A440

This once happened to me when the mic wasn't plugged all the way into the jack. Make sure it is fully plugged in and rotate it a little bit to make sure it's making contact. ----------------------------------------- Otherwise, it is not a common problem that minidiscs don't record bass. Just the opposite: the problem is that they are hypersensitive to bass, which causes distortion--hence the attenuator or battery box. So some microphones are made to cut off the bass well above where they should--avoiding distortion by wrecking fidelity. Also, microphones made for voice recording don't bother to pick up deep bass because human voices (except death metal bands) don't include it. Probably your mics are among them. A good way to tell if it's the mic is to plug the mic into something else that records--like for instance your computer. Download Audacity (here's the Windows page : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/windows ) . Make sure the input on Audacity is the mic jack (the drop-down menu under the fast-forward button should say Microphone), then plug in your mic and put something on your stereo that has bass and push the red Record button on Audacity. Play it back and listen. You can also Analyze the frequencies. I suspect you'll find that your mic cuts out frequencies below 100 Hz. Try that, and see what you get. If Audacity gives you all the bass you wanted, then the problem may be in your mic jack.

You need to use manual levels but manual levels are not enough. When recording Mic-->Mic-in, the built-in preamp that boosts the mic signal just can't handle much bass. I tried recording a serene Norah Jones concert through Mic-in, low sensitivity, manual levels never peaking, and every delicate little thump of the bass drum distorted. So you use Line-in, which has no preamp and expects a stronger signal. But Line-in doesn't send the mics the little bit of power they need to work. Hence the battery module, which provides enough power to give you a good signal through Line-in with amplified music. (The louder the music, the more signal the mic itself generates. With quieter sounds, Line-in would need a preamp. But rock concerts work fine with a battery box.) This one is the size of a car-alarm remote. http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm Sound Professionals also has some small ones here. You don't need bass roll-off because you're recording through Line-in. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/...tegory/310/mics

EDIT: The sale ended. Mods, you could delete this post. Mauri just pointed out to me that Sound Professionals is selling those good, stealthy BMC-2 mics at 2-for-1. Grab 'em if you need 'em. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2

For a documentary that needs decent quality and reliability you really only have two good MD choices--both Hi-MD. At this point, the Sharp is just about obsolete. Hi-MD recorders can record in CD-quality PCM--90 minutes on the newer, higher-capacity Hi-MD disc, 1GB. (The Sharp can't use those.) Or they can put nearly 8 hours of Hi-SP, which might be good enough quality for radio, onto a 1GB disc. Hi-MD recorders can also upload their recordings to a PC through SonicStage, and the MZ-RH1 will also upload to Mac. If I were you, with a PC, I would get the MZ-NH700. It runs on a AA battery, easily replaceable almost anywhere you are. It uploads its recordings only to a PC--not a Mac. It has the minor annoyance that you have to go through five menu clicks to set it to Manual recording levels every time you start to record. But running on one AA--for more than 8 hours of Hi-SP recording on one Duracell--is a major asset. The other choice is the MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200 (same unit, but bundled with a mediocre Sony microphone, the DS70P). Besides being much better looking, the MZ-RH1 uploads to both Mac and PC and lets you set Manual as the default. Its biggest feature is for longtime MD users: It is the only unit that directly uploads old MD recordings, like the ones you would make with the Sharp (see below), to a PC. The RH1 uses a thin rechargeable gumstick battery that runs for a long time, but does need to be recharged in the unit. (You could also buy an external 4-AA battery pack for serious field recording--search for Macally in these forums.) Depending on when you are going, you could also bypass MD and check out flash recorders that capture PCM. The Zoom H2, supposedly to appear this month, promises a lot of wonderful things for just $200, but no one knows yet about build quality or recording quality. MD has its quirks--you have to upload through SonicStage, not simple drag-and-drop--but it is reliable. The Sharp MT99 is a pretty old piece of equpment. http://minidisc.org/part_Sharp_MD-MT88+MT99.html All minidisc recorders from that era recorded only in compressed formats: SP (74 or 80 minutes per disc) or LP2 (148 or 160 minutes per disc) or LP4 (very low quality, 296 or 320 minutes per disc). SP was very good but not studio quality, though possibly good enough for radio. BUT: the only way to get music off the disc was to plug a cord into the headphone jack, plug the other end into a computer and record the analog signal in real time, with some quality loss. Since you're starting anew, go for Hi-MD.

Nanos really skimp on SQ. I have a Sansa E260 that blows the Nano away.

Battery life on my MZ-NH700 is comparable to my MZ-N707. Alkalines last a long time. One new Duracell = 1 Hi-MD at Hi-SP.

Hi-MD Renderer is in Downloads, by the way.

VAIOs are Sony PCs. But that's not a drag and drop program for MD. The program seems to be for the VAIO Pocket music player. And it requires having SonicStage installed. http://www.css.ap.sony.com/vaio/Vista/Gene...p;Model=VGF-AP1 Pic85, you should contact Sony with your computer's serial number, or look in VAIO Recovery/VAIO Recovery Tools/Reinstall Applications or Drivers and see if you have the original program there.

You should email Sound Pros about the 9V-12V question. They'll probably respond fairly quickly. Chris Church at Church Audio seems to be pretty much a one-man operation, but he should respond sooner or later. Joao Bosco is incredible, I've seen him. Hope you get a great recording. I am not a fan of bass roll-off. I don't see the point unless you're worried about overloading. I was just at a concert with huge bass. I ran my BMC-2 and Microphone Madness Classic Mini battery module into the NH700 at about 16/30 manual volume and there is no distortion. And I was wearing earplugs. With bass roll-off, perhaps you would get good at judging exactly which cutoff frequency would improve the recording. But if you misjudge, then you can't get back what you rolled off. And yes, you can always change the EQ on playback. Greenmachine, who is an electronics expert, and I, who just press buttons and hope for the best, agree that bass rolloff is unnecessary with Line-in recording. But there is a small population here of concert recorders. Mauri, I suggest you ask on TS who uses bass roll-off with line-in recordings and why. Or search around for it, preferably to find links to recordings so you can judge for yourself.

How you do will depend on how the guitars are amplified. If it's quiet, you should be fine. If there is a lot of bass it might distort because the mic preamp in the unit will distort. I suggest you go to Radio Shack and get a Headphone Volume Control (like my avatar), about $8. Mic--Volume Control-->Mic-In with the volume all the way UP on the little knob. Having the volume control in the circuit will lower the signal enough to help prevent distortion. Eventually you should get a battery module and record through Line-in. I use this one with BMC-2 and the MZ-NH700. http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm You can have good or bad sound indoors or outdoors. It depends how sensible the sound engineer is. It's already Sunday, so I hope the gig worked out for you.

Regarding the Church Audio mics, look at the size of his mics. They may be bigger than the corresponding Core Audio or Sound Professionals mics, if that matters to you. I have some Church Audio mics, an older model he (Chris Church) no longer makes, and they're good and very well-made--a bit stronger in the bass than corresponding Sound Professionals mics. But they didn't come with clips so I don't use them that much. Is he including clips now? They are essential. Yes, higher SNR is better. Even with the lower ones, though, noise from the mics may be imperceptible. I think--someone correct me if I'm wrong--that every 6 DB doubles the volume. So 58 dB is just less than two to the 10th power, around 1/1000. Overload can happen in multiple places. It can happen in the mics themselves--and in what seems like a paradox, more power makes that less likely. When the mic gets more power, it can take more volume without overloading. It's not sending an extra 20 dB into the jack. It's just that the mic itself is accepting the extra 20dB without overloading. From Core Sound: "They are electrically and mechanically modified to provide a more linear sound-to-voltage transfer function and to eliminate mechanical resonances in their bass response. " I think with the "mechanical" bit he's saying that he's stopped the mic capsules themselves from vibrating to loud low sounds. I don't know what he's talking about with "recorder overload distortion." I'm pretty sure Core Sound has a month-long trial period--Sound Pros and Microphone Madness do--but I suggest you call their toll-free number and make sure. Enjoy the H120--I think you will. Get a remote if you can, maybe on Ebay. You can crank up the gain on the H120, but the poster is right--over 24 and it's static city. You might need a preamp if your classical guitar concerts are unamplified, though the battery box may be enough. Only actual experience will tell you. Hope you're a happy tweaker--it sounds like you are--because Rockbox rewards tweaking, like switching the GUI. (You can even choose a different GUI for the remote--wish MD had that option.) I wouldn't let one poster on TS daunt you--there are a lot of cranks there (and here too of course...) Most people are satisfied with their digital recorders. They get used to the quirks and make the unit work for them. That's what we do with MD, and that's what the iRiver people do with their gadgets. Different quirks. But the recorders are just remarkable little devices by and large, and the most crucial variables are mics and mic placement. Get good mics, put them where the room sounds good, use approrpriate settings and you'll get a good live recording.

The H120 has only a line-in jack, but can be set to what it calls External Mic mode in its original firmware--that is, a mode that provides a little bit of power at the jack, plug-in power, and preamplifies the signal coming in. Rockbox may remove that option, or replace it with something that just turns the gain to max. Either way, using the "External Mic" setting of the H120 gives you a very noisy, staticky signal, nowhere near as good as the MD's mic input, if it gives you any signal at all. It may be doing something different from a preamp in technical terms. It seems to add gain to both low-level signal plus its accompanying noise rather than directly amplifying the signal, or something like that. I'm not an electronics expert. But using the mic-in setting on the H120 is really a last resort, and may not be strong enough for all mics if you're recording something as quiet as speech. I use the battery module with Line-in. I haven't tried it with Mic-in because Mic-in is so sensitive already.

Line-in takes a stronger signal than mic-in because there's no internal preamp to boost it. I've never even gotten a signal from mic straight into Line-in--it needs the power of the battery module. I have overloaded with an external preamp into Line-in. Ah, the H120. People love them, and reading about them convinced me to get one myself when I snapped up a bargain on Ebay. It's OK, but I've never really warmed to it--perhaps because I was already used to Hi-MD. The H120 may indeed be a good solution for you if it comes with the proper accessories. Good points: Drag-and-drop transfer--a big plus. Looks like an iPod and doesn't arouse suspicion. Thanks to Rockbox, it now has many features of minidisc, like track marking and on-the-fly level adjustment. Bad points: Heavier than MD (wear it on a belt and it can drag down your pants).Interface takes some getting used to--like MD, it's best with the remote, and like MD it has its own confusing menu options. Built-in mic is pretty useless for anything beyond voice memo, since it gives an incredibly lifelike rendition of the disc spinning up. Built-in rechargeable battery. It needs to be recharged after a day's use (but will last for a full day of recording). You MUST get the H120 charger or the very few compatible chargers mentioned on misticriver. Make sure your seller includes it or it's not a good deal. Some chargers with plugs that fit the H120 will completely fry the battery. And of course, it is a hard drive. Drop it or have it go bad and you lose all 20GB unless you've been very conscientious about uploading. I never did a double-blind test, but I thought there was more indefinable presence to an MD recording--possibly just prejudice on my part. Forget the H120 user manual. Rockbox makes it irrelevant. It wasn't until well into the H120's life that it was usable as a good recorder--before that, it had clicks and dropped samples that made it a nonstarter as a music recorder. Rockbox has fixed and improved everything, but as with all open-source works in progress, you might download a daily build of Rockbox that doesn't work right. And yes, I have some H120 recordings, but I don't have the H120 with me at the moment. I'll PM you another link in the next few days. Someday I guess I should do A/B/C recordings of the same source with my various toys. Haven't gotten around to it yet.... Core Sound was a pioneer in stealth recording. Some people swear by them, some say they're overpriced. I wasn't impressed with the Low Cost Cardioids I had, but those weren't their higher-end mics. About the binaurals: How big is the battery box and are you content to carry it around? Are the mics hard-wired to the battery box or can they be used separately? Think about the ways you'll be using them.

As it turns out, I do seem to have some live music recorded on the T30. I have no idea what band or under what circumstances it was recorded, but apparently I was there. I'd assume it's with BMC-2 mics and the Mic Madness battery module. PM me and I'll give you a link. It's decent but not thrilling. Those Samsung recordings do sound good. But they were recorded from a home stereo that wasn't cranked up to the levels I regularly hear at concerts--so there's no guarantee you wouldn't get preamp distortion or overload of your recorder through the line-in jack at a louder event. Also, note the the size of his preamp. I wouldn't want to try to get that into a concert undetected, but maybe stealth is not a consideration for you. A decent preamp will cost you upwards of $100. I'd still rather deal with a little battery module. Looks like Samsungs are on Ebay for around $60 for a 1GB unit, while 1GB Iriver T30 is around $55. So you could get either one and play with it. The specs for the WM-60 are on the French guy's page. Here are specs for the WM-61a. http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dk...l?name=P9925-ND And here are specs for the BMC-2. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/...=specifications Looks like they might be using the WM-60a if they're using Panasonic capsules--S/N ratio is 58dB, not 62 as with the WM-61a. But you could easily contact them and ask--they're very responsive.

I was just idly wondering if the File Conversion Tool existed in 3.0, or if it was added later. I have always backed up My Library (with the Backup Tool, not just copying it) when upgrading SonicStage. But I think I only had to restore from that backup once, and that was because I tried to change the location of My Library from the default. Now whenever I install SS I just leave the defaults. The crucial reason to upgrade from 3.0 is that in (I think) version 3.2 and above, you no longer only had one chance to upload your recordings. Before that--I think even with 3.0--you got one chance to upload, and if you tried to do it again for any reason, SonicStage ERASED THE ORIGINAL FROM THE DISC. Nasty. So please upgrade to at least 3.4 as soon as you can.

It just seems odd to me that even with Manual you would get AGC, and then only for quiet noises, but who knows what was in Sony's mind at the time. The R700 is an old unit. So your noise could be coming from an imperfect mic preamp--remember, it has to fit inside the unit and run on 1.5 V--or possibly from a worn-out connection at the mic jack. I would expect the NH700 to sound better. It's newer and recording on a different codec than the R700.

Don't know how you ended up here on the Minidisc forum, but you might put your question to the studio pros: http://recforums.prosoundweb.com A lot of good links on the site too. There's also this one for stuff you might be able to actually afford. http://homerecording.com/bbs/index.php

The only reason for 4.3 is Vista compatibility. If it's not working for you, I don't see any reason to bother with it. But you should definitely move to 3.4 or above because of many bugfixes and lifted restrictions compared to 3.0. There's a full 4.0 installer in Downloads.

That's why we diehards are still using minidisc, and that's why MD is probably near the of its life. Someone, somewhere, has to make a sensible flash recorder soon. If it's not the H2--and yeah, I also read the reviews of the H4 so I'm not holding my breath for the H2--then maybe another company will figure out some basic recording needs, or M-Audio and Edirol will heed their feedback for new models. The electronics exist--someone just has to put them together. You can get the RM-MC40ELK remote, a useful add-on, for $57 on eBay. It's backlit (though not very bright) and displays (and adjusts) recording level. When I'm at a show, the NH700 stays hidden in my pocket and I use the remote for levels and track marks. You still have to start recording and set to Manual volume on the unit itself, but after that you can leave the unit in Rec-Pause and start actual recording with the remote. The remote is not ideal, however--it can add low level noise of its own. You wouldn't want to use it at a classical concert, though at a rock show its tiny noise is irrelevant. http://cgi.ebay.com/Sony-RM-MC40ELK-Hi-MD-...1QQcmdZViewItem Up above, you asked about the T30. It was discontinued a few years ago, so Ebay is the best chance. There's an Iriver board at http://www.misticriver.net .

The iKey plus is considerably larger than your other alternatives. Yes, the BMC-2 aren't for pro quality. They're for small size and sneaking into concerts. Noise is absolutely not a problem with them with amplified music, and is pretty undectectable generally. Look in the Gallery for my album and you can hear a lot of BMC-2 recordings--including an unaccompanied, unamplified choir at Westminster Abbey. You can also hear other folks' recordings with assorted other equipment on their albums, too. I don't know what quality you are striving for. Live concert recording has lots of limitations: the sound in the room, audience noise, the necessity (or lack of it) for stealth. If you can set up your recording equipment openly, you've got a lot more options (or should I say option$$$). Want to see how obsessed folks can get? http://www.taperssection.com I don't know any store that sells battery modules--I've never seen them outside mail order. If you find a store in NYC, I'd love to know about it. The problem is that professional sound recorders use hard-drive recorders, phantom power sources and higher quality mics, so pro sound stores don't usually bother with the affordable amateur stuff. Here's a professional sound store I ran across when I was looking for windscreens for microphones--you might look through their catalog. http://www.pro-sound.com A preamp would probably be useful for a classical guitar concert, true. However, you could also just run that through mic-in, because the built-in preamp is pretty good by itself. I once compared it with the Reactive Sounds portable preamp, about the size of the MD recorder itself, and the MD preamp was just as quiet. The Sound Pro preamp I briefly tried--an older model without a no-gain option--only overloaded when I tried to record a concert with it, so I can't offer any experience with that. There's one more consideration: the MD recorder, because it is spinning up the disc, makes little whirring noises of its own. I doubt you'd hear it in a recital hall at a concert, but with a very attentive audience you might. If classical recording is your focus you might well be better off with a flash recorder with no moving parts.

@A440: The visibility of the unit is something that I could deal with. If you record through mic-in jack (wich has internal preamp) you need low cut, but if you record through line-in with external preamp you don't need it? I don't get it... But I can't find the MZ-RH1 in any store You're right, it looks like the MZ-RH1 is disappearing from stores. BH Photo, which used to have them as of last week, now shows Out of Stock. They do have the Edirol R09 and Zoom H4. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4458...ereo_Field.html If your friend is going to be in one place for a few days, he could also place an order for the NH700 with Minidisc Access. http://www.minidiscaccess.com/item.html?PRID=1553220 Visibility is one thing for the PASM, but so is placement and handling noise. If you leave it on a table at a concert it may pick up vibration of the table, so you have to leave it sitting on something soft. Is the separation of the mics optimum, or just a matter of the dimensions of the box? I couldn't say. I just think it's a very impractical design, especially since all you need is the mics. You'd use the low cut filter to prevent the preamp from overloading (and, at the same time, to cut the oomph out of your music). If you're not running through the preamp--that is, using Line-in--then you don't have to worry about the preamp overloading because it's not in the circuit. The bass that overloads the preamp usually won't bother Line-in unless it is also caving in your eardrums. All preamps are not the same, and preamps in little portable equipment typically have to make compromises somewhere. They may be noisier, they may not be able to handle bass, etc. An external preamp is different from whatever little preamp can be squeezed into the MD unit. Presumably it is a little more robust, since it is larger and runs on its own power (typically a 9V battery rather than the 1.5V that is rotating the disc, running the ADC converter and preamplifying your mic input). Assuming it is well made, an external preamp should be able to handle more bass than the minuscule preamp in the MD unit. But let me repeat myself: You don't need a preamp to record anything amplified. A preamp amplifies the signal. Loud music doesn't need to be amplified--it needs to be tamed. The battery module via Line-in will do that. On the rare occasions when I have tried running loud music through a preamp into Line-in, it overloaded at anything but the minimum setting for the preamp--which, basically, was sending power to the mics and not amplifying the signal at all, same as a battery module.

I think it's silly to get MD simply as a portable player nowadays. There are smaller, higher-capacity, more easily navigable players for that purpose. I've played with iPod and, briefly, Zune, which is overly large unless you really expect to be watching videos on it. One you might add to your list is the Sansa e200 series. I played one back-to-back with an iPod Nano through my own headphones and its sound was clearly superior. Its other advantages over the iPod are that it takes a removable microSD card--you can add another 2GB--and that the rechargeable battery can be replaced by the user when it eventually wears out. Navigation is very straightforward, and it has a built in voice mic--low quality, but useful in a pinch. It can do drag-and-drop, which is how I use it, or sync with Windows Media Player--possibly Winamp too, since Winamp keeps trying whenever I connect the Sansa. It has some kind of video playback I haven't tried. The disadvantage vis-a-vis iPod is that when there's a lot of music on it, it takes a little while to read it all when you turn it on. I think the iPod stays in a standby mode with the music database still in memory, which costs you battery life but turns on faster. The USB cord for the Sansa is proprietary, an annoyance. And I have had a file or two that crashed the Sansa--not enough experience with iPod to know if that can happen on those, too. For the same capacity (plus expansion capability), the Sansa is about $100 cheaper than the iPod. There are probably other good players around too. http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/01/sandisk...sa-e260-review/

When you install in Windows you get Select Related Programs--the nagware. You have to uncheck them.

When you get software from NCH, it offers you a whole bundle of extra stuff you don't need. Uncheck them and don't download or install them, unless you like being nagged a few weeks later to register everything that's not freeware.

Re: SP-PASM-2. The mics are built into the side of the preamp box. How are you going to use that at a concert? Stand there holding up the box in your hand? Might attract a bit of suspicion, not to mention your arm is going to get tired. You want small mics that you can unobtrusively clip to something like a shirt, glasses, hat, etc. The PASM-2 mics are probably the same capsules as the BMC-2--they've got the same specs. You don't need a preamp for rock concerts. The problem isn't amplifying quiet sounds, which is what a preamp does best. The problem is not getting overloaded by loud sounds, something a preamp would make worse. Rock concerts are so loud that all you need is a battery module. (For classical concerts recorded through line-in, you might want a preamp, but you could probably just record Mic-->Mic-in. ) You don't need low cut if you record through line-in at the right level. Low cut is to prevent the preamp at the mic jack (not the line-in jack, which has none) from overloading. (I also think low cut is excellent in women's blouses.) The idea is to get an accurate recording. If the recording is too bassy because the sound engineer thought that was a good sound, you can lower the bass on playback. But if you never got the bass in the original recording, you can't restore it afterward. The DS-70P mic is not worth the price. It's fairly big, it's got little bass response (only goes down to 100 Hz) and it's noisy. Get the MZ-RH1 and a better mic. You won't find Sound Professionals in stores--it has to be mail ordered. Your friend can easily do that from New York if he's going to be here for a week or so. If I remember correctly, Mic Madness was formed by former Sound Professionals guys, so the quality is probably similar. Again, you won't find either brand in stores. I have a T30 that I sometimes use as a backup recorder, and its interface is so confusing--lots of menus, non-intuitive--that I have sometimes not gotten any recording at all. It has no level meter to show you that you're recording, and it has no track marking. I also find that its mp3 recording just doesn't have the richness of Hi-SP, much less PCM. Since they are not made or sold in stores any more, you'd have to get one on eBay, and they are worth the $65 or so that they cost, but not as a replacement for Hi-MD. MicroTrack, Edirol R09 and Samson H4 are all different, and may well be different from the H2. Someone is going to have to try one. The H2's built-in mics present the old problem--how are you going to use them at a concert? Hold the unit in your hand? Etc.