A440

In a word, no. I don't know about Microtrack mic preamps--early reports were that they were not as good as minidisc preamps--and you should see if you can find a Microtrack forum, or look at www.taperssection.com , where you should post this exact question. Minidisc has its idiosyncrasies, and I'm sure the Microtrack has some of its own. If you had gone mic-in with minidisc you would have had major distortion for Murphy and Co. and their big bass. Battery box is always better than attentuator because by sending extra power to the microphones, the battery box extends their dynamic range and makes them more resistant to distortion. The attentuator actually reduces the power going out to the mics from the mic jack, as well as the signal going in. But with minidisc preamps, it does often lower the incoming signal enough to save the recording from total brickwalling. I have no idea whether it attenuates all frequencies equally--it's really just a cheap workaround. But you are right that there's not much bass in that recording. The Core Sound Binaurals are touted with flat frequency response from 20-20,000 Hz, and I know LCD has more bottom than that. So I have to ask....are you absolutely 100 percent sure that there was no bass roll-off? Because that's what it sounds like to me. Or is there some filter setting in the Microtrack? I never say never about bass roll-off, because if you have a very good idea of the room and the band and just how lopsidedly bass-heavy the show is going to be, you might be able to outwit it with bass roll-off. But...I'm just not that strategic. I think I understand your question about volume vs. recording levels, but basically it's all about what the unit registers. Whether you're recording a cricket or an earthquake, the closer you can get to full saturation--peak volume near the 0--the better the recording. But the more you raise the level, the closer you are playing to the edge, because over 0 you'll get distortion that can't be removed. So peaks just above the middle of the scale are probably sensible unless you are absolutely sure there won't be fluctuations or a big buildup at the end. Really, see if you can find some Microtrack owners. They must have some tricks and experiences of their own.

In a word, no. Electret condenser mics with miniplugs should all work as well as they work with any other recording device. Since that is an old unit, I would be suspicious of your mic jack having connection problems. That doesn't explain the tieclip mic working, though. Tieclip mics are usually made for voice, with a narrower frequency range than mics made for other recording jobs (music, ambience, etc.). The fact that it works would suggest that the other mics are picking up some kind of noise that the tieclip isn't sensitive to. But if it's really static coming from the jack connection, that doesn't make any sense--it would be in the tieclip recodring as well. Maybe the tieclip has some infinitesimally fatter plug or something that holds the jack in place. But that is a total guess.

You could try the noise filter in Audacity, the free sound editing program. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows Make a saved copy of your original upload, and play around with a different copy. Open Audacity and use it to open the file (as an .mp3 or .wav). You need to Select the whole file or a part of it, and that activates the Effect menu. With Noise Filter, you select a section that has the hiss alone, it analyzes it and then tries to remove it. Another way to get rid of the most annoying part of hiss is with a Low Pass filter (in Effects)--cut it off over 10,000 Hz or try some variations.

If you use bass roll-off while recording, you can't restore the missing bass. It is stopped on the way in, giving you a less accurate recording. But bass roll-off prevents the itty-bitty, bass-sensitive mic preamp from overloading. Record with mic-->battery module-->Line-in and you won't need bass roll-off. Adjusting EQ afterward is a much better choice.

Think about what happens when you record. The mic picks up a signal. It goes into a mic jack, where it is boosted by a preamp. Then it is converted by an analog-to-digital converter so that it can be saved on the recording medium (minidisc or flash memory) as a bunch of 1s and 0s. Every part of that chain is variable. Mics vary. Preamps vary. ADConverters vary. The most important variable is undoubtedly the microphone. (Another variable is where the microphone is placed: high, low, close to the source, far from the source.) As with every other digital transaction, garbage in --> garbage out. Every mic is different. Every mic has its own frequency response, some of which is described by specifications of how high and low its pickup goes--20 Hz to 20,000 Hz is the generally accepted range of audible sound--and some of which is described by more meticulous sellers with a frequency-response curve. No mic picks up equally along its entire range: It may have a peak at 500 Hz or 1000 Hz, it may have a trough at 2000 Hz, it may deliberately pick up less of the lowest bass. A microphone made for voice won't bother with frequencies that aren't part of the human voice. A microphone made for singers with rock bands will have a frequency-response curve that deliberately picks up much more from the frequencies of a singer than from the drums, bass, guitars and cymbals. So you were comparing the built-in mic on the Edirol to the external mic that came with your MD. Apples and oranges. Was the mic that came with your MD the Sony DS70P? It doesn't pick up below 100Hz, which is why you got weak bass. But the preamps in MD units can't handle a lot of bass, so a full 20Hz-20000 Hz mic could overload it (there are ways around this). Test your camcorder mic with your stereo--music with natural, acoustic instruments covering a full frequency range from bass and bass drum to cymbals. And while you're at it, plug it into the MD and the Edirol. With the same mic, you'll hear the variation between preamps and Analog-to-Digital Converters.

There should be two jacks: Mic-in (which is red) and Line-in (which is white). Mic-in provides power to the mic and has a preamp behind it to amplify the signal. Line-in doesn't. For a direct mic connection with virtually every mic, you need to use Mic-in. Or you need to use a battery module that gives the mic some power. If the mic takes an internal battery then yes, you'll need that too for Mic-in. When you get these, if that's what you're getting-- http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/.../item/SP-BMC-12 you will also need to run them through the red Mic-in jack or, for loud music, a battery module into Line-in.

The N710 doesn't upload. Never has, never will. Find someone with an RH1 and they will be able to upload the recordings.

Not to defend Sony or SonicStage, which has never exactly been user-friendly...but Vista broke a lot of programs, so save a little of your fury for M$oft. Meanwhile, why not use Task Manager to check out what's running before you try a SonicStage transfer, and shut down anything you might not need. If you can see what's interfering with SonicStage maybe you can solve the problem.

It is not true that you cannot convert ATRAC "from now on." Right now it works as well as it ever has (and I chose that wording carefully). SonicStage on your current computer, with your current operating system, will always be compatible if it is compatible now. Version 4.3 is compatible with the horror that is Vista, and Vista is likely to be the current Windows operating system for at least the next few years. Sony has also said that SonicStage will continue to be updated although Sony will not be selling ATRAC music any more. We will find out if that is true if and when SonicStage needs to be updated for a new operating system. But in the meantime, you have a very useful little recorder and player and a tolerable program that it works with for at least the next few years. So upload your recordings now, when you make them, and you'll be fine. There are now plenty of flash recorders if you prefer to switch.

I have the MZ-NH700, not a second-gen unit, so take the following with a grain of salt but... Disc in and REC/PAUSE Menu...two clicks up to Rec Set....one click down to Rec Volume...one click down to Manual. With the RM-MC40ELK you can then turn the wheel to change the Rec Level. Doesn't someone have an RH10 who can offer a similar set of directions?

If you play around with Audacity, and look at the various kinds of views eventually you get a sense of what different sounds look like in the waveform. I sometimes use it to edit speech recordings, and breaths, coughs, throat-clearing, etc. all have characteristic shapes I can now recognize. Since Howard Stern sometimes reads the commercials himself, it may be hard to spot those, but when there's a different kind of sound--music, a different voice--it should look different in some of the views. Also, since you've listened to a zillion of his shows, doesn't he tend to do commercials every X minutes? You could just look at the time scale in Audacity and start looking where the commercials usually appear.

$4.89 "For oversized swimbaits and crankbaits" whatever those are. http://www.tacklewarehouse.com/descpage-P3730.html

Pardon me if this is harsh, but the only thing I use Hi-MD for is recording. At home, through decent speakers or good headphones, I listen to CDs. For portable use, MP3 at equivalent bitrates sounds just as good as ATRAC--check the actual blind tests at sites like http://www.hydrogenaudio.com --and MD is too big, too inconvenient, too difficult to playlist, too poorly displayed and too low in capacity to compare to my cute little Sansa E260. Would I get a warm, enveloping, nurturing, generous, sensual sound if I put PCM on my MZ-RH1 ? Sure, probably. But that unit is far too precious for me to use it as a portable player when--admit it--portable sound only has to be adequate, not exquisite. It's a noisy world out there.

There's way more than one question. As they asked over at ATRAClife, is the "update" going to kill ATRAC compatibility, so that all .oma or .omg files have to be reformatted with additional quality loss? Will Sony give its many Connect Store customers an easier way to use the files they bought than burn-and-reconvert, also with quality loss? (on files that weren't that hi-fi to begin with....) Since ATRAC encryption will be obsolete, will Sony finally release a way to unencrypt the .hma files on our minidiscs? Napster files have DRM. Windows Media files can be DRM'd or not. This looks to me like Sony isn't giving up on encryption, just switching formats.

The Connect store is closing down in March 2008. But as the ATRAClife site reported, Sony claims that SonicStage will still be updated. http://www.atraclife.com/forums/index.php?...amp;#entry27240 http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowArticle.act...;site=odw_en_GB "If you currently own a WALKMAN® everything will remain exactly the same. So you can still enjoy unbelievable sound quality, long battery life and great looks. And you’ll continue to use the SonicStage digital music management platform to organise audio tracks and synchronise your music player. SonicStage will still be updated so you can always keep your WALKMAN® up to date. And buying music from the Sony Connect Music Store will still be possible until at least March 2008." But it would be so much better if Sony just revealed the encryption methods in SonicStage, made it open source, and let us all unlock the music in SonicStage once and for all.

First thing to try is the MDAC database repair tool. Log in and download it here: http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=8

iTunes has two functions. It's a media library and it's also the interface with the iTunes Music Store. (Just like SonicStage is the interface with the soon-to-be-deceased Connect store.) I would guess that ITV has its podcasts available at the iTunes store, so you'll need to install iTunes. Just make sure that when you're installing it that it doesn't Import all your music files or make itself the default player for any kind of file, and it should be pretty harmless. It also installs two small things you don't need into startup--Qttask and Ipod Service. You can do Run/msconfig/Startup and uncheck them if you want.

Amen. I want everyone to be as objective as possible. Skiphunt wants something he can throw in a camera bag, use with the stuff he already has--AA batteries, flash cards--and get a decent recording. The H2 suits him. Guitarfxr wants a portable device that works best with his excellent outboard mics, and has the best preamps for them. He has discs and, as a studio guy, he has higher standards for sonic clarity than a photographer. He prefers the RH1. Skiphunt, if he had any interest in MD, might like the NH700, which costs $200, takes an AA battery and has those good Hi-MD preamps. But if not, so be it. I would also point out that sampling rates don't matter if the input isn't as good. It's not about the numbers, it's about the sound. However, Guitarfxr, you two are far from the only two folks reading this thread, openly or anonymously, and the samples you posted make your case quite clearly. It's a shame you removed them--people can learn something from them, and I hope you will restore them. I don't see any reason to blindly defend Hi-MD if there is a clearly superior alternative. However, from the discussion so far it seems that the H2 and the RH1 are geared for very different users. For my purposes, with stealth concert recording, MD seems to still be the choice. But if I were podcasting and wanted to just put a mic near my face, then maybe I'd prefer the H2 simply for convenience. But hey, they're just toys. A discussion is only a discussion. Let's not make any of this personal. Readers can judge for themselves.

Your phonetician is out of date. Hi-MD transfers easily to PC. Just make sure you get a later SonicStage than the one that is packaged with the NH700, either from Downloads here or from Sony. The NH700 has excellent recording quality. If you're in a PC world, it will do what you need. The RH1 also works with Macs.

Here's what Sony was doing when they could have been saving or improving MD: the Rolly.

Formatting will erase the disc, so don't do that. Brace yourself because you may (through no fault of your own) have lost everything on the disc. Minidisc recording throws everything on the disc into one big encrypted file--including all your previously recorded interviews that were working before. One glitch and the whole thing is garbled. If you have an old SonicStage, upgrade it to version 3.4 or above--from Sony or from an installer in Downloads here. Try putting the disc in the unit, opening SonicStage and connecting the unit. In rare cases, SonicStage can somehow read the disc even when the unit can't. If it can, then upload and feel very lucky. Otherwise you need to contact http://www.sonymediaservices.com/ . If it's important, they may be able to recover it for a price, and in fact were able to do so for one disc of mine.

Only Sony can get back your files. Contact this branch of Sony: http://www.sonymediaservices.com/

Thank you, Guitarfxr. That's one of the exact tests I was hoping to hear, and it makes the RH1 sound mighty impressive. I do hear some preamp hiss on the RH1, but it's because the general level of the RH1 recording sounds so much higher (although you say you had them both registering 0 dB). When I make the perceived volume of the RH1 and Zoom recordings the same, the RH1 sounds much cleaner, not to mention richer and with far more dynamics and spatial depth. No question of what's better. Bet that the other Zoom threads Ozpeter listed will all be linking here pretty soon. Um, I know I'm really pushing it, but could you do the same sort of comparison with mic to line-in through a mixer or battery box? Nice guitar, by the way. You were heading for Davy Graham territory for a second...

If it's newly purchased it is still under warranty. You will definitely need a receipt to prove that, since it is an old model. I hope you have one--if you do, get in touch with Sony immediately.