A440

OK, I was missing the obvious. The phasing-in and out is actually Auto Gain Control trying to cope with the noise and failing miserably. You absolutely have to use Manual Volume or you're going to get that awful effect. But I'm not sure guitarfxr has the right method for the N10. I had the N707, and the way to do it on that unit was: Start recording and press Pause (or press Record and Pause simultaneously) so the time display blinks. Hold down Menu until you get Edit, Display, etc., and then go to REC SET, two notches above Edit. ENTER, click down to RECVolume, and change from Auto(AGC) to Manual. Then you can set a volume with the >> and <<. I usually use 20/30, but if it's ultraloud or your mics are sensitive, then try 15/30. You have to do this each time you start recording (or after you press STOP). The unit will not hold the setting. Dumb but true. But it sounds more difficult than it is. It's an easy routine to get used to. Usually as I arrive at the venue, I do all this outside, leave it on Pause and then un-Pause with my remote to start recording. Use the mic--preamp--Line-in. Turn off the Low Frequency Filter--you don't need it with Line-in. If the recording is too bass-heavy you can change the EQ when you play it back. Experiment at home with loud music--or at a construction site, what a great idea!--and see if you want to use that -20dB. Try to get a level that's above midway but not peaking at the top, and remember what that setting was so you can use it in Manual Volume. If the N10 is like the N707, it will remember any setting above 13/30 once you go through the steps to get into Manual Volume. (Anything below 13/30 will be remembered as 13/30.) But until the RH1 Sony refused to let you just leave the unit in Manual Volume. I suspect that you need the -20dB, but if you can get away without it your recording won't be as quiet.

This is, unfortunately, one of the stupider "features" Sony built into minidisc. As long as you record through Line-in you're going to get automatic track marks after a few seconds of silence. You can try using Manual and crank up the volume a little higher, in hopes that ambient noise will prevent the unit detecting silence, but then you'll get more noise.....

MSRP is Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price. That's "suggested," not mandatory. If a seller feels there's more profit or more fairness in a lower price, that's the seller's choice. Fixed retail prices--it's very difficult to find a Swatch watch or Bose headphones or an iPod at any serious discount--often strike me as a way to gouge consumers.

I think I'm having trouble playing back the sample, as if there's a conversion problem to mp3. It's jerky and phasing in and out. I hope that's not what the recording on the disc sounds like. How did you make this mp3 from the N10? Did you record out of the headphone jack in realtime? Or did you upload from a MZ-RH1?

Many websites send cookies to your browser to tell them what parts of the website you've already seen, what unit you're looking for information on, etc. So you don't have to type in "MZ-RH1" again on every page, for instance. They're tracking your use of the website, nothing more. If you use the Firefox browser, you can set it (under Tools/Options/Privacy/Cookies) to Keep Cookies "Until I Close Firefox," and it will throw away all the cookies every time you close the browser. That way you don't have to worry about anything lingering in your computer. It's harder to dump cookies from Internet Explorer, and Internet Explorer keeps revealing new vulnerabilities because every hacker in the world is attacking it, so switch to Firefox if you haven't already. http://www.getfirefox.com My guess is that your spyware program is trying to scare you for no reason. Try Ad-Aware. http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10045910.html

The extension cable shouldn't be adding noise, unless conceivably you have something generating huge amounts of radio frequencies in the area: powerlines, radio transmitters, etc. Probably it's just something wrong with the cable, though. Try a different cheap one, and if that still gets the buzz, look for a shielded extension cable.

SonicStage (the Windows software) is the more mature program and has more capabilities--including one you probably don't need, uploading material in older minidisc formats. As long as you have XP available on your Imac, you should just try both the Mac and PC software and see which you prefer. You can put any data on the disc that it will hold, just like a hard drive. Bits are bits. The problem for minidiscs as archive is not the disc. It's that you need the unit to read them. The units will eventually wear out, and if Sony has given up on the format and stops manufacturing new MD units, eventually you will have discs full of data you can't access.

The NH1 has a weird proprietary cable that's hard to replace. Luckily Sony came to its senses with the RH1 and used the standard USB-miniUSB cable that comes with most cameras, PDAs, etc.

Google turns up positive ratings here: http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Keenzo_Electronics

You were misled by a sneaky little preposition: TO, not from. That is, you can use the RH1 as a portable music player. And the next sentence specifies Hi-MD formats only. Doesn't Sony have just excellent lawyer/copywriters? 1) I wouldn't count on SonicStage for a Mac in this lifetime. But like the rest of this board, I have no inside information. 2) You can upload the legacy MDs and burn them without a problem. Once they are converted to .wav (or .mp3 or any of the other formats in Hi-MD Renderer) they are completely free of DRM. You might have to buy your girlfriend a bigger hard drive, though: .wav files are about 4x as large as SP files. You can also (using the File Conversion Tool in SonicStage) remove DRM from the uploaded ATRAC (.oma) files--you uncheck a check box for DRM--so they are portable and will play in any SonicStage. I don't have a Mac, but don't see why, once the DRM is removed, they wouldn't also play in the Mac playback software for ATRAC.

I take back my earlier recommendation of Minidisc Canada. I'm pretty sure I bought something from there a while back with no problems, but people have been having trouble with it recently. Avoid it until we know they're still reputable.

I'd say that he's worth a try if you don't need the mics immediately. I have some small Church Audio binaurals that he used to make but doesn't any more. They are quite sturdily constructed and they sound good--a little richer in the low register than my Sound Professional BMC-2. But I had a hard time finding clips for them--he hadn't considered that at all--and they're bulkier, so I don't use them as much. At one point, after an exchange here, he offered to add clips to them, so clearly he's thinking about that now. Mail order from Canada takes time, and they goofed up the zip code when they sent my mics, which made them take even longer. I have the feeling he is a very good electrical engineer and very serious about his products in a technical sense, but not so entrepreneurial--which is fine with me. He's a member here too--under Church Audio or something similar--so you could also try PM-ing him.

Great, then just try cranking up your levels. For a near-deafening show try around 14-15 and look at the level meter. It's a kind of game: you want to get the levels high but not peaked, just one or two notches down from the top. The more signal you get, the less noise--until you go over the top and get distortion. You want to see the indicators bouncing up to near the top. Don't even bother opening the battery module if you kept the levels that low. Do a test with your stereo cranked up and your mic right next to the woofer. Every six decibels is double or (-6) half the volume. So -12 is pretty low. The little battery module takes three lithium batteries, about the size of a US quarter only thinner. At Radio Shack, they are the 23-160, but it says they also replace the BR2016, DL2016 and ECR2106. I have also seen them at drugstores with all the other little button batteries. They're expensive--$4-$6 each, and the price seems to have been jacked up recently. So don't plug in the mic until the last minute, and make sure it's unplugged. I carry extras if I'm going to something like a rock festival, which is the only place I've had the little batteries die. I also carry an attenuator--a $7 Radio Shack Headphone Volume Control--in case the batteries die during a show; then I would go mic-attenuator-Mic-in. But I've never had to use it. The little batteries last a long time. To turn off the battery module, just unplug the mic. To turn off the RH1, just hit the STOP button, with the square on it. It will show its final state for a while, but after about 10 seconds it goes dark. Then put the Hold switch on to make sure it doesn't get turned on again.

The only difference between the MZ-RH1 and the MZ-M200 is that the M-200 is packaged with a Sony DS70P microphone. If you already have a better microphone, just go for the RH-1. And just to re-emphasize, only the MZ-RH1 will upload old MD recordings. If you don't care about doing that and only want to upload the new recordings that you make, you can save a little money by looking for the MZ-NH700.

Well, as you know, that's exactly my setup, and I've recorded some mighty loud stuff with it at decent volume with no problems. What are you using as your Manual Level? (You should be able to check just by turning it on and looking at REC SET, since it holds the setting.) I generally stay around 20/30 and very rarely go below 15 or 16, even at ultraloud shows. Is it possible you have that at 12 or something? Also, when the battery box batteries get low, it fades out: you get low volume and murky sound out of it. Is it possible you accidentally left the mic plugged into it for a long time, which would drain it? Last, open up the battery module with a little screwdriver and make sure that the spring bracket thingy that holds the batteries in hasn't loosened up, so you're sure the batteries are making full contact.

Welcome to MDCF anyway, and enjoy your (presumably) forthcoming MZ-RH1.

The File Conversion Tool will remove DRM from your own uploaded recordings, as explained here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=16088 That gives you .oma files that will play on any SonicStage. But I don't know if it will take the DRM off ripped CD tracks.

You're recording in Hi-SP, which is 256 kbps. I suggest using the option to upload "As Is." That will mean the recordings on your computer, played back through SonicStage, are the same quality as the ones on the disc. If you force them to 64 kbps they will be lower fidelity. The more kbps--kilobytes per second--the more digital information the file has to recreate the sound. At 64 kbps, there is a definite decrease in fidelity. When you convert those uploaded recordings to .wav, they will preserve all the quality they had, because .wav is lossless: It keeps all the information that was there. The .wav files are 1411 kbps, which means they will be considerably bigger, but if you burn them onto a CD, they will play in a CD player.

They are lunatic control freaks. Their idea of copyright seems to be that no one gets to hear the music. Fools.

What microphone are you using, and what battery box? It is possible that the mic itself can't handle superloud volume, but the battery box should help prevent that. It really depends on the mic. If the battery in the battery box is low, you'll also get no volume. Try a replacement battery. You shouldn't have to change the battery for every gig--it should last hundreds of hours--but maybe it's low. Most battery boxes put out power as long as a mic is plugged into the mic jack. Did you possibly store it with the mic plugged into it? It's also possible that -12 is too low. Ideally the music should peak just below the top of the display. So try to peak the music between the middle and the end of the scale. Is the feedback and distortion different from what you heard in the room? The microphone can only pick up what the actual sound is--it can't eliminate talking, feedback from the amps, etc.

The B10 is four years old and was one of the last minidisc recorders not to have a PC connection. That's why Sony told you it was impossible. http://www.minidisc.org/part_Sony_MZ-B10.html Recording out of units before Hi-MD is also explained in this pinned FAQ, similar to Guitarfxr's advice: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070

It depends on what happens to the recordings you have altered. If it's just for your own amusement, they have no right, legal or otherwise, to impede your pursuit of happiness.Suppose you have a quirky stereo or weird room acoustics--you don't have the right to EQ? Phooey on that. If you were to be sharing the recordings, perhaps the musicians are worried about being misrepresented by a highly tweaked version. But if post-processing improves the sound--and with some of the live recordings I've heard, there's no way to go but up--then as far as I'm concerned, they've got no beef. You could always say--re-EQ'ed by Boojum to improve weak bass, or whatever. I can understand filmmakers not wanting their movies to be edited without their consent. Films work as a whole. But musicians ought to understand that we're living in the era of the remix, the sample and the tweak, when no version is final--not even a Beatles studio album. Artists can be control freaks, but that doesn't mean they should always have control. They might learn a little something from what other people do with their work.

The P-Mode/Repeat button on the RM-MC40ELK does the same thing as the Track button on the unit while recording. It adds a gapless track mark when you press it, along with a minuscule amount of static that will be buried by applause.

You might have better luck at http://www.atraclife.com/forums/

If you have a lot of old MD recordings, get the MZ-RH1. It's the only choice for uploading older material. With Hi-MD, I generally use Hi-LP for speech, Hi-SP for music and PCM if I think it's going to be amazing music. The only reason to record in the older formats, which the RH1 can do, would be to play them back on your older unit. Upload time will depend on your computer speed and how fast it can crunch the data. Still, it will always be some fraction of realtime.