A440

It looks like it's supposed to do the same thing. Whether it's actually the same resistance as the RS version is impossible to tell. But if you can spare 2.99 for research, it would be great to get one and try it. Hell, you can always use it later as a ...headphone volume control.

Well, I didn't think of something basic. The specs on the Sony ECM-MS907 include a frequency response of 100-15,000 Hz. Your new mics are 20-20,000. So yes, they are bassier--they are picking up two octaves of bass below what the Sony was. If you've gotten used to the MS907 you've gotten used to a recorded sound with the equivalent of a bass roll-off at 100 Hz. I go to a lot of concerts, and when I hear recordings with that much bass roll-off, they sound tinny to me. So while they do sound different, your new mics are probably more realistic (unless for some reason they're biased to pick up more at the bottom end, which seems unlikely). I haven't run the comparison with and without the attenuator because without the attenuator, even a modest amount of bass causes distortion from the preamp, and I seem to get clear bass with my mics (SP BMC-2, which use the same basic Panasonic capsules as yours do). With the attenuator, levels of 20/30 usually work fine for even the most blasting rock. I don't know what kind of display the MZ-N910 has, but your levels should be peaking about 3/4 of the way up to full. Did you get bass distortion from the music on your stereo with the RS gizmo? If you didn't, and you were really blasting, maybe you can do without it. Practically speaking, if I were you I'd carry the attenuator and a little pair of earbuds and try some opening acts with and without the attenuator and see what works. Recording a concert won't be like recording your stereo--there's a lot of ambient noise, and that's going to affect fidelity a lot more than the attenuator. For club sound and pointing the mics, it's really a judgment call when you get there. Is the band getting most of its sound from onstage amps or from the PA? Do you care more about the guitars or the vocals? And how is the actual sound--not the feeling of closeness to the band, not reading the singer's lips--where you are standing? You may be better off back by the soundboard, where the guy doing the mix is judging by his own ears.

You can try using Rec Set/Time Mark with its longest time between marks--60 minutes. It may or may not override the silence sensor through line-in, since apparently it varies with which model you have. Did you edit the recording after trying to upload? Because when I edit on the machine before uploading, there's no problem--it doesn't know the other track marks were ever there. Since you can only upload once, editing afterward on the MD may drive Sonic Stage over the brink, since it writes something on the disc to tell itself they were uploaded. More worrisome is that SS 3.0 crashed and screwed up your upload. Is Sonic Stage constantly crashing on you? Or does it only crash under these circumstances? The Microsoft "response" sounds like pure boilerplate. The first step might be to install SS 3.0 again. Use the installer and when it responds that you have it already installed, tell it to do a complete reinstall anyway. This was how I finally got SS 3.0 to work. If Sonic Stage is still crashing right and left, and you have some time, call up Sony Support and demand that they help you stop the crashes. Your first few levels of tech support will be useless, but if you're persistent they will hook you up with someone who's actually heard of SonicStage.

As close to the max without going over is always the recording engineer's ideal. Try starting with 18/30 and adjust from there.

That's the item. With the volume control all the way up it somehow lowers the signal just enough to keep the preamp from overloading. It's not made for the purpose, and it's flimsy so you should get a spare if they're hard to find. Sooner or later it will start adding static crackle, lose a channel, etc., at which point you can only toss it out and start with a new one. The settings I use at a rock concert, with microphones similar to yours, are: Low Sensitivity Manual Volume 20/30 (look at the level indicator and see that it's registering between the two little dashes and adjust if necessary, but don't be fiddling with it all through the show or you'll hear it) On manual volume, AGC and Standard/Loud Music are overridden. A more theoretically elegant solution is to get a battery box or battery box/preamp and run through Line-In. But this is more portable, and it works.

Ah, "The Boys of Summer." You are experiencing preamp overload: bass notes through a sensitive microphone are too much for the MD's built-in mic preamp to handle. Even recording at low volume, the bass will still overload the preamp. But don't panic. I don't know if you have Radio Shack in England, but what you need is an attenuator: the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control (see my avatar) or equivalent. There's more here, look under Music. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...993entry49993 And even with stubby fingers, you really need to use Manual Volume as mentioned in the FAQ, or you will have very unhappy experiences with drum sounds. It's annoying, but it is worth it. You can hear some live recordings, with binaural mics like yours, at the Yahoo mailbox livefrommd , password 1minidisc1 .

And remember, you can't use the (black 1GB) Hi-MD discs in the R-37. But basic 74-minute MDs will work. If you're doing a transfer from the PC to the NHF-800 via the USB cord, with Sonic Stage or Simple Burner, make sure (under Settings) that the files are being transferred to SP format, not LP2, LP4, or anything else. With Simple Burner, you pop a CD in the computer and transfer it to the MD. With Sonic Stage, you put a CD in the computer, copy it into My Library in Sonic Stage, and then transfer it to the MD.

There's nothing magical about Sony's AC adapter. A generic brand should work. See what the input voltage is--right next to the jack it should say something like DC IN 3V--and take the MD with you to an electronics store and ask for a 3 volt (or whatever it is) adapter. Just make sure the plug fits the jack.

Agreed that MP3--.WAV--ATRAC would be best, but a 30-minute .wav file is going to take a lot of hard-drive space, like around 300 MB. Storyteller, if you do have hard-drive space aplenty, use .wav instead of .mp3, or higher-bitrate mp3 (256 kbps). And you are much better off with SS 2.3 or 3.0 than with 2.1, so Sony actually did you a favor.

This gets more and more puzzling. It's possible that the Hi-Sens setting coupled with the low Rec Volume ended up muffling things, but odd that it would bring out extra bass. I had wondered if you had gotten a different response using the same mics with the older recorder. But since they're new..... Although they're omnis, where they are pointed does make a difference because (correct me if I'm wrong, someone) to my understanding omnis mostly pick up in front and behind rather than equally around 360 degrees. So if bass was somehow echoing off the side walls you'd get more of it. But so would your ears, so that's not much of a theory. Anyway, test the mics with your stereo so we can see how they respond outside combat conditions. Try them with and without the RS, in case that's the culprit too. As for EQ, it's a matter of taste. A bass roll-off will take away what was there, making it impossible to restore; EQ lets you compensate for problems. But as you suggest, it's much better to make a great recording in the first place.

Hi-MD will upload to your PC and give you .wav files. NetMD will not. With NetMD you have to record in realtime out of your headphone jack. It's all here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=6330

You're better off with Low Sensitivity because then the mic preamp isn't working so hard and adding noise. Also: Did you have volume on the attenuator all the way UP? Lower settings on it might muffle the sound a bit. Have you used those mics before with a different setup, and have they been hi-fi before? With that setup, you should basically be getting what's coming through the mics. You could do a test recording with your stereo and the same setup and see how the sound comes out, just to make sure the mics themselves aren't somehow bass-heavy. The key question is whether the sound is significantly different from what you heard in the room. Lots of club sound mixes are too bass-heavy, or if you were up close to the band the PA might have been pointed over your head. Your brain does a lot of decoding that the mics can't do. Is it possible something was muffling the mics on your shirt collar? A jacket or something? Or tall people in front of you? And if they were pointed sideways, left and right, you could also try pointing them more directly at the PA system. The higher you can get them the better, though the shirt collar has generally worked well for me. There is always the option of getting a battery box with bass roll-off if it's a consistent problem. But if it's just a matter of too much bass and it's not distorting, you could also change the equalization settings on playback to lower the bass.

I wish I knew. All I can tell you is that it works (with the volume control all the way up). If someone could get one and measure the resistance, it would be a great addition to MD knowledge.

How do you add the track marks with the p-mode button? Just pressing it adds a track mark?

Those low bitrates often trip up SS. You could try using dbpoweramp (www.dbpoweramp.com) to convert them to 128 kbps mp3s and then loading those via Sonic Stage. The problem is that a second conversion is going to lower the quality further, so try one before you convert them all. If you want a free stream recorder, you can get the freeware version of Stepvoice on this page. http://stepvoice.com/download.html Make sure when you run it that you change the default bitrate to something higher than 48kbps. TotalRecorder captures streams well and it's only $11.95.

None of the portable MD recorders has separate Left and Right level controls. You would have to run your inputs through a mixer. The two-digit MD units like the MZ-R50 only play the original MD format, SP--74 minutes on a 74-minute disc. If all you want is playback of the recordings you have, which as atrain said are probably in LP2 (128 minutes on a 74-minute disc), the most basic unit you can get with mic-in is the MZ-R700. In the blue Browser tab on the minidisc.org homepage, any recorder manufactured after the R900 (everything on the top line, and everything to the left of the R900) will also do the job. For the best transfer, you could track down one of the old MD decks--check for optical out and LP compatibility, from the JE640 and to the left in the Browser. With optical out, and optical in on your computer, you can do a digital-domain recording instead of recording analog out of the headphone jack on the little recorders. Deciphering the model numbers on recorders: The three-digit R ones (MZ-Rxxx) and all MZ-N, MZ-NH and MZ-RH units will all play SP, LP2 and LP4. MZ-NH and MZ-RH will play back those MD formats and ALSO play Hi-MD formats (PCM, Hi-SP, Hi-LP). If you're recording shows, the Hi-MD units can do a faster-than-realtime transfer of the Hi-MD formats, but not of SP and LP recordings. But save your MZ-R50 if it's working. By many accounts, it's one of the most solidly built MDs ever made, and good-sounding if you don't mind the time limitations of SP.

I get the same sounds on my NHF-800, about 7 clicks when you jump to a new track. Very hi-fi recording! Just another reason not to get one of those mics that sits on the machine.....

Better than decent quality, low price: Sound Professionals BMC-2 omni binaurals. Sound Pros themselves sell them for $29 on eBay, or go to www.soundprofessionals.com . You can hear the results (mine and other folks' with other mics) in the recordings uploaded to the yahoo mailbox livefrommd , password 1minidisc1 . These mics, like other "basic binaurals" from Microphone Madness, Core Sound, Reactive Sound, Church Audio, etc., are built around similar Panasonic microphone capsules--everybody's basic binaurals have the same specs, but are in different housings with different cords, tweaked in different ways, etc. I find these handy because they are in a very small housing that fits into a standard lapel clip, the cords are thin and flexible and easily concealed (which may prove fragile eventually, but hasn't yet) and they've already taken a lot of abuse. Sony's own mics "for minidisc" are bigger and have less bass response, going down to 100 hz instead of 20 hz. They're one-point stereo mics instead of a pair, like these, that you can separate for a big warm stereo sound. If you're recording something bass-y with the omnis, you'll probably need to add the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control as an attenuator (only $6.59) because loud bass can overload the MD's preamp. But if you're just playing a guitar, you'll probably be fine with the mics going straight in.

So does 1st-gen, so that's no improvement at all. Sony still thinks we're too stupid to adjust our own levels. OLED aside, looks like there's no reason at all for me to buy into this generation.

You might have to uninstall, clean registry entries and reinstall a few times. See these threads: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8733 http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=8790

OK, you 2d-gen owners, please tell me: Can you set Recording Volume to Manual and have it retained after you push Stop?

The attenuator probably degrades the whole signal, especially the little RS version. It doesn't matter at a rock concert, but it might when using good mics in a quiet church. And if a screaming, trilling soprano isn't a problem for Ozpeter's MD, then it would be a shame to dull the amazing sound of a pipe organ, which doesn't usually get ear-splitting unless the organist is really blasting the bombardes. I'd think good mics alone if possible, then some low-pass filtering if absolutely necessary. I saw, incidentally, that Core Sound offers a solid-looking 11db or 20db attenuator, but says not to use it with mics that need plug-in power. Back to square one.

http://www.milosoftware.com/cdwave/ Auto-splits at silences of adjustable length and volume, or will insert your own splits.

SonicStage isn't much of a sound editor, although it does have Divide and Combine under its Edit menu. But you can easily edit the recordings in your computer with another program, like Audacity, which is free. audacity.sourceforge.net This is assuming that the recordings you want to edit are in formats like .mp3 or .wav. If for some reason they are in SonicStage's proprietary .oma format, then use SonicStage to convert them to .wav (under Tools) and edit the .wav files.

Minidisc is for recording. If you're just a passive music consumer, HDD's are better. That said, if you pick up a NH600D for $75 or less, as you can nowadays on eBay, that unit and four $7 Hi-MD 1Gb discs can hold as much music as an Ipod Mini for half the price. If you find an NH-600, you can even do some realtime line-in recordings. And you don't have to worry about your rechargeable battery going dead since it takes a nice replaceable AA.