Sonic Stage stops playback at the glitch. And of course now I can't edit out the glitch on the disc because it's locked by SS. I'm glad I made track marks during the show--otherwise the whole second half would have been unavailable. Called Sony, which suggested I record it analog. Gosh, I never would have thought of that myself. I suggested they make products that work as advertised. Maybe those cute new blue transparent discs will work better, but I'm not counting on it.

Yes, the attenuator is lowering the voltage from MD to mic. That's how it lowers the volume on the headphones it's supposed to be used with. Your friend's mics sound very music-friendly--or is it a mono mic??? But it is sensitive. If she is recording music with any significant bass, then her mic preamp will overload without something to limit the incoming signal. I used Low Sens and Manual Volume of 10/30 with no attenuator at a Norah Jones concert--not exactly headbanging stuff--and the bass drum still overloaded the preamp every time it was ever so gently thumped. So her choices are the attenuator through Mic-In (small, imperfect, works for me) or a battery box through Line-In (bigger, better, but recordings will still be pretty quiet). If she goes directly into mic-in at a standard rock concert I can promise that she'll regret it. I still think her problem was having the mic on the floor. Your ECM-719, on the other hand, has a frequency response of 100-15,000 Hz. That means it's not getting the bottom two octaves of bass, which is how Sony gets around its preamp problems. You could try recording without an attenuator and see if you overload. Cranking up the bass on your stereo should tell you.

You should try SonicStage anyway--3.1, not whatever comes on the disc with your Hi-MD. The worst case is that you would have to uninstall it if it didn't work.

http://www.core-sound.com/mics.html I don't think smaller than a dime will be too big for you. Core Sound was a pioneer in portable/stealth recording and takes pride in its reputation for quality. It is also somewhat more expensive than its competitors. While I realize you don't want to juggle a lot of choices, it also might be worth looking at similar setups--high quality omni mics and battery box-- from www.soundprofessionals.com , whose better microhones use Audio-Technica capsules, like these: http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/SP-BMC-12 plus, if you want, a battery box. Or just try the mics alone through mic-in and see how they work for you, and then add a battery box if you want to try going through Line-In instead. With good mics and a good recorder, you won't need to upgrade--it's doing the job you want it to do, right? Eventually, to get your recordings quickly onto the PC so you can burn CDs, etc. then you're going to want to upgrade from your current MD recorder to a Hi-MD. Meanwhile, as long as you're happy with the MD as the final destination of the recording, you can safely ignore any further technological excitement.

For recording music, mic noise is nothing to be paranoid about. The music, and probably the ambient noise unless you're recording in an extremely well soundproofed studio, will very likely drown it out. Recording distant birdcalls is another story. I've never had a Church Audio preamp to try. I keep hoping someone on this board will get one and report how it works. If I remember correctly, one of the reasons it is cheaper than most other preamps is that it only has fixed gain settings--+20dB on or off--rather than adjustable ones. As for mic noise: There are two sources of mic hiss. One is the mic itself. Nothing will fix that--though you may be able to lessen it when editing your recording, afterward, with an equalizer. If you run a noisy mic through a preamp then you'll also amplify the noise. But with a decent pair of mics, like everybody's basic omnis, it should be minimal unless you are recording ultra-quiet sounds. Sony brand mics can be noisy--you can do better elsewhere. The other noise from mic recording is from the mic preamp in the MD. This, too, is negligible in anything but very quiet recordings, and you're lucky: Sharp preamps are said to be better than Sony preamps. But if you are recording very quiet sounds, then an external preamp run through line-in will eliminate that noise. If you have the budget, get little Core Sound Binaurals--not the low cost version. That should give you a good quiet mic with its own power source that you can run through Line-In, bypassing the preamp. If those recordings turn out too quiet--but I doubt they will for the music you mention--then you could add a preamp.

I'd bet that greenmachine has found the problem: putting the mic on the floor. The sound is horrible there: muffled by the bodies of everyone in the room, bouncing around under the chairs. You wouldn't want to listen to a concert from there, and neither does your MD. Get it out in the open air. Another question, though: what kind of mic is your friend using? If it's already a low sensitivity mic then the attenuator is probably doing more harm than good. And if it's the kind of mic that's supposed to record meetings or dictation rather than music, nothing is going to improve it. Here in the U.S., I don't have a Maplins attenuator to experiment with, but since headphone-out jacks work in the same range internationally--possibly putting out even less power in the UK with the EU volume restrictions--I would doubt that its resistance is much greater than the Radio Shack version. But my mics are high-sensitivity, full-frequency range mics, and different mics will have different results.

Fixed the post above. Negative numbers scrambled my brain.

Don't forget the NHF800, which is the same as the NH700 with an FM radio. (Either the NH700 or the NHF800 is available in various countries, usually not both.) The recording capabilities of all the Hi-MDs are the same. Other features like display, battery, remote and headphone amp for playback (which won't matter if you're uploading) are different. Look in the Browser tab on the minidisc.org homepage for detailed feature comparisons--but basically, whatever you can find (except NH600 or NH600D) will work for you. You'll also need a microphone with any MD recorder. Best bang for the buck is the Sound Professionals BMC-2, at www.soundprofessionals.com or on Ebay from soundpro99 (search Titles and Descriptions). Omnis/binaurals will give you a good enveloping nature recording. Get a mic on a cord, not one that sits directly on the machine. It needs to be separated from the MD unit so it won't pick up machine noise. Put the two little mics about 6 inches apart, like your ears, and you'll get a very realistic stereo recording.

The fundamental idea is to get as much of the original sound as you can and do as little to it as possible. If you get a clear recording with a pair of good microphones straight into mic-in, that is absolutely all you need. Fixing something afterward is always the second choice. Then why are so many other gadgets for sale? Because the built-in MD preamps behind the Mic-in jack have some limitations: (A) and ( B ) A) MD preamps can't handle a lot of bass. So you have three choices: (1) lower the whole signal going in equally, (2) Get a battery box and go through line-in, bypassing the preamp or (3) get rid of the troublesome bass and go through mic-in. (1) Attenuator: attenuates or lowers the incoming signal. Upside: it works for all but the most deafening music. Downside: it lowers the amount of power going to the mic and may limit the mic's dynamic range. If the music is extremely loud, which is to say jet-engine or hip-hop club loud, then the mic may overload because it's getting less power. (2) Battery box. Gives the mic extra power, allowing it to handle louder sounds and a fuller dynamic range. Can run through Line-in. Downside: a considerably quieter recording, which may have to be artificially boosted afterward. Also another box to carry, another connection to go wrong. (3) Bass roll-off. Eliminates or severely lowers the amount of bass going in. Upside is that the preamp is less likely to overload. Downside is that the bass is gone forever and the music sounds tinny. Want to hear bass roll-off messing things up? Listen to the B-52's minus their rhythm section: http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs/gs...eo1.htm#samples Kind of like chopping off your feet at the ankles to get through a low doorway, when you could simply bend your knees. If your recording isn't overloaded but you think it has too much bass, you are much better off using an equalizer afterward to adjust it. (Also, it's not called bass roll-off, but some mics--little Sonys in particular--only go down to 100 Hz, effectively eliminating 20Hz-100Hz, the bass register. Makes the MDs overload less often, but at the direct expense of fidelity.) ( B ) The built-in mic preamp is also a little noisy. It's negligible for loud sounds but not for quiet ones. For the cleanest recording of quiet sounds, get an outboard preamp. (Most preamps now also include a battery box to power the mic. But battery boxes do not necessarily include preamps.)

Greenmachine's omnis are similar to basic omnis (also called binaurals) like the Soundprofessionals BMC-2 and similar mics from www.microphonemadness.com , www.core-sound.com , www.reactivesounds.com and elsewhere. For all the instrumental combinations you mention, if you don't have to worry about shutting out noise from behind you and the room acoustics are good, a pair of omnis will do your job. Be sure to get clips with them so you can place them apart for good stereo. A source as loud as a big band is likely to need something to keep the MD's preamp from overloading. You can get an attenuator (see the pinned thread for Radio Shack Volume Attenuator) or for maximum fidelity--to completely bypass the preamp behind Mic-In--you could then get a preamp/battery box combination like Reactive's Boost Box or one of the Sound Professionals preamps and run through Line-In. Putting the mic on a cord will reduce engine noise from the machine, but not hiss from the mic--that's coming from the mic itself.

I can't seem to download your attachments for the moment, but I'll try it again later. Were you using Manual Volume? I don't know what the display reads on the RH10, but when you are using Manual Volume on the NHF800 it always reads x/30. Maybe it's different on the RH10. Radio Shack doesn't call it an attenuator: It's a Headphone Volume Control, and it looks exactly like the gizmo under my signature. There's no reason to add it unless you're overloading.

Can't say for sure, but looks promising. I have Shure E3s, and to use them on a plane I plugged in my Radio Shack attenuator, so I suspect this has the same level of resistance. That big volume control might be a little clunkier than the Radio Shack, but if it's more durable it would be worth it. Someone's going to have to experiment. Maybe you?

Use this to convert: http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=12 You can select all the files in a folder at once and have it convert them. Look at the settings and make sure it's not deleting your original ("source") file.

Perhaps someone here knows what these blanks are, and whether they're even MDs at all. I asked the seller for the brand name and the reply was "Digital Media." Uh huh. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

This thread: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8071 tells you how to uninstall every bit of SonicStage. Make sure you follow through and get rid of all the registry entries . Then get SonicStage 3.1 here. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=9586 OpenMG is part of SonicStage. You can also get SonicStage 3.1 here: http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/files.php?cat=2 But if you have a high-speed internet connection you're better off getting it directly from Sony. Also replace the NVidia driver as explained above.