A440

Earphones are meant to couple with your ear. They will sound tinny and ridiculous held next to a microphone. Sparda is right--get the signal that's going INTO the headphones and connect to Line-in. Or just record the orchestra with the mic through Mic-in. Sparda, Sony claims that the MS957 is a professional-quality mic designed for music, and at $200 it had better be good. Though I do note that its frequency response only goes 50-18,000 Hz, not full-range 20-20,000. Sony ECM-MS957 * Achieves high-quality instrumental recording thanks to Sony's sensitive Electret Condenser microphone design * • Ideal for portable DAT or MD digital recorders with wide dynamic range * • Mid/Side (MS) capsules for natural stereo panorama; the Mid capsule picks up monophonic sound while the Side capsule picks up left/right difference sound; subtracting and adding the two capsule signals yield separate Left and Right channels - also permit electronic adjustment of pickup angle

I don't know what you mean by putting headphones on the mic, but that mic is fully compatible with the MZ-RH1 and should produce a high quality recording--it was made to do exactly that. What are you planning to record?

That's the MZ-N810CK, a NetMD recorder, and it does not upload. The USB connection is one-way on all NetMD units: computer to MD. The easiest thing to do is get a little FM transmitter and plug it into the headphone jack of MD to play through the car stereo. Something like this, though you may want to investigate newer models--maybe they've improved. http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F8V3080-TuneC...r/dp/B0001F22PA

As far as I know, you just need SonicStage and the NetMD drivers for the Sharp. The Sharp drivers are here. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=22 You'll have to log in to download. I don't know what that "Net MD" software at the sharing site is. But SonicStage replaces OpenMG Jukebox. You can also download Simple Burner from Downloads here if you need it. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=93

I don't have a Mac, but it seems that with Mac Transfer 2.0 and the RH1 you can transfer the music as .wav or .mp3, though not Hi-SP. See 2 below. MZ-RH1: 1. User can import audio data recorded in Linear PCM, Hi-SP or Hi-LP mode on the Macintosh-compatible Hi-MD Walkman to a Macintosh computer after converting to WAV format audio data.*1 2. User can download WAV*2 or MP3 format audio data from a Macintosh computer to a Hi-MD Walkman.*3 More is here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=16424 I don't think there were a lot of claims that MDs sound as good as CDs. Just that they were convenient and sounded good enough for quality live recording. You might find that your MD player has its DAC optimized to make SP sound good, so that an external DAC wouldn't offer much improvement, but I couldn't say. Hi-MD units don't really need optical or coax out because you can get exact copies of their digital files off the MD, and then play them through whatever fantastic stereo equpment you have.

@goldenbreast You need to think how you'll use the mics. Cardioid mics are directional. You have to have them pointed at the sound source. If you move around, you will hear the change of direction. Omnis are somewhat more forgiving. They both have their uses. Omnis will basically pick up what your ears do. Personally, I like them--they give you a good three-dimensional feeling. But others prefer cardioids. If you expect to be recording where there's going to be noise behind you that you don't want to record--and if you can place the mics where they won't move--then cardioids might be good. Get the sound sample from Church Audio and see what you think of the sound. @Andyschest First, how is he joining them to one plug? By wiring them into a stereo plug, or by plugging two mono mics into a Y-shaped adapter? If it's the adapter method, I'd steer clear--it's just one more thing that can go wrong, and it will put strain on the mic jack of your minidisc unit. These are the specs for his Customised Tech mics: TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Diameter, external: 6mm Frequency response, lower limit: 50Hz Frequency response, upper limit: 18kHz Impedance: 1k 3.5mm stereo jack plug Sensitivity: -65dB +/-3dB @ 1kHz 2 meter (6”) coaxial microphone cable Power 1.5v -10v dc And these are the specs for Sound Professionals BMC-1 and BMC-2 Frequency Response 20-20,000 Hz Signal To Noise Ratio 58dB Open Circuit Sensitivity -42dB Maximum Input Sound Level 105dB/120dB Dynamic Range 81dB/96dB The difference frequency response (50-18000 vs. 20-20,000) means you'll get less bass from Customised. The bottom note on a piano is 27.5, so you'd lose most of the bottom octave of the piano. You'd also get slightly less crispness up above, but because every octave doubles the Hz, 18,000-20,000 is less of a gap in actual music than 20-50. The difference in sensitivity, -65dB vs. -42dB, means you are going to need a louder signal into the Customised Tech mic. You might be OK with loud amplified music, but Sound Pros already consider -42 their low-sensitivity version. I don't understand how he can say that those are the most sensitive electret mics around unless his spec is a mistake. A higher number equals higher sensitivity. Since these are negative numbers, -42 is higher than -65. Customised doesn't include a Signal-to-Noise ratio. It would be nice to know what it is--cheaper mics (and even Sony mics) can add noticeable noise of their own. If the sensitivity of the mic is low, and you are trying to record something relatively quiet, you will have to amplify the whole recording, including noise. It would also be good to know if the Customized Tech mics will overload at loud volumes--105dB is LOUD, and 120 dB.(figure with battery box power) is painful. You might ask him about those specs. How does he expect this mics to be used? For interviews, which are relatively quiet, or for music, which may not be? I don't reject cheap mics out of hand. The capsules used in the BMC-2 cost less than $3 each--the rest is other materials, labor and your trust that you're getting well-matched mics with some guarantee. Does Customised have sound samples you can hear? That's still the best test.

Best price I know of for Hi-MD blanks is here: http://www.tapewarehouse.com It's hard to navigate, but if you click through: Catalog/Digital Audio/Mini-Disc Audio And then find SCM HMD1G Hi-MD... Those are real second-generation (blue) Sony 1GB Hi-MD discs for $4.67 each. They also have standard MDs, $10.72 for an eight-pack, but you can probably find similar prices on those elsewhere. Circuit City and Best Buy have had them in the past but they don't show up on the websites--stores might still have some leftovers. J&R in New York City also has blank discs: http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=2041612 Get Sony discs if possible, though I've done fine with Fuji, TDK and Denon as well. Avoid Maxell, Memorex and Hi-Space. Hi-MD discs won't play in the N10. Regular MDs will play in the Hi-MD unit. To have regular MDs play in both units they have to be recorded in SP, LP2 or LP4 (but LP4 sounds pretty lame). Regular MDs can also be used for Hi-SP, Hi-LP and about 27 minutes of PCM, but then they will only play in a Hi-MD unit.

Bass rolloff is unnecessary and will make your recordings sound tinny. In fact, I never understood why they put bass roll-off in battery boxes. Bass roll-off is to prevent the preamp at Mic-in from overloading. When you go through Line-in, it can handle the bass. If you are recording in a boomy room without bass roll-off, you can always change the bass on playback, but at least you'll have an accurate recording.

It's going to be difficult to find a good stealth mic in a store. The Sony mics, which are the easiest to find, are pretty obvious and are seriously lacking in bass. My favorite stealth mic is still the Sound Professionals BMC-2. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2 Though apparently the BMC-1 is the same capsule in an even smaller housing. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-1 They ship pretty fast, but 5 days might be cutting it close. You will not be able to record a rock show via Mic-->Mic-in. You will get unlistenable distortion. For a loud rock show you will also need a battery module to run through Line-in http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm (Or look for the Sound Professionals equivalent.) Or at the very least an attenuator, the Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control (like my avatar), which you can find at their stores. Mic-->Headphone Volume Control-->Mic-in. And put the volume knob on the attenuator all the way to its maximum.

You'd be better off getting a Hi-MD unit than getting DAC for playback of your MDs. Whether you use the DAC in the unit or an external one, the compressed sound of MD is not going to compare with full .wav CDs. And your CD-MD-CD experiment is going to compress the music and then make an analog copy of the compressed music--there will be quality loss. Hi-MD records at CD quality in PCM. MD just doesn't. Even if you have optical out from your deck and a fancy DAC, the sound will still be compressed. And actually, Hi-MD is more compatible with other audio gear than MD, because you can upload the files and use them as .wav files on standard playback devices.

It seems like what you want would be like a stage vocal mic, which has to boost the voice while ignoring the rest of the band. It concentrates on voice frequencies (so NOT a flat frequency response but a bump in the midrange) and has a narrow pickup area. Look at the Shure SM58 specs. http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/Wir...SM58-CN_content Similarly, the Sennheiser MD46 is promoted as a "handheld interview" microphone (you might Google that phrase). Both of those are dynamic mics with XLR connectors, not a condenser with a miniplug. You'd need an adapter. You should try a music or pro audio store to see if they have a condenser vocal mic with similar characteristics. Radio stations, etc., must have a lot of use for exactly what you need. https://www.audiolinks.com/tek9/tek9.asp?pg...cific=jnnodqfpe

The MZ-RH910 will be better for what you need. If you are recording loud live gigs--amplified music--you might be able to get away with using a battery box into the line-in of the N510. But as pointed out above, you wouldn't be able to upload those recordings, as you would with the RH910. The MZ-NH600 has a line-in but not a mic-in. So you'd have to get at least battery box and possibly a preamp to boost a signal enough for line-in. Also, be careful. There's also the NH-600D. D is for downloader--there is no input for live recording. Some Ebay sellers like to exploit the confusion between NH-600 and NH600D Another possibility, if that auction doesn't work for you, is the MZ-NH700. Does everything you need, takes a regular AA battery, and it's a little workhorse. The mics you pointed to will be fine--they are apparently Microphone Madness mics imported to England. You could contact Mic Madness directly to see if they're less expensive. http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmmicbinster1.htm An alternative for Europeans is the widely recommended mics by our own Greenmachine, who also makes battery boxes. Ask for the minidisc.org discount. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=14388 If you are on a very low budget you can use an attenuator instead of a battery module into a recorder that has a Mic-in jack (not the line-in). Put the volume knob on Maplins VC-1 all the way UP. Mic-->VC-1-->Mic-in. And welcome to minidisc-land. It's confusing at first, but....it works.

I think the rechargeable is rated at 700 milli-amp-hours. MaH. The Duracell is over 2000, if I remember correctly, maybe even 2700. So three times as long, perhaps nearly four. Don't waste your time with the rechargeable. Use it for playback, but not recording.

The MD player has a Play head and a Record head. It's possible that the Record head is wearing out or worn out, even if the Play head works. Try transferring something to the unit in SP (adjust SonicStage settings in Tools/Options/Transfer/NetMD/Transfer Settings) and see if it will play back in your MD deck. If that disc also comes up blank, you may have just gotten a worn-out unit, and you should communicate with the person who sold it to you.

MIC AGC stands for Auto Gain Control. You might as well leave it at Loud Music in case you accidentally end up recording in Auto. But as long as you're using Manual it won't have any effect. I know it looks tempting to leave on Auto and Loud Music, but I promise you'd regret it. Try recording off your stereo a few times and listen to the results. Getting into Manual Level looks complicated when explained, but it's just a few clicks that turns into a fairly simple routine. I edited one of the guitar riffs from "15 Step" so I can use it as a ringtone. Gets an interesting reaction from RH diehards.

Get the MZ-NH700. MZ-NH900 has some extra but unnecessary features, like speed control, and one really bad design feature: Pause and Stop, which do two very different things, are two sides of the same button. If you are going to do any recording at all with it, particularly stealthy recording, you do NOT want those on the same button. Also: display is harder to read than MZ-NH700. The little gumstick battery holds less charge than the AA in the MZ-NH700 (though you can get an additional battery pod that goes outside the MZ-NH900, but that makes it bulkier). The playback sound quality is supposedly slightly better on MZ-NH900. BUt I don't think it's a significant difference. If you really need things like speed control on playback, then that's the only reason to get the NH900. You can read all about them under the Browser tab at http://www.minidisc.org

You must be using a very old SonicStage. .wav conversion tool has been included within SonicStage for a long time. It's no longer a standalone thing. SonicStage 4.3--you can get it from Sony or via an installer under the Downloads link in this page (upper right)--has .wav converter built in (under Tools) and is made to be Vista compatible. Your older SonicStage may have trouble with Vista.

This is entirely a guess. But since Mono eliminated the problem maybe you were having some kind of phasing phenomenon between the mic elements in the MS907. What pickup pattern was it set on? Also, it could just be the noise from the mic itself if the reading was quiet. Every mic has noise, and Sony mics are not known for being particularly quiet. When you turned it up to hear it, you also turned up the noise from the mic. As I said, only guesses. Maybe someone more familiar with the MS907 has a better explanation.

No. It won't. I have a Cmoy headphone amp powered by two 9v batteries and it doesn't provide enough signal going into Line-in. And I don't want to amplify the signal going into mic-in. Try yours recording from your stereo speakers, but I doubt it. The headphone volume control only costs about $7 and is a lot smaller, and it does work. Just make sure its volume knob is all the way up.

Amplified, you're almost guaranteed to get distortion. Unamplified, maybe not. It's just a matter of how loud it is and how much bass there is. A cheaper but slightly lower quality way to avoid distortion is to use a Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control (my avatar): Mic-->Headphone Volume Control-->Mic-in. Turn the volume control knob on the Headphone Volume Control to its maximum, and control record level on the unit. Use Low Sensitivity anyway. Alternately, Mic-->Battery module-->Line-in. Also, you must use Manual level to record music. Disc in unit, REC/PAUSE (time display blinking), MENU-->REC SET-->REC VOLUME-->Manual (not Automatic), and start with about 20/30. Find a level where the indicator stays a little over halfway up the scale and then leave it alone--you will hear every change you make.

You don't need WinNMD. Hi-MD Renderer, available free in Downloads (above), does the same thing with its MD Recorder function, and has been updated more recently. Both WinNMD and Hi-MD Renderer use SonicStage to control the unit and play back one track at a time. Then the computer records each track as a separate file. It's a realtime recording. Before WinNMD, you would record the whole minidisc into the computer and then have to edit it. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070 If you can live with the realtime re-recording, the N10 will easily do your job. You really don't need something as fancy as the MZ-RH1 to do oral histories--a little flash recorder with built-in mic like the iRiver IFP-7xx or IFP-8xx series or the Iriver T30 will also do that job, with uploadable recordings. You could also wait till June and see how the reviews are for the $200 Zoom H2, which has a built-in mic for very hi-fi recordings and looks promising. http://www.samsontech.com/products/product...cfm?prodID=1916 http://homerecording.about.com/od/newprodu...m_h2_review.htm In Ebay under Advanced Search/Completed Listings Only, you can see what people are paying for the N10 and see if it's worth reselling it. But it's also a sleek little music player if its built-in battery isn't burned out. Here's more info on the N10: http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-N10.html Important: Don't use the SonicStage that came with it (if it did). Use a more recent version. You can get 4.3 from Sony or a 4.0 installer in Downloads. Those are much much much much much better than the horrible buggy 1.5 that came with the N10.

I have no good explanation for this, and can't reallly suggest any precautions, or I would use them myself from now on. The disc had been used two or three times, at most, and formatted after uploading and kept in the plastic sleeve. The recorder had been in my pocket all day with the disc recording, and never opened, so no dust. It wasn't a particularly dusty place anyway, nor was there severe heat/sweat/etc. to worry about. The unit was in my hand, not being shaken. I think it was a defective disc and I just happened to be starting the new group at the defective sector. Actually, though, things got worse. To have a copy of the disc data for future use, I used Windows Explorer to transfer all the data on the disc--except the bad TRACKID file, which would not transfer in repeated tries--to my computer. And then the computer started having severe problems: crashing, not booting, not even starting the hard drive when I hit the On button. It's a Sony VAIO, and if you have a VAIO, you know it has a little VAIO startup tune. On one startup, the first notes of that tune started looping until I unplugged the unit and removed the battery. The computer trouble was possibly a coincidence, though virus and spyware checks showed no problems and still don't, and there were no software installations after uploading the Hi-MD data. The first crash happened after I used iTunes 7.0, so I uninstalled that, but it didn't make any difference. I've gotten the computer running again--booted from a recovery disc, though luckily I did not have to initialize the computer again and lose everything. I deleted the Hi-MD data from the computer and I hope that has fixed the problem. Are those encrypted files totally poisoned? My only other trashed Hi-MD disc was a SonicStage error, while connected, with about 720MB of other stuff on the disc. That was SonicStage acting up, a different kind of event from this.

Just to restate what GM said in a slightly different way, every minidisc unit is "compatible" with Audition because you are simply recording in real time out of the headphone jack. The MZ-N707 would have worked the same as whatever unit you were using at the studio. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070 But technology has advanced, so that now it is possible to directly upload minidisc recordings from Hi-MD units, as computer files rather than realtime analog recordings.

A Mac won't help with the MZ-NE410. Only a few Hi-MD units are Mac compatible--and none of the old NetMD units like the NE410. Datacat, you need to give SonicStage little jobs, not giant ones: One album at a time. Converting separately, as you are doing, is also smart. You also need to be patient at that 99% point--sometimes it hangs there for a long time before finally getting the job done. Disconnecting before it makes that dopey three-note sound means trouble, as you have discovered. SonicStage needs a lot of system resources. (So does iTunes, but no one complains.) If you are running a bunch of other stuff simultaneously--browsers, email programs, anything graphics-intensive--then turn it off while SonicStage is running. Look under Processes in Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and see what's using your CPU resources. SonicStage is not a great program, to say the least. But it shouldn't be giving you this much trouble if your system is working otherwise and you're not overloading it. Versions 3.4 and 4.2 are pretty stable. On your computer, something is getting in its way, and if you can figure out what it is, you should have smoother transfers. Also, just for the heck of it, try substituting a different USB cord, like one from a camera or PDA if you have one. It's a standard USB-to-mini-USB cord. Probably not the problem, but you never know.

These guys in New York City are very helpful and have all kinds of windscreens, poles, etc. They carry a lot more windscreens than they show on the Windscreen page, so call them. http://www.pro-sound.com/products.htm