A440

http://www.Amazon.com and http://www.Emusic.com (for small and independent labels) have plain unencumbered mp3s , at least in the US.

What inputs do you have on your computer? Is there a line-in jack (usually white) along with a (red) mic-in jack, or just mic-in? You can add Line-in (through USB) with a Griffin iMic, about $30, and get less noise. http://www.amazon.com/Griffin-iMic-USB-Aud...1060&sr=8-1 The question is whether it will work with Linux--but Googling suggests it does. http://seehuhn.de/pages/imic

bobt-- You're going to Havana? This is THE place, locally known as El Tropical. Outdoor dancehall, patio--foreigners get into the upper VIP balcony but the fun is on the dance floor. Salón Rosado de Beny Moré, El Tropical, Av 41 y 46, T 290985. Tue-Sun. US$5 min depending on the line up. Seriously raunchy, this massively popular dance venue features some of the best salsa in town, courtesy of a top quality line-up, including the likes of Los Van Van. Unfortunately a local (peso)/tourist (dollar) segregation policy is applied. Pandemonium ensues when big name bands take a break from international touring and play here to impassioned habaneros, usually priced out of such spectacles by top dollar prices. It's advisable to cab it door to door, and not hang around too long at pile-out time. This is a sketchy location, and recent scuffles have led to an increased police presence. There are cabaret shows during the week and afternoon matinées on Sundays. ------------------------------- Also, bring your MD to this outdoor madness if you're there on a Sunday. Callejón de Hamel, Hamel entre Aramburu y Hospital. La Rumba de Cayo Hueso, every Sunday from 1200-1500, is an unmissable feast of fast, kicking rumba show and electric jam sessions, which draws huge crowds of tourists and the local community. Invited guests, an artistic community feel and a responsive audience make this a hot venue. There is a small bar in the street, selling a strong drink of rum and honey, US$2. Pack lots of sunscreen and water, as they often run out. Here's where I got these: http://www.footprintguides.com/Havana/Club...-and-Clubs2.php And, ah, be prepared for jinateras. Google the term.

Some idle web-surfing led me to MediaCoder, an open-source converter program. Haven't tried it yet, and it's still a beta version, so play with it at your own risk, etc. http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/ I noticed that its Extra Codecs pack includes "Sony ATRAC3 for Audio Codec for RealAudio," whatever that is. Maybe the computer experts here can have some fun with it.

You guys aren't looking on the bright side. Free shipping!!

The other more affordable alternatives are the Zoom H2 and the Edirol R09. Sound quality on playback through the RH1 is superb. And mic preamps on MD--if you're not recording something too bass-heavy for them to handle--are by all accounts considered better than those on the flash units. But the sound quality recorded on the other units should be equivalent if you go through Line-in--possibly better when recording at higher bitrates than the RH1 can use. And there's no SonicStage or encryption to worry about.

Trading physical discs is pretty slow and inconvenient in the age of yousendit, rapidshare and megaupload, not to mention BitTorrent.

The way to turn them off is to either click on the little speaker icon (Volume Control) in the taskbar or to go into Settings/Control Panel/Sound and Audio Devices and un-check any input you don't need: Midi, speakers, whatever.

The Iriver 700s are more sensibly designed than the Iriver 800s. You can also look at the Iriver T30 for voice recording. There's an iRiver forum here: http://www.misticriver.net/forums.php

You'll need a microphone to go with any minidisc player. The only AA-battery units that upload are MZ-NH700 or MZ-NHF800. Can you hear from the back of the lecture hall? Don't expect a recorder to magically enhance the sound. Certain microphones can help, but only up to a point. Also look at the Samson Zoom H2, which might be more convenient for you: built-in mics, easier uploading.

That's good to know, thanks. But Jamedo does seem to be describing a basic a stereo miniplug. Testing with the R500 won't work because it has only a line-in jack. No power to the mic. Jamedo, if you're handy, build a battery box and then try recording mic-->battery box-->line-in. It will depend on the mic. If for some reason the mic isn't sensitive enough, you'll already have the battery box to use with a different mic.

The NH1 is so tiny because it puts all its functions--battery charger, etc.--on that big round proprietary docking station. No docking station and the thing is useless. Its USB connection is also proprietary and needs a special cord. Being so dependent on accessories is more trouble than it's worth. The RH1 charges its battery in the unit itself and has a standard mini-USB connection, and is much better designed in general. The basic NH700 is actually just fine for recording. Better, if you ask me, than the RH910 because it takes a regular AA battery instead of a gumstick rechargeable. The battery makes a bulge in the back, so the unit is thicker. But it's a workhorse. But.... If you've never used minidisc and all you want to do is record lectures, you don't need minidisc. Get a Samson Zoom H2 for about $200. Or get an Edirol R09 for $350 to $400. Unlike minidisc, those recorders do not require an outboard microphone--they have a stereo pair built in. (The RH1 is sometimes packaged as the MZ-M200, which is the RH1 plus a clunky Sony mic, the DS70P.) For music, you would eventually want to get a better set of outboard mics and a battery module to record through line-in, but you might be able to get away with the built-in mics on the Zoom or Edirol. And unlike minidisc, with the other recorders you can just drag and drop your recordings into your computer. Whereas with every minidisc except the RH1 (and the M10 and M100 that are virtually impossible to find), you need a PC--no Macs. You need to install SonicStage software from Sony (free and worth no more than that). And transferring your recording is a two-step process: upload and then convert to a non-encrypted format. Minidiscs are encrypted: all your recordings go into one giant file, and if that file is in any way corrupted, everything on the disc turns into useless data. It can happen. Minidisc at this point is really for longtime users who already have lots of discs recorded, and for people who need the stealthiness of separate outboard microphones and a remote control. For us, it's worth dealing with the quirks of minidisc. For your purposes, it's too much hassle. I'm not trying to shut you out of the club. If something about minidisc really appeals to you, then go for it. But I think there are alternatives now.

Many lapel mics are only mono. You can tell the difference between mono and stereo by looking at the plug: a stereo plug has two rings around it (just like your headphone jack) and mono just has one. The one ring will just give you a signal in the left channel if you plug it directly into the mic jack. I don't know what it will do if you plug it into a battery box. But you can easily find a mono-to-stereo adapter with a mono jack connected to both channels of a stereo plug. There's really no such thing as a "standard" stereo mic. Every mic varies. Mic-->battery box-->Line-in depends on how loud your source is and on the sensitivity of the mic. More sensitivity means more signal. A low-sensitivity mic and a quiet source, like speech, will produce a very low signal into the Line-in jack. The difference between Mic-in and Line-in is that Mic-in has a preamp behind it to amplify the mic signal. Line-in just takes what it gets. With loud music (a strong signal) plus a battery box (providing enough power for the mic to work), Line-in is fine. With speech, possibly (works fine with close conversation with my Sound Professional BMC-2 mics and a 9V battery box). With quieter sounds, probably not. But it will depend entirely on the sensitivity of your mic. With a lower-sensitivity mic, you may need to get a preamp--which would probably be nearly as expensive as just getting a used NetMD with a mic jack, like the MZ-N707.

OpenMG Jukebox was replaced by SonicStage. It was a real mess of a program. The best SonicStage version is 4.2, unless you on are on Vista, which requires 4.3 The easiest thing is to get a full 4.2 installer from the "Alternate Link" here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...mp;#entry117697

http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...mp;#entry117697

Before you start fiddling around with pieces of SonicStage, get a full (offline) installer from one of Avrin's links. Uninstall what's in there now, reboot, disconnect from the internet and turn off anything in your computer that is in any way related to security. OpenMG burrows deep into your computer. Then try installing again .Turn the security back on and reboot. See if it's working. Otherwise, there is a link to openMG Secure Module in this post: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=20310 But for all I know, it will just make things worse.

Along with a mic like the Rode NT1A you'd also need what's called a Phantom Power supply--about $20-$50. Just Google "Pnantom power" 48v . And you'd need a cable to connect the mic or power supply's XLR output to the stereo minijack input of the MD recorder. If there's a musicians' or pro-audio store near you, that would be the best way to make sure all three are compatible. Or call an 800 number for Musician's Friend, Sweetwater or Zzzounds. Love the invisible choir effect. Glottal stops, too?

It depends on what you're recording. Stereo is good for giving a sense of space: separating instruments in an ensemble, placing a sound in an illusory space. But you, as a singer, are a mono source, and if you want to maximize the quality of your microphone, why pay for the two elements of a stereo microphone when you can get one that's much better? If you've used studio mics, they may well be mono. A mono recording, if you're listening through headphones, will be in the middle of your head. For a sense of depth, a recording engineer would probably add some reverb. A stereo recording will have a little more depth to start with (even from one source). So you could, if you wanted, get what's called a one-point stereo mic: two microphone elements mounted in one mic. (That's what the DS70P that comes with the M200 is, though it's not a particularly good one.) But when Mariah Carey makes an album or performs, she's singing into a mono mic. Seriously, if you're anywhere near a music store, go there and just try a bunch of mics when you get the new recorder. Singers are very particular about microphones--you'll hear nuances that no one else would notice on playback.

You should treat the M200 gently. It is the last of the line. I've never understood why people want to knock around their electronics like sports gear. Accidents are one thing, but it's silly to abuse equipment. Minidisc does have moving parts, and there's a lot of technology tucked into that tiny case. It stands to reason that shocks could set something awry. When you get it, test everything out soon. Playback, mic-in recording, line-in recording, optical if you have something with an optical output, uploading. Just so that in the very unlikely event there are problems out of the box, you can return it under warranty and get another one before they disappear. Who knows what Sony would replace it with after they're gone? Probably a flash recorder. Maybe the PCM-D50 will have price-dropped by then. http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Pr...feed.SON+PCMD50 I don't recommend MD to newbies any more--only to people who are familiar with it and have a library of discs. The quirks and learning curve aren't worth it when you can just do drag-and-drop with an Edirol. But you have that backlog of R30 recordings, so it makes sense for you to get the M200. Even if all you ever did with it was upload, you'd save so much time it would be worth it. And you'll be doing new recordings too.

The input on the minidisc is a stereo minijack. It's made to work with an electret condenser mic that runs on plug-in power, just a few volts, 1.5. Studio mics usually have XLR connectors, which are different. They may also be dynamic rather than condenser microphones. And they may run on Phantom Power, a separate power supply which is very different from plug-in power--45 volts. So you really have to see what kind of studio microphone you're dealing with. A good place to learn about this is under the Microphone University tab at this site: http://www.dpamicrophones.com/ You don't have to read it all at once, but it's not too technical. Tiggerlou and Goldenbreast are trying to do different things. Goldenbreast needs small, concealable stereo mics. I have some old Church Audio mics, and they are very good and solid. I prefer omnidirectional mics to cardioid (directional) mics at concerts, because the recordings I have made iwth cardioids sometimes sound like there's a weird void behind you. But lots of people like cardioids precisely because they do shut out some audience noise from behind you. And those Church Audio cardioids do have full bass response, unlike some cheaper cardioids, so they'd definitely be worth a try for concert taping. Tiggerlou, it sounds like what you need is a good mono cardioid vocal mic that's compatible with minidisc. Special mics are made for singers--some of them astonishingly expensive, but you can also get good value. Your best bet would be to go to a pro musician's store, bring along the MZ-M200 and talk to them about what would work best with it. Maybe you could even make some sample recordings on the spot. You could also call a mail-order place like Musician's Friend, ZZZounds, Guitar Center or Sam Ash and tell them the input is a stereo minijack with plug-in power. Sound Professionals, which sells MDs and is very familiar with them, has a pretty good selection of non-stealthy microphones, but the pro musicians' stores will have more. Guitarfxr, who has worked in recording studios, loves the Audio-Technica AT822 with his MD. A lot of people also swear by the Rode NT1A, which is around $200. It's an XLR mic, so it would need an adapter and power. Here's more info: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showt...mp;#entry129453

Try to think of this like plumbing. You are piping the sound out of the MD and into the computer. I know this long post looks daunting, but most of it only needs to be set up once. Then you'll just plug in and click a Record button. The output of your MD is the headphone jack (not line-in, that's an input). Your pipe out of the MD is a male-to-male stereo cable. Your entry into the computer is the line-in jack of the audio card. Then Audacity has to be positioned to catch the sound--like a bucket under a faucet. Here's a link to the manual for the Audigy 2. If it's not your model, do a Google search with as much model information as you can find. Creative (maker of Audigy) has very confusing model numbers. (This search was "Audigy 2" manual.) http://ccftp.creative.com/manualdn/Manuals...380/Audigy2.pdf It's a pretty confusing manual, but basically, you are looking for a Line-in jack (which is usually white, but might not be) or a Mic-in jack (usually red). The manual (p. 26-27) says the Line-in is the second input from the left--but it could be from the right, depending on how the card is oriented in your computer. Whatever--it's next to the mic jack, which, as I said, is probably red. Maybe you have something else playing through your computer, already connected to Line-in? Unplug it. Connect the MD headphone out to Line-in. That's the easy part. ---------------------------------- Now your computer has to know to listen to the MD. You only have to do this once, so bear with it a little. It is possible that you have a Creative software recorder installed that came with the card. Do you? Search Programs or your computer for programs called Creative Mediasource or something like that. If you do, it should have a recording function. Open Mediasource, click around, take a look at the manual. You'll have to set Line-in as the source for the recording somewhere in that program. ---------------------------------- Otherwise, do it with Audacity. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ Install Audacity and open it. Look under Edit / Preferences / Audio I/O / and look at Recording. The device should be Audigy (or Creative or whatever it's called in the list). Channels: 2 (Stereo) . Check Software Playthrough if you want to hear through speakers while recording. Go to Quality, make it 44.1 Mhz and 16-bit. File format: Uncompressed Export Format, wav (16-bit). These may already be in there as defaults. Since Audacity is freeware, it doesn't include .mp3 (a patented program). You need to install it yourself. (That's the price of free software.) Get the LAME mp3 encoder here. http://lame.buanzo.com.ar/ Unzip it into the same directory as Audacity. Audacity is going to have to find Lame_enc.dll once it is unzipped. Under File Formats, click Find Library. You might have to browse to find lame_enc.dll--I forget whether Audacity does the search for you. Find it, then in Quality set the mp3 quality to 192 kbps. You'll need some space on a hard drive to record into Audacity--about 10MB per minute of audio. If your C: drive doesn't have a lot of space and you're using a bigger external drive, choose it under Directories. That's the bucket where Audacity will put the recording. Almost ready. Close Preferences and look at the upper right of Audacity. You'll see a picture of a microphone and a white drop-down box. If the choice isn't Line-in, switch to that. --------------------------------------------------- You should never have to do that again. What a relief. OK, ready to go. Click the big red Record button on Audacity, start the MD playback and you should see a waveform. Play with the input level (chevron-shaped slider between the pic of the microphone and the drop-down box) so the waveform nearly fills the screen but doesn't get squashed at top and bottom. You're recording! Audacity records in its own format when you Save. (Another free software workaround.) There's no need to save in Audacity's format. To save as something more useful, after recording click Export as .wav or Export as .mp3 to get a universally recognizable file. Then look for it in the Directory where you saved it. ------------------------ A Hi-MD recorder would be faster and simpler. It's a two-step transfer: upload and convert. Open SonicStage (included software, but you'd want to update it), connect Hi-MD, click Transfer. Then, also with SonicStage, you'd need to convert the transferred recording out of Sony's MD format and into .wav or .mp3. If you can afford the MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200 (same thing, but MZ-M200 comes with a mic), it will upload recordings from your current unit. That's the only model that will do that--other Hi-MD units will not upload older recordings. -----------------------------

I've seen new MZ-M200 on Amazon lately for as low as $329. Considering that includes the microphone, it's a good price. They come and go, though--try checking in regularly for 3 or 4 days. You can also find the MZ-M200 at www.bhphoto.com and possibly at www.minidisco.com . Be realistic about what you're going to pay. No one is giving these away.

With your home stereo, or just talking loudly into the mic, see if you can record into Line-in and get a decent level. Mic-in may distort with the bass from loud music. If you're going to be facing the band when you record, switch the pickup angle to 90 degrees to cut out sound to the side. If you're not going to be directly facing the band, use the 120 angle--but do try to stay still while recording because the mic is directional, and you'll probably notice it on playback if you're swinging around.

You should definitely get the RH1 to upload your old stuff, and to record your new stuff in PCM. When you upload your old stuff, convert it to .wav to put it on CDs. .wav is the same as PCM and the same as the files on commercial CDs. Playback on the RH1 sounds excellent. That's the "warm" sound people are talking about. But that's the output of the unit, not the recording of the input, so it's really beside the point for what you want to do. You don't want warm, friendly, charming, elegant, literary, sexy or any other kind of altered sound when you record: You want accuracy. And the RH1 will capture the sound coming into it very accurately--better than your R30. That's what you want. Here's why. Digital recording uses a certain amount of ones and zeros, measured in bits or bytes, to capture sound. The more bits/bytes, the better the sound is reproduced. When the CD was invented, audio geniuses ascertained that about 1411 kbps (kilobits per second) was high fidelity for human ears. We can hear up to about 20,000 Hz, and CD's sample the sound at 44.1 times per second, twice as often. Since then people who look at numbers, and golden-eared audiophiles, have decided that even CDs aren't hi-fi enough and they sample at even higher rates. Fine for them. Your R30 recorded in the SP format at 292 kbps: compressed sound, but pretty high quality. mp3 is also compressed at various bitrates. Compression throws out a certain amount of information in order to make the files smaller, which is why they are called lossy. The art of the programmer is to throw out information that matters less to the human ear. Different formats--mp3, ATRAC (the compression on minidiscs)--make different choices. Most people probably can't detect the difference between mp3 at 192 kbps (or SP at 292) and CD-quality sound; a lucky or unlucky few can. But the MZ-M200 records in PCM, CD-quality sound. That's an upgrade from your old SP. What does it mean? More depth. More detail. Better transients (compressed sound can be hell on cymbals, piano notes, voices). Ever listened to a download of acoustic music from iTunes? Your musician's ears probably hear that something's a little flat. But people are listening to those downloads on itty-bitty white earbuds while they're at the gym, so 128 kbps is good enough for them. Dulled down is a good way to say it. A visual analog would be graininess, or the kind of pixelation you see on computer graphics. It's a digital approximation of the sound. How fine is the grain? That's what bitrates mean. More bits, more details of every sort. But at a certain point--certainly well before the difference between SP and PCM--bitrate is far less important than recording technique: good mics, good placement, good room acoustics, and all the things you know about acoustic spaces. Cheap mic to PCM is no better, and probably worse, than a decent mic to SP. Studio engineers know all kinds of techniques to make things sound better. PCM or .wav copied to CD will have zero quality loss. But PCM won't improve a bad recording: you'll get a more accurate version of the badness. Bring your RH1 to the studio with you, send the same input to the studio recorder and your RH1, and see if you can hear the difference.... There are other small portable recorders now that record at CD quality or better: the Edirol R09 and the Samson Zoom H2. Minidisc recording is not "better" than other recording, except on one front. Different recorders will have different preamps behind their mic inputs, and minidiscs happen to have excellent little preamps built in, better than the other two. People who have compared them say that outboard mics into mic-in sound better on minidisc. But if you're going into line-in, or through a mixer or a console, you'll get the same recording if you use the same bitrate on any digital recorder. They're all collecting those zeroes and ones with digital precision and CD-quality sampling rates. Still, since you have all those old SP recordings, the RH1 is ideal for you.

You should contact a human being at Sony. They are not making the NH600D any more, or any other minidisc. So you need to ask--and preferably get in writing--exactly what they would "exchange" it for. The NH600D was the cheapest first-generation Hi-MD unit, so just about any other unit would be an upgrade. The MZ-RH710 is probably the closest thing, and even that has a line-in recording jack. Repair doesn't seem worth it. Check Ebay if you want to get another one. There's a listing at the moment for a new one, shipped, for $120.