A440

Then your music has been converted twice: first to mp3, and then again to Hi-LP. It loses something in each conversion. Since your unit also plays unconverted mp3, why not download some and see if you can hear the difference?

You need to isolate exactly what makes SonicStage crash--which kind of file, when it happens, etc. It could be anything from other programs running simultaneously to conflicts among drivers and codecs to bizarre hi-tech voodoo curses. Yes, the player makes mechanical sounds. There's a disc spinning in there and a head accessing parts of it. Is 64kbps equivalent ATRAC equivalent to 128 kpbs mp3? Compare for yourself and see what you think. (Get the Winamp plugin from Downloads and play two differently encoded files through Winamp, or download two files to your unit. Convert both fresh from the same CD--don't convert a 128kbps mp3 to 64kbps, because the double conversion would definitely make it sound worse.) If you're satisfied with Hi-LP, that's all that matters.

You could try just another generic 3V converter--there's nothing special about the Sony ones. However, recording with AC power has been known to produce some buzz for many people. An alkaline battery will last you well beyond the length of a 1GB disc, so why not use it?

For years people have been asking about where to get small affordable mics outside the USA. And now it seems the estimable Greenmachine has started building his binaurals for sale. Since apparently he's too modest to promote himself in his own thread, I'm taking the liberty of doing so here. This is fantastic news for people who don't want to pay huge shipping fees from the USA. Here's his site: http://www.geocities.com/greenmachine_audio/ I don't speak German, but Bestellen is the price list. Go GM!

Right about now would be a really good time to consult the manual that came with your unit. Or at least take a look at the FAQ. http://www.minidisc.org/hi-md_faq.html Hi-MD units record in PCM (CD-quality), Hi-SP (256 kbps) and Hi-LP (64 kpbs). Scroll down that FAQ to see the recording time in each format. Any compression affects sound quality. Whether you'll hear the difference depends on the headphones, your ears, your environment and your tastes. So you'll have to do your own test. Simple Burner is also on your SonicStage CD. It's a program that lets you put a CD in your computer and copy it directly to minidisc on your unit, without adding any files to your computer. Install it and copy CD tracks at various bitrates, and see what you think.

If I understand you correctly, you can't play mp3 files in other players, like Windows Media Player or Winamp either. And since SonicStage will play back .oma files but not .mp3 then your mp3 codec may be damaged. I have the LAME mp3 codec on my computer but frankly I've forgotten how I installed it. You could try this link, or wait a bit and see if one of the fulltime computer experts on this site can give you some advice. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Au...ACM-Codec.shtml

PC link is an optical connection to the computer for realtime recording. It's digital but it still does not allow you to download music quickly from the computer. You can also just connect a cable from your computer's headphone jack to the MD unit's line-in and get an analog recording.

Codecs are listed in Settings/Control Panel/Sounds and Audio Devices/Hardare/Audio Codecs under the Properties tab. Do you have any non-mp3 files, anything uploaded from a Hi-MD that would be an .oma file? Have you tried playing back one of them? Has anything else major changed in your computer since you installed 3.2? A Windows Media Player update, installing other audio playback software, etc.? Anything that might affect either the soundcard or the audio codecs? Or anything that runs busily in the background--like Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Beta, Quicktime, printer files, etc.? SonicStage has always hogged computer power--maybe 3.2 was just under the limit and 3.4 is greedier. One guess is that something has messed up your mp3 codec. But if .oma playback is also a problem, it may also be your soundcard driver. I hope someone else can advise you on how to replace a codec if necessary. But it couldn't hurt to go to the Dell website and download and reinstall the soundcard driver for starters.

The latest version is 3.4 . Upgrade as soon as you can. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=14137

Your user controls are under Tools/Options, including the location of where to save things. Look at some of the Advanced options tucked away, too. Before MD units played mp3 directly, SonicStage was definitely making its own copies of music that was imported, because it had to convert to ATRAC. I'm not sure if it is making a second copy of the mp3, but my guess is that yes, it is. Why don't you search with Windows Explorer and see if there are two copies of the mp3 in different places ? [Edit: Guessed wrong. See below. It just points to where the mp3 is or was when you added it to My Library.] When you delete something from SonicStage be sure to UN-check "Delete this music file from the computer" or it will delete your source file too.

That rules out a lot of obvious causes. One other question: Does it happen with just one specific track or with all mp3?

I've just uploaded an hour of PCM with many tracks joined on the disc with no mishaps, including one that must have had 10 tracks joined and ran 26 minutes. So with 3.4, at least for me, that bug is gone. There's still an oddity: occasionally a track mark won't be accessible on the unit. You can go to the one before or after, but not that one. So when I got the tracks uploaded, I had to Combine that one. But that was the long track, so it was 29 minutes total--longer than Dex's 15-minute limit. Doing it on the unit (or with SS uploads and Combine) lets you check just before you join tracks. But the foobar method might be less time-consuming in the end.

MDLP unit with optical out: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...mMakeTrack=true Despite what it says about speedy digital dubbing, it's obviously realtime, but it is optical.

More information might help to address the problem. What format is the track? Does it have a title longer than 256 characters? Does it play back correctly through other players? Did it work in previous versions of SonicStage? Do you get any error messages? What soundcard is in your computer?

I have first-gen units and I have just successfully uploaded tracks joined on the unit--including one that used to be a dozen little tracks. No hassles at all, and one of the uploaded tracks was 27 minutes long in PCM. I am thrilled that this has been fixed--it must have been a software bug, not a first-gen hardware bug. I never liked combining in SonicStage because the combined tracks tended to go out of order. Thanks, Top Cat, for finding it out. But Shirley, it never hurts to be absolutely sure. You should make a realtime copy. You can make an analog copy with Audacity, which is free in Downloads--headphone out of the unit to line-in on the computer. Or you can make a digital copy with Total Recorder, a $12 program that records anything going through your soundcard--also useful if you want to record anything streaming on the internet. For this, you connect via USB and have SonicStage play back the recording from the disc itself, and Total Recorder captures it. Obviously don't use your computer with any other program that makes sounds, or you'll record them too. http://www.totalrecorder.com/

Let's hope this is laughed out of Congress. In the Grokster case the RIAA told the Supreme Court that copying music you'd already bought was fine. Now they're saying exactly the opposite. Meanwhile, there are taxes on blank media from the last time they insisted that "home taping is killing music." They have made every effort to specify that buying the CD isn't buying the music but buying a license to hear the music. I think they'd have a very hard time arguing now that you need a new license to hear music you've already paid to license. But I am grateful that the EFF is so alert, because this is the kind of language that lobbyists slip into bills that get passed without debate.

Glad you got the clips. I usually wear a dark shirt and clip them to the shirt collar, pointing left and right. Higher up would be better--some people wear a hat and clip them to the hat with the wires running behind your ears, some people clip them to their eyeglasses. I do the collar because at a concert I don't move my torso as much as my head--even omnidirectional mics will change the stereo image if you swing them around--and, more important to me, for stealth. Look at greenmachine's DIY mic thread (pinned in Live Recording) to see how he attaches them to a pair of glasses.

FIRST make sure you have SonicStage 3.4 (or at least 3.3) installed. That way you can upload again if anything goes wrong. Top Cat says that joined tracks now upload easily since 3.3, but frankly I haven't tried it. In older versions of SonicStage, tracks that had been combined on the unit (that is, you had Track 1 and Track 2 and removed the track mark between them so they were both Track 1) would not upload and could mess up the disc. Many of us--well, at least mrsoul and me--were severely traumatized by this bug. If that has been fixed since 3.3, that's great news. But for safety's sake, I agree with mrsoul and suggest that you upload the whole recording to your computer. Then under Edit in SonicStage you can highlight a bunch of adjacent tracks and Combine them. Make sure you highlight them in the order you want to combine them--that is, from first to last, not from the bottom up.

Winamp plugin is here. http://forums.minidisc.org/downloads/details.php?file=65

Yes, you can always record to your computer in real time, as this FAQ explains. http://forums.minidisc.org/index.php?showtopic=7070 But people see the USB connections on the newer minidiscs and expect quick transfer of the whole recording as a file, as you can do with digital voice recorders and some mp3 recorders. That's not possible on a NetMD, (relatively) easy from Hi-MD to PC and far more limited on a Mac.

Won't fit. Minidisc is square, tin is rectangular, there's nearly an inch of MD unit (which is only the size of the disc) beyond the edge of the Altoids tin.

I squeeze my SoundPro BMC-2 into these. But it's a very tight fit and they have a soft housing. Greenmachine's mics might be just a tiny bit too big in diameter. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...oughType=search Take a look at these, too: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller...t.y=8&Submit=Go You can wire a mic to the one on the bottom, with the wire running between the body of the clip and its little holder.

MP3 converts now to Hi-MD. Just import into SonicStage. Ogg? Until non-geeks embrace it, don't hold your breath. But you can always use dbpoweramp to convert it to .wav and send to MD.

It depends on what you want to do. Do you think you'll ever want to record from a line output--a stereo, a TV, a DVD player, etc? Then get the NH600. And make sure from your seller that it does indeed have a line-in jack. Some people like to exploit the confusion between the NH600D (no line-in, just USB for downloading from PC) and the NH600.

If you got BMC-2, they don't go in your ears. You clip them to a shirt collar, hat, glasses, etc. I hope you got them with clips--add clips to your order if you didn't. Dex has the TFB-2, which use the same itty-bitty mics mounted on a holder that hangs over your ear like some sports headphones. http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-TFB-2 He likes them because it sounds nearly exactly like what he hears. I prefer the BMC-2 because the funnel shape of the outer ear isn't filtering any sound out, and because it's easier to just clip them anywhere. Either way, we're both happy with the sound we get. Just separate the mics about the width of your ears, make sure your MD isn't overloading (with the attenuator, usually turned all the way UP because it still attenuates) and you'll get good results.