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A440

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  1. I just looked at Ebay UK. And you know what? If I were you I'd take a chance on one of the fake DS70P microphones. They may turn out to be all he needs. Don't plug it directly into the MD unit. Photographers (even Sony ones!) think it looks really cute, but the MD has a motor to spin the disc that makes the unit vibrate. Plugged directly into the MD unit, the DS70P makes beautiful hi-fi recordings of the motor noise. The real Sonys, as noted above, do come with a lead, and you could always get a lead at any electronics store--miniplug to minijack--if the cheap ones don't include it. The mic you are looking at in the link is mono and will only send sound to the left channel. You could buy a mono-to-stereo adapter for a pound or two that would send the same signal to both channels. But you would be better off with a stereo mic--it makes a world of difference in how enjoyable it is to listen to the recordings. Mono puts it in the middle of your head. Stereo puts it all around you. Look for the stereo version of that tabletop mic, the ECM-MS907--maybe not at Amazon but at Ebay. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-ECMMS907-CE7-...1753&sr=1-1 And isn't that interesting, Amazon UK sells it with the MZ-RH1 as a package. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Hi-MD-with-Se..._bxgy_ce_text_b I think something like that mic--to leave it set up on a table pointed toward the stage--is probably what you want ideally. Do look at the Affordable Mics thread under Live Recording and see if you can contact Greenmachine. If he is still making those mics, it's a very good price. But those are two small mics on a lead--they need to be clipped to something. They are also omnidirectional, which may be very realistic--I love omnis--but may also not be appropriate if the audience is noisy and you're trying to capture the stage performance. Get one of those DS70Ps and tell us how good (or bad) it is!
  2. Can't help you on that front. I use a pair because it provides the depth of a stereo recording. Your brain processes the very slightly different signals received from two receptors six inches apart--those would be your ears--and infers all kinds of things about depth and distance. It's pretty amazing if you think about it. The mic input on a minidisc (unlike the one on many computers) is stereo, and if you use a mono mic with it--the plug will have one circle around it, instead of two like your headphone plug--you'll only get sound on the left channel. Even single-point mics, like the MS907, often have two elements, slightly separated to increase stereo depth. To plunge into the microphone jungle further...you'll run across two types of microphones: cardioid, which are directional, and binaural or omni, which receive sound from all around you ike your ears. Do you want to maximize sound from the stage and make the audience response sound very distant? Cardioids. Do you want the recording to simulate what a spectator would hear? Binaurals. There are also different connectors, and you'll want a mic with a stereo miniplug (again, like your headphones), because otherwise you will need an adaptor. Here's another thought. Is all of the sound your son wants to record going through a mixer into a PA system? Because the Hi-MD recorder (and virtually every other recorder) has not only the (red) mic jack but a (white) line-in jack that accepts an amplified signal (again, stereo miniplug) It may need an adaptor, but may not--there may be a headphone output of the PA system signal. In other words, you could send the signal from the PA mixer into the minidisc and get a clear recording of what's happening onstage--all you'd need would be a cord. What you won't get is applause (except what the stage mics pick up) or the sound of the performance in the hall. Grateful Dead fanatics make what they call "matrix tapes" of live shows, mixing the (clean, sterile) sound of the PA mix with the (noisy, lively, reverberating) sound of an audience recording. Under Gallery there are a lot of people's MD recordings, including mine, and some information on the microphones used to make them. You'll find different, and pricier, mics in the EU, but if you look at the Live Recording forum here you can find Greenmachine's handmade omnis which are similar to what i use for audience recordings. Search the page for "Affordable."
  3. Wow, a resurrected thread from 2005! Realplayer never allowed transfers from minidisc to PC. Look at the original post. It was always one-way the other way, PC to minidisc, just like SonicStage in the bad old NetMD days. The only transfer of files in SP, LP2 or LP4 to PC is from the MZ-RH1. Case closed.
  4. While your MD is not ideal for interviews, it's also not so bad. Many radio journalists were using minidiscs like yours. The great thing about MD and interviews is that little track mark button. It makes silent, gapless marks. Someone says something good in the interview? Hit the track button and you can hop to the spot, go back a little bit, and find your perfect soundbite. Or say you're playing back the interview and come to a good section? Track marks work there too. So if you've already put a track mark in after the perfect quote, you can put another one at the beginning of the quote during playback. You can also erase the marks if you don't like where you put them. And when you play back the MD, the track mark doesn't interrupt anything. Getting a deck with optical out is probably more trouble and expense than it's worth for radio-broadcast quality. What's more crucial is the recording input to your computer. Many laptops have only a microphone jack, not the microphone and line-in jacks of larger computers. And many microphone jacks are, to use the technical term, horrible. To record into your computer, get Audacity which free and easy to learn. Test your mic jack. Get a male-to-male connector cord that has two ends that look like your headphone jack (miniplug, two circles.) One goes in your headphone jack, the other in your mic jack. Fire up Audacity, set the microphone as the input with the drop-down menu in Audacity. (You may need to diddle with your computer's soundcard--right-click on the little speaker icon on the bottom right, pull up the microphone volume.) Hit that big red Record button in Audacity. Play something from a minidisc--you'll see the waveform bouncing if it's coming through-- and see how the recording sounds afterward. If it's staticky and awful, like my mic jack, you can get a USB gizmo called the Griffin iMic which makes a stereo mic input via USB. I got mine for $12 on Ebay, and even though it looks like an Apple accessory, it works fine with Windows. That will give you a clean input. You record the interviews with Audacity, edit them as you please and....you're on the air!
  5. The important thing is to ask your son what he is using the unit for. Is he playing back minidiscs that are already recorded? At this point the only reason to buy a minidisc unit is because you are already tied to the format. If he does need to use minidisc because the other company members are also using it, then Hungerdunger's advice is spot on with a few additions. There are basically two Hi-MD units worth considering: the MZ-RH1 and the MZ-NH700. Both have the same recording capabilities, and both will upload their own recordings to a computer. The expensive difference is that the MZ-RH1 wlll also upload recordings that were made on the older, now obsolete plain MD recorders. So for people like us diehards here, who could never do direct uploads from the old discs and have lots of recordings lying around, the MZ-RH1 is a magnificent thing. But if your son does not specifically need to upload recordings made on old MD recorders, you can save £50 or so, assuming you can find the MZ-NH700--they do still pop up. One good thing about the MZ-NH700 is that it takes a regular AA battery, so you can always find a spare. The MZ-RH1 stays slim by using its own rechargeable battery, so you would have to buy a spare and keep it charged so you'd have it when doing lengthy recordings. If you looked at the equipment browser link in an earlier post, you also saw other Hi-MD models. The whole list of Hi-MDs is here but you can ignore most of them. Conceivably, if you found it for a steal and trusted the seller, the MZ-RH910 will also do the job, but the MZ-NH700 is cheaper (usually) and better. Now into the jungle: microphones. What is he recording? Speech? Live theater (amplified?) (unamplified?)? Music (amplified?) (unamplified?) There are microphones and setups made for many sound sources. For instance, I generally record live amplified concerts from the audience. I have a pair of tiny stereo mics that I can clip to a shirt and a battery module that prevents loud sounds from creating distorted recordings. It's not ultra high fidelity, but it's excellent for my needs. But if your son is making recordings under different circumstances--if, for instance, he can set up a stereo mic (like the MS907 recommended above) or a pair of mics that won't be disturbed--it would be good to know what those circumstances are. Finally, a curve ball: If his primary task is making new recordings, and he is not tied to minidiscs, there are some other gadgets that will do live stereo recordings and get them into a computer much more easily (and sensibly) than minidisc, also in the $200-$300 range. That's why minidisc is fading away. The more specific he can be about what he needs his new toy to do, the better you and we can help.
  6. Two places in New York City that serve the real professionals are: http://www.bhphoto.com and http://www.pro-sound.com/ Get in touch with them and see what they recommend.
  7. Your biggest problem is going to be stealth, and maybe handling noise. Just get it up in the open air if you can, and point it at where the best sound is, which is probably at the speaker rather than the stage. Try to keep it still, or improvise something to hold it. Use Manual levels--set them before the show, in the men's room if you have to, and put it on Hold, then use the remote to un-Hold. Since Bon Iver doesn't have a lot of bass, you should be fine.
  8. One more thing to note. There is an NH600, with a line input for live recording, and an NH600D, which has NO realtime input--it's just a portable player for downloading songs. If you do see the NH600, make sure someone's not trying to sell you the NH600D instead. If you have a lot of R700 recordings you owe it to yourself to get the MZ-RH1 while you can still find it. I love my NH700 for new recordings because it runs a long time on one AA battery, but it doesn't upload old MD recordings.
  9. Here's 4.3. http://sonicstage.connect.com/SS-US.zip Here's 4.2 http://rapidshare.com/files/40270494/SOASS...204-UN.exe.html Just tried both links and they still work. More here: http://forums.minidisc.org/lofiversion/index.php/t18671.html Grab them now, you never know....
  10. You should run the File Conversion Tool on your entire Library to remove the DRM from everything in there. Leaving any DRM restrictions on anything--not just SonicStage, but especially SonicStage--is asking for trouble. Every time I upload a live recording, I run File Conversion immediately afterward. Then I know I'll have portable, playable files.
  11. I don't use MD for portable listening--I use an mp3 player (Sansa Fuze, which now also plays FLAC). I do use it for portable recording, and my RH1 and extra, not-yet-used NH700 will last me for long years to come. But thanks to SonicStage, this will mean maintaining at least one computer with XP or Vista--you don't really think Sony is going to port SonicStage to the next Micro$oft Windows, do you? And when someone makes the equivalent of Hi-MD with MicroSDHC and no idiotic encryption, I won't be looking back. Sony's hardware engineers did an amazing thing, and Sony's software obstacles killed it. Features I want: .wav recording Small. Logical control buttons, few menus. Long battery life and user-replaceable battery. Manual level controls (along with auto). Quiet mic input preamp. On-unit editing (including track marks while recording). Remote with level control for stealthy recording. MicroSDHC (now at 16GB and probably doubling soon). And for the musicians I know, overdubbing capability. All those features already exist. They're just not in one handy package yet. Hint to manufacturers--lose the built-in stereo mics.
  12. A440

    Which Hi-MD

    Check the model carefully. Is it the NH600, with a line input (white jack) or the NH600D, with only a USB connection? The NH600 will record--you'd just need a battery module (under $100) for music or a preamp (under $200) for speech. So at that price it would do both jobs for you.
  13. Great quality for your professional CD release, no. Very good quality, far better than you'd expect from a bootleg, yes. Rehearsal and live sound are not studio recordings, so cheap and stealthy is good enough for me. In Europe/EU, see if Greenmachine is still offering his goodies here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=14388 If you look in the Gallery you can hear recordings made with various setups. My Album there has all the technical info I could remember. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?autoc...q=sc&cat=10 My trusty combo is still: SoundProfessional BMC-2 http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-BMC-2 and Microphone Madness Mini-Classic battery module http://www.microphonemadness.com/products/mmcbmminminc.htm Those are both US, but they probably ship to the U.K.--though I don't know what that does to the prices. The Sound Professionals pen mic posted by Baturjan is mono. Stereo mics will really open up the music, and if you're trying to learn from rehearsal recordings, will help you pick out parts much better. I had Core-Sound lower-priced cardioids for a while, and thought they sounded tinny and bad. Their super-expensive mics are probably a different story. If Greenmachine is still making his, those will probably make you very happy. Also check your local Ebay--there are other people making mics in their spare time. Use common sense, check specs, and see if you can listen to sample recordings.
  14. I wouldn't use my precious RH1 for portable audio--not when you can get a small flash mp3 player. like a Sansa Fuze, for under $100 that holds more, indexes easier and doesn't involve SonicStage. Of course, you'd have to convert your ATRAC files to mp3. To stay within the MD realm, remember that old MDs won't play the Hi-MD formats you'd be recording on the RH1. So your only choice for a cheap portable is the NH600 (includes line-in recording) or NH600D (no realtime recording), both pretty chunky.
  15. I don't think so. Hi-MD Renderer needs SonicStage and its codecs to work. If I understand right, Renderer uses the ATRAC codec from SonicStage to play back--to render--the file at vastly accelerated speed and record it into mp3 or other more useful format. Decoding it, even if he knew how, would violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, while rendering it is playing it back--and playing it back is still not illegal.
  16. I don't want another Hi-MD. I want the same interface--track marking, recording level on a remote--and a quiet mic preamp on a small flash unit that bypasses SonicStage, has 24/96, handles MicroSDHC (16 GB!!!!) and does drag-and-drop. Encryption is SO over.
  17. SonicStage isn't that hard, but it's not drag-and-drop, and there's always a possibility that things will go wrong. Drag-and-drop is just better. Storage should not be a problem. Doesn't your computer have a CD or DVD burner? Storage doesn't get much cheaper than a 20-cent CD or a 50-cent DVD. You can also buy a 250GB hard drive for about $100 (Western Electric Passport, for instance), or even a 320GB drive for a little more, though for ultimate reliability I think you'd be better off burning copies onto discs. Don't try to save money by getting cheap off-brand or store-brand discs. Get Sony or TDK or a brand name you recognize. No-name discs can flake off and become useless, as I discovered with a few very precious recordings. Wait until your local Staples is selling a good brand ultra-cheap, and stock up. Just label them when you burn them, so you can find stuff later.
  18. Look, I love my MD for concert recording, but I would not recommend it to a newbie at this late date--especially since jakk13 made it clear he needs to distribute copies with professional sound. Can't do that conveniently with old-school MDs. So anything but Hi-MD is out. And yes, the RH1 (or a used NH700) would indeed be a possibility, but please, old hands, remember the learning curve on Sonic Stage. Also remember that it's going to be harder to get blank minidiscs and that SonicStage is likely to grow increasingly incompatible with upcoming (per)versions of Windows. Get a flash recorder. The Edirol R09 and Zoom H2 have good and bad points but are widely used, and there may be some newer ones that offer improvements. Flash units will hold a lot more music (on the same kind of flash cards used by cell phones and digital cameras, easy to find everywhere) and make it easier to transfer. Here's a bunch of them: http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/recor...field-recorders The rule of thumb is about 90 minutes of CD-quality recording (.wav format) per 1GB of memory, or 8 hours of very good (Hi-SP or 256kbps mp3) recording per 1GB. jakk13, are you planning to do overdubs? Because most of these recorders are made only for live recording to two tracks. One more possibility, by the way--make your computer your multitrack recorder. Download Audacity (which is free) and if your computer doesn't already have a white line-in jack, get a Griffin iMic (which is not a microphone but a USB connector for Line-In and Mic-in). As long as you've got a good mic, your computer can be your recording studio. Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ iMic: http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/imic Note that Griffin is now selling iMic 2, white with one flat side, but the round gray iMic 1 is also fine and you can often find it for under $20 on eBay. It's the 21st century!!
  19. A440

    MDLP

    There is no program to do a direct transfer. Hi-MD Renderer will help record each track (in realtime) as a separate track.
  20. Only a guess, but it sounds like a bad connection somewhere, especially since it came back when you moved it. You need to test every connecton--lead to mic, mics to plug, plug to battery box, battery box to line-in--and try to isolate it. And then, if (like me), you're not good with small electronics repairs, you're going to have to find someone to fix the connection. MIC-IN has an amplifier behind it and you'll get distortion for anything much louder than an unamplified speaking voice. MIC-IN also provides current out to the mic, which is what the battery box does when you go into line-in. Nothing should get damaged if you plug the battery box into Mic-in, but it's not going to help anything. One other thought, since you're only getting the left channel. The left channel is what comes through a mono plug (one circle around the plug, not two), so possibly your plug is getting pulled halfway out.
  21. What solid state recorder have you tried that you find more reliable? I've tried the Edirol R09 and am not impressed with the mic jack. Also, for concert recording, I'm really fond of having a remote. What units are people moving on to for live (concert bootleg) recording, post-MD? Personally, I'll be with MD for a while: still have to wear out my banged-around NH700, my waiting-in-the-wings NH700 and my RH1. I have the feeling the connection on the remote--the wires at the weak junction right next to the RM-MZ40ELK--is going to go before I wear out the MD units themselves. I have one remote in reserve too, thanks to eBay. SonicStage is still a profound bummer. I wish there were a 2GB disc that would record a full concert in PCM. But stealthy live (via remote) track marking and that nice quiet mic input are still impressive.
  22. I suspect non-music meant speech or ambient sound.
  23. With any good mic, or even a mediocre mic, recording into the mic jack in those situations should give you very good results with no additional equipment. You should not be having level problems. It must be a very low-sensitivity mic. Get this for $9 and put it on a stereo extension cord (minijack to miniplug, like a headphone extension cord) to keep it away from motor noise from your unit, and you'll be fine. http://www.giant-squid-audio-lab.com/gs/gs-minigold1.htm One thing you might experiment with, using the mic you already have, is using Manual level instead of Auto level. During gaps between speech, the auto level will boost the background noise because it thinks the signal you want got quiet. Manual won't boost the background noise. Try going into Rec Set/Record Volume/Manual and try some test recordings and see if that helps before you get a new mic.
  24. It depends on your unit, but it sounds like you have an old MD unit, before Hi-MD. If your files are in the formats SP, LP2 or LP4 then you could upload them via USB connection and SonicStage with the MZ-RH1 or MZ-M200, the only unit that will upload those files. No other hardware or software will do that. Or you can do a realtime recording into your computer as explained here: http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070
  25. The mic jack already delivers 1 to 1.5 volts. Isn't that the ouput of the AA?
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